Vladimir Putin declares a partial mobilisation

For the first time since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, a sense of emergency has returned to Moscow. For seven months Vladimir Putin had reassured Russians that all was going to plan. But in a speech on September 21st, after weeks of Ukrainian advances, he told them he needed more men. Russia, he said, was under attack from the entire West. It required “partial mobilisation” to defend both itself and the people of territories it had occupied in Ukraine, who were begging to be absorbed into Russia. And he threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia from what he termed the West’s efforts to destroy it.