Lauren C. Moye, FISM News

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Russia ended its mobilization of reserve soldiers on Friday, saying they had achieved their goal of 300,000-foot soldiers. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the announcement ending the draft yesterday afternoon.

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed doubts on Friday that conscription was really over. He said, “We have reports the enemy has completed its mobilization as if there is no longer a need to send new waves of Russian citizens to the front. We feel very differently on the front lines.”

Russia originally announced the mobilization effort weeks ago after a successful string of Ukrainian counter-offensives pressured the Kremlin into increasing their manpower. However, the announcement proved detrimental to the morale of Russian civilians.

After tens of thousands of Russian men attempted to flee the country and other citizens staged a sustained public protest against the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin previously announced that the draft was nearing an end.

However, the mobilization may not have shifted the battles in Russia’s favor as Putin wanted. This has led to doubts that the draft will go unutilized for the remainder of the war.

“Even though Russia is trying to increase the pressure on our positions by using conscripts, they are so poorly prepared and equipped, so brutally used by their command, that it allows us to presume that very soon Russia may need a new wave of people to send to the war,” said Zelensky in Friday’s video address.

Other analytics have confirmed the poor training these soldiers have received. In one The Times report, it was stated that some recruits had less than 10 days of training before being thrown into the frontlines.

“They are giving them at best basics and at worst nothing and throwing them into combat, which suggests that these guys are just literally cannon fodder,” William Alberque, an expert on the Russian armed forces, told The Times.

Additionally, Ukraine continues to press the frontline further east into the Luhansk region. This is one of the areas heavily targeted by Russia as a goal to “demilitarize” in the “special military operation” the soviet nation began on Feb. 24. The Luhanski is also one of four regions Russia illegally seized weeks ago in another effort to boost war morale and to warn off Ukrainian soldiers during their first lightning counter-offensive.

However, Ukraine continues to advance and now has a key road in the eastern region mostly under Ukrainian control, Kyiv said on Friday.

“The road from Svatove to Kreminna is practically under the control of the armed forces of Ukraine. Our soldiers are advancing daily,” Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region, told national television.

Both towns are goals in the latest counter-offensive. They lie about 45 miles south of Svatove, a city that has been under the control of Russia and Russian-backed separatists since March 6.

Heavy fighting in the regions of Svatove and Kreminna was confirmed on Wednesday by a Russian-backed separatist official.

In addition to this fighting, Ukraine’s military intelligence officials also said they had successfully captured the village of Nevske last Sunday, which is about 6 miles west of the key road linking towns.

In the southern region of Ukraine, entrenched forces from both sides continue to shell each other in a battle for Kherson, a critical city for its industrialization, location on a river, and status as a Black Sea port.