A photo taken from a car shows black smoke rising at the front line in Mykolaiv Oblast on August 30, 2022, amid Russia's military invasion launched on Ukraine . - Ukraine has begun a major counteroffensive to retake Kherson city and the southern region of the same name. Kherson was the first Ukrainian city to fall into Russian hands after the invasion began in February. (Photo by Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP)

As the Ukrainian portal “Kyiv Independent” reports, citing the Ukrainian secret service, the military commissariats of the two largest cities in Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg) have received instructions to conscript residents on a large scale for military service in occupied Crimea .

The Russian army has long faced the problem of finding enough new recruits for the war in Ukraine. From a Russian point of view, an extension to the two economically strong metropolises would be a delicate step. Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to keep the war away from precisely this part of the population, instead forcing residents of the illegally annexed Ukrainian oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk to the front. Ethnic minorities in Russia are also to be deployed more at the front. (tsp)