Winter’s approach sets clock ticking for Ukraine

The onset of autumnal weather, with rain making fields too muddy for tanks, is beginning to cloud Ukraine’s efforts to take back more Russian-held territory before winter freezes the battlefields, a Washington-based think tank has said.

Russia, meanwhile, pressed on with its call-up of hundreds of thousands of men to throw into the seven-month war, seeking to reverse its recent losses.

It also deployed suicide drones on Sunday against the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, Ukrainian authorities said. No casualties were reported.

The Russian mobilisation, its first such call-up since the Second World War, is sparking protests in Russian cities, with fresh demonstrations on Sunday.

It is also opening splits in Europe about whether fighting-age Russian men fleeing in droves should be welcomed or turned away.

Already, rainy weather is bringing muddy conditions that are starting to limit the mobility of tanks and other heavy weaponry, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

But the think tank said Ukrainian forces are still gaining ground in their counter-offensive, launched in late August, that has spectacularly rolled back the Russian occupation across large areas of the north east and which also prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s new drive for reinforcements.

The partial mobilisation has triggered an exodus of men seeking to avoid the draft – and sharp differences of opinion in Europe about how to deal with them.

Lithuania, a European Union member country that borders Kaliningrad, a Russian Baltic Sea exclave, said it will not grant them asylum.

“Russians should stay and fight. Against Putin,” foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis tweeted.

His counterpart in Latvia, also an EU member and bordering Russia, said the exodus poses “considerable security risks” for the 27-nation bloc and that those fleeing cannot be considered conscientious objectors against the invasion.

Many “were fine with killing Ukrainians, they did not protest then”, the Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rinkevics, tweeted.

He added that there are “plenty of countries outside EU to go”.

Officials in other EU nations, however, say Europe has a duty to help, and fear that turning away Russians could play into Mr Putin’s hands, feeding his narrative that the West has always hated Russians and that the war is being waged to safeguard their country against western hostility.

“Closing our frontiers would fit neither with our values nor our interests,” a 40-strong group of senators in France said in a statement.

They urged the EU to grant refugee status to Russians fleeing mobilisation and said turning them away would be “a mistake by Europe in the war of communication and influence that is playing out”.

The mobilisation is also running hand-in-hand with Kremlin-orchestrated votes in four occupied regions of Ukraine that could pave the way for their imminent annexation by Russia.

Ukraine and its western allies say the referendums in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions have no legal force.

The votes are set to end onTuesday but are being dismissed in Ukraine and the West as a sham, with footage showing armed Russian troops going door to door to pressure Ukrainians into voting.

Ukraine’s reintegration ministry said Russia has brought people from Belarus, Brazil, Egypt, South Africa, Syria, Togo, Uruguay and Venezuela to act as supposed outside observers.

The ministry warned that they “will be punished”, without specifying how.

In cities across Russia, police have arrested hundreds of protesters against the mobilisation order.

Videos shared by local media showed a crowd of a few hundred people, mostly women, holding hands and marching in a circle around a group of police.

Police later dragged some away or forced them into police vans. News website SakhaDay said the women chanted pacifist slogans and songs.

At least 2,000 people have been arrested in recent days for similar demonstrations around the country. Many of those taken away immediately received call-up summons.

Other Russians are reporting for duty. Mr Putin and defence minister Sergei Shoigu have said the order applies to reservists who recently served or have special skills, but almost every man is considered a reservist until the age of 65 and Mr Putin’s decree kept the door open for a broader call-up.

The Kremlin said its initial aim is to add about 300,000 troops to its forces in Ukraine, struggling with equipment losses, mounting casualties and weakening morale.

The mobilisation marks a sharp shift from Mr Putin’s previous efforts to portray the war as a limited military operation that would not interfere with most Russians’ lives.

The call-up is being accompanied by tougher punishments for Russian soldiers who disobey officers’ orders, desert or surrender to the enemy.

Mr Putin signed those measures into law on Saturday.

The Ukrainian government stopped allowing most men aged 18-60 to leave the country immediately after Russia’s February 24 invasion under a general mobilisation order intended to build a one million-strong military.