Putin signs law to mobilize Russian citizens with criminal records

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law to mobilize citizens with criminal records of murder, robbery, drug trafficking, and other serious crimes under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for military service, CNN reported on Saturday.

However, the criminals exempted from compulsory service are those who committed sex crimes against minors, were involved in the assassination of a government official, terrorism, or extremist activity.

Putin said Friday that the Kremlin had already mobilized an additional 18,000 soldiers in its war in Ukraine and earlier this week, the Russian Ministry of Defence suspended all of its partial mobilization activities.

Putin's partial mobilization order will only end when the Russian President signs in an official decree, reported CNN.

On September 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered partial military mobilization in Moscow as it had planned to conscript around 300,000 troops in an apparent escalation of its Ukraine invasion that began in February this year.

The Russia-Ukraine war is now in its ninth month as the missile strikes continue to hit major Ukrainian cities. In a recent escalation, Ukraine's capital city Kyiv was rocked by multiple explosions early on Monday in an attack by "Kamikaze" drones, a Ukrainian official said.

Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential office of Ukraine, said kamikaze drones were attacking the city. "The Russians think it will help them, but these actions look like desperation," Yermak said in a statement, blaming Russia for the attack, CNN reported.

Kyiv says Moscow has used Iranian-supplied drones in the strikes against Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, and other cities across Ukraine in recent weeks, and pleaded with Western countries to step up their assistance in the face of the new challenge.

The war between Russia and Ukraine has only escalated after a truck recently exploded on the Crimea road bridge, causing seven fuel tanks of a train heading to the Crimean Peninsula to catch fire. Three people were killed in the blast, which also led to the partial collapse of two spans of the road bridge.

The Crimean Bridge was opened in 2018 by President Vladimir Putin, four years after Moscow annexed Crimea, and was designed to link the peninsula to Russia's transport network.

The 19-kilometer bridge, which runs across the Kerch Strait and connects Crimea with mainland Russia, consists of a railway and vehicle sections. It became fully operational in 2020.