Reuters reports:

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia was planning to call up more troops for a major new offensive, even as Moscow was facing some of its biggest internal criticism of the war over a strike that killed scores of fresh conscripts.

Kyiv has been saying for weeks that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to order another mass conscription drive and shut his borders to prevent men from escaping the draft.

“We have no doubt that the current masters of Russia will throw everything they have left and everyone they can round up to try to turn the tide of the war and at least delay their defeat,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Tuesday.

“We have to disrupt this Russian scenario … Any attempt at their new offensive must fail.”

Russia’s defence ministry on Wednesday blamed mobile phone use by its soldiers for a Ukrainian strike on New Year’s Eve it said had killed 89 servicemen, the deadliest incident Moscow has acknowledged for its troops since the start of the war. [Continue reading…]