Russia may mobilize 300,000 residents of occupied Ukraine - Ukrainian official

He wrote this on Telegram.

"Unfortunately, in my opinion, this is a realistic plan of Putin's, and we have several confirmations that this plan may start to be implemented. First of all, we have seen for more than two years of occupation that after each iteration of such ‘elections,’ the enemy begins to behave much more harshly with the civilian population," he said.

Thus, according to him, the Russians worsened their attitude towards civilians even after the so-called referendum held in the fall of 2022 and the "local elections" of 2023, "when immediately after September 10, almost all social benefits and some humanitarian support were taken away.”

Therefore, he believes it is likely that mobilization will take place after the presidential ‘elections’, especially since everything is almost ready for it.

"Over the past 4 months, Russia has been preparing for mobilization and absolutely registering everyone, they have opened military registration desks in every district and village, opened military registration at every enterprise, and thus are trying to fully register all our residents in order to have a complete picture: where our residents live, who is subject to military registration, where residents who can be drafted live. And I am sure that after their sham elections they will definitely mobilize our residents from the temporary occupation," said Fedorov.

He also made an assumption about the number of residents of the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia region who could be mobilized.

"The occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region was home to about 550,000-600,000 people until February 24. We understand that about 40-50% of the population left. So today, there are about 350,000-400,000 indigenous people, those who live in temporary occupation. This means that the mobilization potential today is at least 50,000-70,000 people whom Russia can drag into the army, so the danger definitely remains for a huge number of people," the head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration emphasized.

• On March 18, Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin was predictably "elected" to a new term in the so-called presidential elections that took place on March 15-17.