What happened today in brief: 23 September

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has addressed Russian people in his Telegram channel amid the ongoing mobilisation. “55,000 Russian servicemen have lost their lives in this war within half a year. Dozens of thousands have been wounded or maimed. Do you want more? If not, then protest, escape your country, or yield yourselves as prisoners to our troops. These are your ways to survive,” he said.

Detainees of Russia’s mobilisation protests are being deprived of food and sleep, OVD-Info and Novaya Gazeta’s managing editor Serafim Romanov report. They have no choice but to sleep on the floor flooded with urine.

The so-called “referendums” on joining Russia have started in Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine: namely the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechnya governor, has decided not to mobilise men in his region, local news channel reports. He says Chechnya has “surpassed the quota by 254%”.

Russia is planning to draft 1.2 million people into its army during the so-called “partial mobilisation” it announced on Wednesday, Meduza cites its source. The general strategy is to draft as few people as possible in provincial capitals and to look for soldiers in the countryside where there are fewer media, political activists, and where the general support for the Ukraine War is higher.