Sept. 30 (UPI) — In a sign of the toll Moscow’s invasion is having on Russian troop levels, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Saturday for the military to enlist 130,000 more recruits.
In a decree dubbed “Reunification Day,” highlighting Russia’s unrecognized annexation of Ukrainian oblasts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson last year, Putin announced the expansion of military service for those aged 18-27 from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31.
This comes in addition to the 147,000 Russians drafted for the Ukrainian invasion in the spring.
Russian Rear Admiral Vladimir Tsimlyansky, deputy head of the Russian General Staff, told the state-run news agency TASS the new call-ups will not be sent to Ukrainian areas Russia has illegally declared as their own, but stationed in Russia.
“Fresh military conscripts will not be deployed to the Lugansk People’s Republic, the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Kherson Region or the Zaporozhye region to perform tasks in the special military operation zone,” he said.
On the battlefield Saturday, Romania complained that Russia may have violated its airspace in a drone attack on Ukraine’s southern port region. Romania is a NATO ally that has opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Following the detection of groups of drones heading towards Ukrainian territory near the Romanian border,” residents in the Tulcea and Galati municipalities were alerted, the Romanian defense ministry said.
“The radar surveillance system … indicated possible unauthorized entry into [Romanian] national airspace, with a signal detected on a route towards the municipality of Galati.”
No other reports have been given as of Saturday morning about the possible drone attack.
