VLADIMIR Putin is plotting a “silent mobilisation” as Russia prepares to launch its deadliest winter blitz on Ukraine so far, an ex-general has said.
As the Kremlin’s full-scale war grinds into its fifth year, Putin is reportedly gearing up to unleash a 500,000-troop assault to “break the backbone” of the Ukrainian forces and “strike deep into Kyiv”.
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The people of Ukraine have “no other option” but to prepare for the coming horrors, MEP and retired general Pekka Juhani Toveri said.
Toveri told The Sun: “Putin knows that the war isn’t going well.
“The frontline is basically frozen – there’s been very little movement this year.
“The challenge is to break the stalemate.”
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Ukraine has spent the summer blitzing oil depots with state-of-the-art drones, before shifting its crosshairs to a series of strikes that have crippled Russia’s largest e-commerce platform.
The attacks have tanked Russia’s already reeling economy – wiping out businesses, suffocating trade and sparking nationwide fuel shortages.
Toveri said: “There’s a lot of pressure within the Russian society to end the war.
“So Putin will probably throw in everything he has this winter.”
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Ukrainian Leader Volodymyr Zelensky has said Putin is planning to draft over 300,000 new recruits to help pummel Ukraine’s defences and take the rest of Donetsk.
Toveri said: “He will probably get about half a million guys, enough to break the backbone of the Ukrainian army.
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“And at the same time they will hit Ukraine with deep strikes.”
Earlier this week Putin said Russia’s military had been “ordered to prepare and carry out mass strikes” on Ukraine’s energy facilities.
Russia will “likely” engage in a sustained bombing of electricity, water and heating systems in Kyiv this winter, Toveri said.
He added: “About 80% of the Ukrainian energy industry has taken hits through the war.
“Russia will try to cause a humanitarian crisis. Make the big Ukrainian cities inhabitable by cutting the energy, heat and water from those cities.”
And as Russia steps up its production of ballistic missiles – now at a rate of more than 100 a month – Kyiv’s supplies of interceptors have tumbled.
Ukraine is trying to get an additional 300 Patriot missiles from partners this winter, but there is no guarantee.
The Kremlin has denied the mobilization rumor for months – a decision that would pose a risk for Putin ahead of elections in September.
But Toveri said: “He will conduct some kind of mobilisation, probably not announced public mobilisation, but silent.”
Hundreds of thousands of people fled Russia after Putin decreed a partial mobilisation in 2022.
Since then, Russia has sustained 1.4 million casualties.
It comes amid reports of increasingly aggressive recruitment efforts in Penza – 388 miles southeast of Moscow.
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Since June there have been reports of fighting-age men being forced into vehicles and taken to recruitment centres where they are then beaten or threatened into signing a military contract.
Putin is also making a series of strategic developments within his own armed forces to bolster Russia’s attack potential.
In early August, Denis Lyamin was announced as the head of Russia’s new Unmanned Systems forces.
The newly established military branch will be responsible for drone warfare.
Moscow has started to deploy a high-speed jet variant of its Iranian Shahed drone model – capable of reaching targets almost 620 miles away.
Named Geran-4 and Geran-5, the UAVs can evade air defence systems while carrying a 90kg payload, according to Ukrainian government documents leaked online.
These will now be launched alongside another 10,000 cheap Banderol cruise missiles during 2027, boosting Russia’s ability to bomb Ukraine’s infrastructure.
Civilian casualties have been rising as long-range attacks increase.
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According to the UN, 437 civilians were killed and 2,610 injured in Ukraine in July – the highest since March 2022.
Toveri said: “It’s very clear that the challenge is to break their defensive lines.
“And they can break the backbone of Ukraine so that by next spring Ukraine would have to basically surrender and create the peace negotiations on Russian terms.”
Putin has shown no signs of backing down from his territorial demands despite successive US attempts to broker peace talks.
It comes after a weekend of peace talks saw Trump’s top aides visit both Moscow and Kyiv within 24 hours.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday after holding “constructive and useful” talks with Putin in Moscow on Saturday.
Hopes for peace were thrown into doubt after Putin’s forces unleashed strikes across Kyiv on Friday night.
“No peace initiatives can help when you are fighting monsters whose goal is not peace, but the genocide of your people”, war commentator Denys Kazanskyi said.
It comes after a Russian drone struck the headquarters of Ukraine’s state security service (SBU) on Friday.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the attack a “major escalation” that laid bare Russia’s “true trajectory of diplomacy”.
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Toveri said: “There’s only one thing which is needed – the political will.
“And that, of course, is a problem in the West where we have a lot of politicians, but very few statemen and statewomen like Churchill, who dared to go and tell people that ‘now we are facing hard times, but we don’t have any other, any other option’.”