Introduce control over the work of facilities that ensure the functioning of transport, media and communications, the work of printing houses, computer centres and automated systems, for the needs of defence.This is a developing story. Most ambiguous and perhaps dangerous is clause 3(e), that grants them the right to: The local administrations have a wide range of powers to apply everything from curfews and movement controls to being able to order people temporarily resettled. The regions of Crimea, Krasnodar, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, and Rostov are now under a form of martial law lite. In effect, it imposes a form of martial law right across the country, albeit one that is open to local interpretation. The aforementioned Decree On Measures taken in the Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation in Connection with the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of OctoNo. It does at least regularise this: there is an odd legalism to Putin’s regime, in that it does all kinds of illegal things, but does then seek to find some legal rationale for them. It is also in many ways irrelevant, as Moscow has been ruling the occupied territories under martial law in all but name. The first, the Decree on the Introduction of Martial Law in the Territories of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions is pretty short and straightforward. There is an odd legalism to Putin’s regime, in that it does all kinds of illegal things, but does then seek to find some legal rationale for themįollowing an emergency meeting of his Security Council, where he accused Kyiv of ‘terrorism’ as it ‘refused to recognise the will and choice of the people’ in occupied territories – meaning their annexation after wholly illegal ‘referenda’ – he introduced two separate presidential decrees. Now that Moscow is desperately fighting for a draw, and the prospect of any ‘reset’ with the West is vanishingly small, it has been getting harder and harder to pretend that business as usual can be maintained.Įven so, Putin the prevaricator is finding it hard to fully side with either the technocrats or the hawks, or to take full responsibility for what he is planning to do. Then again, that was on the wholly unrealistic assumption that this was going to be a quick, victorious war, and that western sanctions would be relatively limited. Putin hesitated, though, and the technocrats and economic liberals in the government were able to get him to stay his hand. When Putin invaded Ukraine in February, the sharpest-beaked hawks in his entourage were urging total war, and with it an imposition of tight state control over much of the economy. What is interesting is just how long and half-hearted a process this has been. Either way, Vladimir Putin has just moved Russia one step closer to totalitarianism. It can also creep up on a country in the guise of a presidential edict with the title ‘The Decree On Measures taken in the Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation in Connection with the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of OctoNo. Martial law can arrive with a bang: tanks on the streets, Swan Lake on the TV.
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