Hundreds of Ukrainian workers are to be forced to fight against their own countrymen following Vladimir Putin's "partial mobilisation", according to the Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine's Defence Ministry.
Ukrainian officials have published a report stating that between 200 and 500 workers at the Yenakiyievo Metallurgical Plant in the Donetsk region are to be drafted into the Russian ranks.
It states that the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), a Russian-backed separatist region under Russian occupation, has U-turned on a previous exemption from mobilisation.
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Production at the plant is to be "temporarily suspend" due to a lack of personnel, with workers forced to swap tools for tanks.
This news comes after Putin's monumental address this morning (Wednesday, September 21), escalating the invasion and decreeing the mobilisation of some 300,000 reservists to Ukraine.
Moreover, the same Ukrainian intelligence report states that Russians have now set up a training camp in Chystiakove (formerly Torez – a city in Donetsk) to train inmates being sent from prisons to the frontline.
There have already been plenty of reports of Putin's Wagner mercenaries touring prisons in Russia to recruit new soldiers, but now Ukrainian authorities claim prisons in Donetsk are being emptied for the same purpose.
The report states: "Potential 'contract people' are selected based on physical criteria, and the presence of combat experience.
"The criminal article and the term of imprisonment do not affect the selection.
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"In addition, there is a small number of those willing to sign the contract."
It is just the latest indication that Putin is trying to throw as much as he can at the invasion effort, which has been faltering as of late thanks to a staggeringly effective Ukrainian counteroffensive in the north of the country.
The despot even threatened the use of nuclear weapons in this morning's televised address, saying that Russia had "lots of weapons to reply" to what he called western threats on Russian territory.
"This is not a bluff," he insisted.
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