Donetsk Plans to Conscript 100,000 in General Mobilization

Up to 100,000 people will be recruited in general mobilization planned to take place in ten days in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, according to DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko.

DONETSK, February 2 (Sputnik) – The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) plans to hold a general mobilization in 10 days to recruit up to 100,000 people, DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko said Monday.

“A general mobilization is planned to take place in DPR in 10 days. Up to 100,000 people will be recruited,” he said.

The Ukrainian government is already holding a mobilization and will carry it out in three waves, with the first held from January 20 and the second one set to begin in April. On January 29, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that Kiev had recruited 45,000 draftees over nine days of the mobilization.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the mobilization, announced by Poroshenko, did not help the reconciliation efforts made by both the Contact Group on Ukraine and the Normandy Quartet.

Kiev forces and eastern Ukraine's pro-independence fighters have been in conflict since April 2014, when the Kiev government launched a military operation against the country's eastern regions. The start of 2015 saw a surge of violence in Donbas despite a ceasefire agreement between the warring sides reached in September in Minsk.