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Posted On

20
October
2022

Zelensky calls on residents of occupied territories to avoid being drafted into Russian army

KYIV. Oct 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called on citizens of the occupied regions of southern and eastern Ukraine to avoid being drafted into the Russian army.

"Today I would like to separately address our people in the temporarily occupied regions of the south and east of Ukraine. In the near future, the occupiers will try to take men into their army. Everywhere, just like in Donetsk and Luhansk. Please avoid this as much as you can," he said in a video statement on Wednesday.

"Try to leave the occupied territory. If you cannot do this and find yourself in Russian military structures, at the first opportunity, try to lay down your arms and come to Ukrainian positions," Zelensky also said.

Russia, he said, "for half a year even avoided the word ‘war,’ punished its own people for it with criminal cases, and now it itself declares martial law in the occupied territory."

"The occupiers themselves brought the war to our land under their constant false chatter about alleged negotiations, and now they are signing some decrees that consolidate the war. Well, what can I say, just hysteria among the ‘comrades of the Chekists." Hysteria, which will be the more Russia’s defeat will be closer," the president said.