Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)

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      Europe Looks at Italy’s Giorgia Meloni With Caution and Trepidation

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      Giorgia Meloni, poised to be the country’s first far-right leader since Mussolini, says she supports Ukraine and has moderated her harsh views on Europe, but there are doubts, given her partners.BRUSSELS — The victory in Italian elections of the far-right and Euroskeptic leader Giorgia Meloni, who once wanted to ditch the euro currency, sent a tremor on Monday through a European establishment worried about a new right-wing shift in Europe.European Union leaders are now watching her coalition’s comfortable victory in Italy, one of its founding members, with caution and some trepidation, despite reassurances from Ms. Meloni, who would be the first far-right nationalist to govern Italy since Mussolini, that she has moderated her views.But it is hard for them to escape a degree of dread. Even given the bloc’s successes in recent years to agree on a groundbreaking pandemic recovery fund and to confront Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the appeal of nationalists and populists remains strong — and is spreading, a potential threat to European ideals and cohesion.Earlier this month, the far-right Sweden Democrats became the country’s second-largest party and the largest in what is expected to be a right-wing coalition.The economic impact of Covid and now of the war in Ukraine, with high national debt and rocketing inflation, has deeply damaged centrist parties all over Europe. Far-right parties have not only pushed centrist parties to the right, but have also become “normalized,” no longer ostracized, said Charles A. Kupchan, a European expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.“The direction of political momentum is changing — we had a wave of centrism before and during the pandemic, but now it feels like the political table is tilting back in the direction of the populists on the right,” he said. “And that’s a big deal.”Under the outgoing technocratic prime minister Mario Draghi, Italy played an important role in a Europe of weak leadership, both on vital economic issues and the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But Italy has now turned away from the European mainstream.An Italy led by Ms. Meloni is likely to be constrained by European control over billions of euros in crucial funding. In the best case, diplomats and analysts say, it will not smash the European consensus, but could severely complicate policymaking.If Ms. Meloni and her coalition partners choose to side with other populist, Euroskeptic leaders inside the European Union, like Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland, she can certainly “gum up the works,” Mr. Kupchan said.For Italy to team up with “Orban and company is Brussels’ nightmare,” said Stefano Stefanini, an analyst and former Italian diplomat. “For over 10 years the E.U. has lived with the fear of being swamped by a tide of Euroskeptic populism,” he said. “Hungary is a pain, but Italy joining forces with Hungary and Poland would be a serious challenge to the mainstream E.U. and would mobilize the far right in other countries.”Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban last month. For Italy to team up with “Orban and company is Brussels’ nightmare,” a former Italian diplomat said.Emil Lippe for The New York TimesThe first European congratulations to her came Sunday night from Hungary. Mr. Orban’s political director, Balazs Orban, said in a Twitter message: “In these difficult times, we need more than ever friends who share a common vision and approach to Europe’s challenges.”Europe’s concerns are less about policy toward Ukraine. Ms. Meloni has said she supports NATO and Ukraine and has no great warmth for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, as her junior coalition partners, Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi, have evinced.Still, Mr. Berlusconi said last week that Mr. Putin “was pushed by the Russian population, by his party, by his ministers to invent this special operation.” The plan, he said, was for Russian troops to enter “in a week to replace Zelensky’s government with a government of decent people.”Italian popular opinion is traditionally sympathetic toward Moscow, with about a third of seats in the new Parliament going to parties with an ambiguous stance on Russia, sanctions, and military aid to Ukraine. As the war proceeds, with all its domestic economic costs, Ms. Meloni may take a less firm view than Mr. Draghi has.Mr. Kupchan expects “the balance of power in Europe will tilt more toward diplomacy and a bit less toward continuing the fight.” That is a view more popular with the populist right than with parties in the mainstream, but it has prominent adherents in Germany and France, too.Supporters of the far-right Sweden Democrats celebrating exit polls near Stockholm this month. Sweden Democrats are now the country’s second-biggest party.Stefan Jerrevang/EPA, via Shutterstock“These elections are another sign that all is not well with mainstream parties,” said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and spell a complicated period for the European Union.Even the victory a year ago of Olaf Scholz in Germany, a man of the center left, was ensured by the collapse of the center-right Christian Democrats, who had their worst showing in their history, while in April, France’s long-dominant center-right Republicans fell to under 5 percent of the vote.“People in Brussels are extremely anxious about Meloni becoming an E.U. prime minister,” Mr. Leonard said. “They’ve seen how disruptive Orban can be from a small country with no systemic role in the E.U. Meloni says she won’t immediately upend the consensus on Ukraine, but she could be a force for a much more virulent form of Euroskepticism in council meetings.”One or two troublemakers can do a lot of a damage to E.U. decision-making, he said, “but if it’s five or six,” it becomes very hard to obtain coherence or consensus.When the populist Five Star Movement led Italy from 2018 to early 2021, before Mr. Draghi, it created major fights inside Brussels on immigration and asylum issues. Ms. Meloni is expected to concentrate on topics like immigration, identity issues (she despises what she calls “woke ideology”), and future E.U. rules covering debt and fiscal discipline, to replace the outdated growth and stability pact.But analysts think she will pick her fights carefully, given Italy’s debt mountain — over 150 percent of gross domestic product — and the large sums that Brussels has promised Rome as part of the Covid recovery fund. For this year, the amount is 19 billion euros, or about $18.4 billion, nearly 1 percent of Italy’s G.D.P., said Mujtaba Rahman, Europe director for the Eurasia Group, with a total over the next few years of some 10.5 percent of G.D.P.“Draghi has already implemented tough reforms to satisfy Brussels, so there is no reason for her to come in and mess it up and agitate the market,” Mr. Rahman said. But for the future, there are worries that she will push for an expansionist budget, looser fiscal rules and thereby make the more frugal countries of northern Europe less willing to compromise.For Mr. Rahman, the bigger risk for Europe is the loss of influence Italy exercised under Mr. Draghi. He and President Emmanuel Macron of France, “were beginning to create an alternative axis to compete with the vacuum of leadership now in Germany, and all that will be lost,” Mr. Rahman said. Italy will go from a country that leads to one that Europe watches anxiously, he said.Italy’s outgoing Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, left, with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, on their way to Ukraine in June.Pool photo by Ludovic MarinThere was a sign of that anxiety just before the election, when Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, warned that Brussels had “the tools” to deal with Italy if things went in a “difficult direction.” It was seen as a hint that the European Commission could cut funds to Italy if it were deemed to be violating the bloc’s democratic standards.Mr. Salvini, seeing an opportunity, immediately responded: “What is this, a threat? This is shameful arrogance,” and asked Ms. von der Leyen to “respect the free, democratic and sovereign vote of the Italian people” and resist “institutional bullying.”Instead, Mr. Stefanini, the former diplomat, urged Brussels to be patient and to engage with Ms. Meloni. “The new government should be judged on facts, on what it does when in power,” he said. “The real risk is that by exaggerated overreactions the E.U. makes legitimate concerns self-fulfilling prophecies.“If she’s made to feel rejected, she’ll be pushed into a corner — where she’ll find Orban and other soulmates waiting for her, and she’ll team up with them,” he continued. “But if she’s greeted as a legitimate leader, democratically elected, it will be possible for the E.U. to do business with her.”Luuk van Middelaar, a historian of the bloc, also urges caution. European leaders know two things about Italian prime ministers, he said. First, “they are not very powerful at home, and two, they tend not to last very long” — since World War II, an average of about 18 months.“So they will wait and see and not be blown away,” Mr. van Middelaar said. If she lasts longer, however, she could energize other far-right Euroskeptics in other big countries like France, he said, “and that would make a real difference.” More

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      Meloni Faces Early Test of Italy’s Resolve on Russia and Ukraine

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      The hard-right leader Giorgia Meloni has been a full-throated supporter of Ukraine, but her coalition partners have sounded like apologists for Vladimir V. Putin.ROME — Throughout her time in the opposition to Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s national unity government, Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right leader who is poised to become the next Italian prime minister after a strong showing in Sunday’s elections, railed against everything from vaccine requirements to undemocratic power grabs.But on the issue of Ukraine, perhaps the most consequential for the government, she unambiguously criticized Russia’s unwarranted aggression, gave full-throated support for Ukraine’s right to defend itself and, in a recent interview, said she would “totally” continue to provide Italian arms to Kyiv.The same cannot be said for Ms. Meloni’s coalition partners, who have deeply admired Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and have often sounded like his apologists. Just days before the vote, the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, once Mr. Putin’s best friend among leaders in Western Europe, claimed “Putin was pushed by the Russian population, by his party and by his ministers to invent this special operation,” and that a flood of arms from the West had thwarted Russian soldiers in their mission to reach “Kyiv within a week, replace Zelensky’s government with decent people and then leave.”The other coalition partner, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League party, used to wear T-shirts with Mr. Putin’s face on them and has for years been so fawning toward Russia that he has frequently had to reject accusations that he has taken money from Moscow.Recently, with Ms. Meloni apparently uncomfortable as she sat beside him, Mr. Salvini doubted the wisdom of sanctions on Russia, which he said hurt Italy more than Mr. Putin’s government.How Ms. Meloni navigates those tensions in her coalition will now be a key factor in the European Union’s struggle to keep an unbroken front against Russia as the cost of sanctions begins to bite in winter.Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, second from right, visited Ukraine in June with leaders from France, Germany and Romania. Under Mr. Draghi, Italy became a key player in Europe’s hard line against Russia.Viacheslav Ratynskyi/ReutersIf she wavers, especially on sanctions, European leaders who have stood up to Mr. Putin all these months fear it could begin a major unraveling of resolve, widening divisions in the European Union and between the United States and Europe.“We are ready to welcome any political force that can show itself to be more constructive in its relations with Russia,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said after the Italian election results, according to the Russian news service Tass.But analysts said Russia should not expect a change from Ms. Meloni anytime soon, believing that her position on Ukraine is credible and that the weak showing of her partners in the election will allow her to keep them in their place without blowing up their alliance.“I put my hand today on fire that she is not going to bend,” said Nathalie Tocci, the director of the Institute for International Affairs in Rome. “She’s very gung-ho about Russia.”Despite a widespread suspicion that political calculation lay behind Ms. Meloni’s pivot during the campaign to less hostile positions on the European Union and away from leaders such as Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and Marine Le Pen in France, analysts judged that on the issue of Ukraine, Ms. Meloni was not likely to budge.In the past, Ms. Meloni has admired Mr. Putin’s defense of Christian values, which is consistent with her own traditionalist rhetoric. But unlike other hard-right politicians and newbie nationalists, like Mr. Salvini, Ms. Meloni was raised in a post-Fascist universe in Italy where Russia — and especially Communist internationalists — represented an Eastern force that threatened the sanctity and peculiarities of Western European identities.For Ms. Meloni it was less difficult to step away from the Putin adoration that swept the populist-nationalist right over the last decade. During the campaign, she was happy to point out this difference with her coalition partners, as she was competing with them and it helped differentiate her and reassure the West of her credibility.Pummeling the competition in Sunday’s election will have made it easier to withstand any attempted pressure from Mr. Salvini or Mr. Berlusconi, who both failed to break into double digits in the polls and were thus left with little leverage.In any case, Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Salvini had already supported the sanctions as part of Mr. Draghi’s national unity government and didn’t bolt over the issue then. Mr. Salvini, who has sought to distance himself from Mr. Putin, was so hobbled by his disastrous performance in the elections that Rome was rife with speculation that he could be replaced as his party’s leader by a more moderate and less ideological governor from the country’s north, where the League has its electoral base.Ms. Meloni meeting with her coalition partners, Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi, in October 2021. The two men admire Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and have often sounded like his apologists.Guglielmo Mangiapane/ReutersThat is not to say Ms. Meloni faces no pressure at home for a more forgiving stance. Italy, a country with deep and long ties to Russia, has long had reservations about sanctions against Moscow and getting involved in foreign wars.“I think we should put the question up to the Italians in a referendum,” Stefano Ferretti, 48, a supporter of Ms. Meloni, said on Election Day. “Let’s see if they really want it.”And Italy is not alone in Europe when it comes to doubts about a continued hard line against Russia, and turning away from its cheap energy, ahead of a cold and economically painful winter.In Prague this month, a day after the Czech government survived a no-confidence vote over accusations that it had failed to act on soaring energy prices, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to voice outrage on the issue while far-right and fringe groups led many demonstrators in calling for withdrawal from NATO and the European Union. In Sweden, a hard-right party more sympathetic to Mr. Putin was on the winning side in elections this month.Mr. Orban has created complications for the European Union in its efforts to present a united force against Mr. Putin by demanding, and receiving, carve-outs for oil imports in exchange for agreeing to an embargo on Russian crude oil imports, a sanctions measure that required unanimity among member countries. On Monday, Mr. Orban applauded Ms. Meloni’s victory, writing on Facebook: “Bravo Giorgia, A more than deserved victory. Congratulations!”But analysts did not foresee Italy, under Ms. Meloni, playing the same games Hungary has done with sanctions. In her acceptance speech, she emphasized “responsibility” and experts said she was a savvy politician who clearly understood that Italy’s leaving the fold would break the bloc’s Russia strategy.As a reminder, though, only days before the vote, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, responded to a question about “figures close to Putin” poised to win elections in Italy by saying, “We’ll see.”“If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools,” she said.Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League party, used to wear T-shirts with Mr. Putin’s face on them.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesThe tools included the cutting of funds for member states that Brussels considers in violation of the rule of law. Last week, the commission — which is the European Union’s executive arm — proposed to cut €7.5 billion of funds allocated to Hungary.But Italy is a central pillar not only of the European Union, but of its united front against Russia. Aldo Ferrari, head of the Russia, Caucasus and Central Asia Program at the Institute for International Political Studies in Milan, said Ms. Meloni had made her position “amply clear” throughout the election campaign, and that it was through Ukraine that she “sought legitimacy” among international leaders, especially members of the European Union and NATO.And as Russia is an ever less attractive ally, its pull on the West diminishes. The decision by countries of the European Union to endure economic pain together made it less likely that Italy, which is so woven into the fabric of the union, would break.“Our inclusion in the European Union and NATO,” Mr. Ferrari said, overcame the will “of individual politicians and individual countries.”Under Mr. Draghi, Italy became a key player in Europe’s hard line against Russia, which he has framed as an existential issue that will define the contours and values of the continent for decades to come.While some liberals had hoped he would rally to their side during the election campaign, or at least nod that he preferred them, Mr. Draghi stayed out of it completely. Analysts say he saw the polls, and the writing on the wall, and decided the most prudent coarse of action for his platform, legacy and, some critics say, future ambitions, was a smooth transition of power to Ms. Meloni.“I have a good relationship with Draghi,” Ms. Meloni said in an interview earlier this month. She said that more than once, “He could trust in us much more than the parties he had in his majority.”“Look on Ukraine,” she said. “On Ukraine, we made the foreign policy.”Elisabetta Povoledo More

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      Giorgia Meloni Leads Voting in Italy, in Breakthrough for Europe’s Hard Right

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      ROME — Italy appeared to turn a page of European history on Sunday by electing a hard-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni, whose long record of bashing the European Union, international bankers and migrants has sown concern about the nation’s reliability in the Western alliance. Early projections based on a narrow sampling of precincts, as well as exit polls, on Sunday night suggested that Ms. Meloni, the leader of the nationalist Brothers of Italy, a party descended from the remnants of fascism, had led a right-wing coalition to a majority in Parliament, defeating a fractured left and a resurgent anti-establishment movement. The final results would not be clear until Monday, and it will still be weeks before the new Italian parliament is seated and a new government is formed, leaving plenty of time for political machinations. But Ms. Meloni’s strong showing, with about 25 percent of the vote, the highest of any single party, makes her the prohibitive favorite to become the country’s first female prime minister. While she is a strong supporter of Ukraine, her coalition partners deeply admire Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and have criticized sanctions against Russia.“From the Italians has arrived a clear indication,” Ms. Meloni, known for her crescendoing rhetoric and cult of personality, said in a measured victory speech at nearly 3 a.m., “for the center-right to guide Italy.”After saying she had suffered through a “violent electoral campaign” filled with unfair attacks, Ms. Meloni spoke about “reciprocal respect” and recreating “trust in the institutions.” She posed flashing a victory sign. “We are at the starting point,” she said, adding, “Italy chose us, and we will never betray it.”The victory, in an election with lower turnout than usual, comes as formerly taboo and marginalized parties with Nazi or fascist heritages are entering the mainstream — and winning elections — across Europe. This month, a hard-right group founded by neo-Nazis and skinheads became the largest party in Sweden’s likely governing coalition. In France this year, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen — for a second consecutive time — reached the final round of presidential elections. In Spain, the hard-right Vox, a party closely aligned with Ms. Meloni, is surging.But it is Italy, the birthplace of fascism and a founding member of the European Union, that has sent the strongest shock wave across the continent after a period of European-centric stability led by Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who directed hundreds of billions of euros in recovery funds to modernize Italy and helped lead Europe’s strong response to Russia. Giorgia Meloni preparing to cast her vote at a polling station in Rome on Sunday.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times“This is a sad day for the country,” Debora Serracchiani, a leader of the Democratic Party, which will now lead the opposition, said in a statement early Monday morning.Ms. Meloni’s victory showed that the allure of nationalism — of which she is a strong advocate — remained undimmed, despite the breakthroughs by E.U. nations in coming together to pool sovereignty and resources in recent years, first to combat the coronavirus pandemic and then Mr. Putin’s initiation of the largest conflict in Europe since World War II.How, and how deeply, a right-wing coalition in Italy led by Ms. Meloni could threaten that cohesion is now the foremost concern of the European establishment.Ms. Meloni has staunchly, and consistently, supported Ukraine and its right to defend itself against Russian aggression. But her coalition partners — Matteo Salvini, the firebrand leader of the League, and the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi — have clearly aligned themselves with Mr. Putin, questioning sanctions and echoing his propaganda. That fracture, and the bitter competition between the right-wing leaders, could prove fatal for the coalition, leading to a short-lived government. But some political analysts say Ms. Meloni, having attained power, may be tempted to soften her support for sanctions, which are unpopular in much of Italy. If she does, there is concern that Italy could be the weak link that breaks the European Union’s strong united position against Russia.Ms. Meloni had spent the campaign seeking to reassure an international audience that her support of Ukraine was unwavering. She sought to allay concerns by condemning Mussolini, whom she once admired, and Italy’s Fascist past. She also made more supportive noises about Italy’s place in the European Union and distanced herself from Ms. Le Pen and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, whom she had previously emulated. But that pivoting was more for international markets than Italian voters, who didn’t much care about her past, or even her affinity for illiberal democracies. The Italian electorate had not moved to the right, political scientists said, but instead again resorted to a perennial desire for a new leader who could possibly, and providentially, solve all its ills. Ms. Meloni found herself in the right place at the right time. Hers was virtually the only major party to remain outside Mr. Draghi’s national unity government, allowing her to soak up an increasing share of the opposition. Her support surged from 4 percent to nearly about 25 percent.After a revolt by a party in Mr. Draghi’s broad unity government in July, the right-wing parties, eager to go to elections they were favored to win, sensed opportunity and bolted, with Ms. Meloni in the pole position.There is little concern in the Italian establishment that she will undermine Italian democracy — she has been a consistent advocate for elections during unelected technocratic governments and has long served in Parliament. There is also a widespread belief that Italy’s dependence on hundreds of billions of euros in relief funds from the European Union will force Ms. Meloni and her government to follow the spending plans, reforms and overall blueprint established by Mr. Draghi. The money comes in tranches and the plans have to meet strict criteria. If she reverses course, Italy could lose out on billions of essentially free euros as rising energy prices and inflation — much of it stemming from the sanctions against Russia — are expected to worsen in coming months.Giorgia Meloni, addressing supporters during a rally in Piazza Duomo in Milan earlier this month.Piero Cruciatti/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut there is concern about Ms. Meloni’s lack of experience and her party’s lack of technical expertise, especially in running the eurozone’s third-largest economy, and Mr. Draghi has kept in close touch with her, both to ensure her support for Ukraine and, insiders say, to help find someone who can provide economic continuity.Nevertheless, Ms. Meloni represents a historic break at the top of Italian government. She came of political age in a post-Fascist, hard right that sought to redefine itself by seizing on new symbols and texts, especially “The Lord of the Rings” and other works by the British writer J.R.R. Tolkien, to distance itself from the taboos of Fascism. She grew up with a single mother in a working-class area of Rome, and being a woman, and mother, has been central to her political identity. She once ran for mayor while pregnant because she said powerful men had told her she couldn’t. Her most famous speech includes the refrain “I am a woman. I am a mother.” Being a woman has also distinguished her, and marked a major shift, from her coalition partners, especially Mr. Berlusconi, the subject of endless sex scandals.But Ms. Meloni, Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Salvini share a hard-right vision for the country. Ms. Meloni has called for a naval blockade against migrants and spread fears about a “great replacement” of native Italians. The three share populist proposals for deep tax cuts that economists fear would inflate Italy’s already enormous debt, and a traditionalist view of the family that liberals worry will at least freeze in place gay rights and which could, in practice, roll back abortion rights.Despite the constraints of an Italian Constitution that is explicitly anti-Fascist and designed to stymie the rise of another Mussolini, many liberals are now worried that the right-wing coalition will erode the country’s norms. There was concern that if the coalition were to win two-thirds of the seats in Parliament, it would have the ability to change the Constitution to increase government powers. From left to right, Matteo Salvini, Silvio Berlusconi, and Giorgia Meloni attending the final rally of the center-right coalition in Rome on Thursday.Alessandra Tarantino/Associated PressOn Thursday, during one of Ms. Meloni’s final rallies before the election, she exclaimed that “if the Italians give us the numbers to do it, we will.”But the coalition appeared not to hit that mark. The main party of the left, the Democratic Party, all but guaranteed its defeat by failing to heal its differences with other liberal and centrist parties, including a new group of moderates. The moderates, backed by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and attracting some former leaders of Mr. Berlusconi’s party, who were disillusioned with his following of the hard right, did better than expected, but still seemed to remain in the single digits.What really held the right back from a landslide were their former governing partners, the Five Star Movement, the once anti-establishment movement that triggered the collapse of Mr. Draghi’s government when it revolted in July.In 2018, the party’s burn-down-the-elite rhetoric led it to become the country’s most popular party and largest force in Parliament. Years of governing — first with the hard-right Mr. Salvini, and then with the Democratic Party, and then under Mr. Draghi — exposed its incompetence and infighting and it imploded. It seemed on the brink of extinction. But during the campaign, led by former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, the party surged in the country’s underserved south.That development was mainly because Five Star passed a broad unemployment benefit known as the “citizen’s income,” which though roundly criticized by moderates and the right as a handout to the lazy and a disincentive to work, has become a cherished benefit.As a result, Five Star appeared to be becoming the party of the south.“This is what is emerging,” said Angelo Tofalo, himself a southerner and a leader in the party, as he cheered Mr. Conte, at a rally in Rome on Friday. He said the party had laid down deep roots in the south, but acknowledged, “the citizen’s income is a factor.”That unexpected strength ate into Ms. Meloni’s support, while she devoured the backing of the League party of Mr. Salvini. Only years ago he was the country’s most popular populist. Now he appeared to sink to single digits. Mr. Berlusconi, once the hinge upon which the coalition turned, and who legitimized the marginalized post-Fascists and secessionist League in the 1990s, also registered a modest result.But together they had enough to govern and Ms. Meloni had the clearest claim on the office of prime minister during negotiations and consultations with Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, which will take place over the next month. The new government is likely to be seated in late October or early November.But the message of the end of a period of European taboos, and of new change, has already been sent.Ms. Meloni said in one of her last interviews before the election that her victory would be “a redemption” for all the people who “for decades had to keep their heads down” and who had an “alternative vision from the mainstream of the system of power.”Elisabetta Povoledo More

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      Your Monday Briefing: Protests Grow in Iran

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      Plus anger builds in Japan over Shinzo Abe’s state funeral and Russia tries to conscript Ukrainians.Protesters in the streets of Tehran last week.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesProtests swell in IranIran’s largest antigovernment protests since 2009 gathered strength on Saturday, spreading to as many as 80 cities.Protesters have reportedly taken the small, mostly Kurdish city of Oshnavieh. Many fear a crackdown: “We are expecting blood to be spilled,” said an Iranian Kurd based in Germany who edits a news site. “It’s an extremely tense situation.”In response, the authorities have escalated their crackdown, including opening fire on crowds. On Friday, state media said at least 35 had been killed, but rights groups said the number is likely much higher. Activists and journalists have also been arrested, according to rights groups and news reports.Background: The protests were ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the morality police on accusations of violating the hijab mandate. Women have led the demonstrations, some ripping off their head scarves, waving them and burning them as men have cheered them on.Context: Analysts say that deep resentments have been building for months in response to a crackdown ordered by Ebrahim Raisi, the hard-line president, that has targeted women. Years of complaints over corruption, economic and Covid mismanagement, and widespread political repression play a role.A protest in Tokyo last week against the planned state funeral for Shinzo Abe, Japan’s former leader.Noriko Hayashi for The New York TimesJapan to bury Shinzo AbeShinzo Abe, Japan’s former prime minister who was assassinated in July, is scheduled to be buried tomorrow. The state funeral has led to widespread frustration and outcry.Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets or signed petitions, complaining that the ceremony is a waste of public money. They also say that the funeral was imposed upon the country by Fumio Kishida, the unpopular current prime minister, and his cabinet. Some polls show that more than 60 percent of the public opposes the funeral.Abe’s assassination has also set off uncomfortable revelations about ties between politicians in Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, which is still in power, and the Unification Church, a fringe religious group. The South Korea-based group is accused of preying on vulnerable people in Japan, like the mother of the man charged with murdering Abe.The State of the WarSham Referendums: Russia has begun holding what it calls referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine. The balloting, ostensibly asking whether people want to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, has been condemned by much of the world as an illegal farce.Putin and the War: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia appears to have become more involved in strategic planning, rejecting requests from his commanders on the ground that they be allowed to retreat from the vital southern city of Kherson.Fleeing Russia: After Mr. Putin called up roughly 300,000 reservists to join the war in Ukraine, waves of Russian men who didn’t want to fight began heading to the borders and paying rising prices for flights out of the country.Emblem of Fortitude: When Ukrainians pulled a man’s body from a burial site in the northeastern city of Izium, his wrist bore a bracelet in Ukraine’s colors, given to him by his children. The image has transfixed the nation.Legacy: The backlash has also become a referendum on Abe’s tenure. While Abe was largely lionized on the global stage, he was much more divisive in Japan, where he was involved in controversial decisions and scandals. “Now people think, ‘Why didn’t more people get mad at the time?’” one sociologist said.Context: Tetsuya Yamagami, the man charged with Abe’s murder, had written of his anger at the Unification Church. A journalist said that Yamagami has become a kind of romantic antihero for some people who have felt buffeted by economic and social forces.Iryna Vereshchagina, left, is a volunteer Ukrainian doctor working near the front lines.Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesRussia tries to conscript UkrainiansRussian forces in occupied parts of Ukraine are trying to force Ukrainian men to fight against their own country, according to Ukrainian officials, witnesses and rights groups.In two regions, Kherson and Zaporizka, all men ages 18 to 35 have been forbidden to leave and ordered to report for military duty, Ukrainian officials and witnesses said. The roundups follow President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of a “partial mobilization” last week that is also sweeping up hundreds of thousands of Russians.Moscow is also forcing residents of occupied areas to vote in staged referendums, which began on Friday, on joining Russia. Despite the votes, Ukraine’s military kept fighting to reclaim territory. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, urged Ukrainians to avoid mobilization efforts “by any means” and called on Russians to resist Putin’s conscription.“Sabotage any activity of the enemy, hinder any Russian operations, provide us with any important information about the occupiers — their bases, headquarters, warehouses with ammunition,” he said on Friday. “And at the first opportunity, switch to our positions. Do everything to save your life and help liberate Ukraine.”Ukraine is making gains in the south, but the fighting is resulting in many casualties. And Ukraine is pushing ahead to retake areas in the northeast and the south, dismissing Moscow’s threats to annex territory.Draft: Russia’s call-up of military reservists appears to be drawing more heavily from minority groups and rural areas. Criticism is growing, and at least 745 people have been detained across Russia after protests.Death: Serhiy Sova’s body was exhumed from a grave in Izium. The image of a bracelet on his wrist in Ukraine’s colors, given to him by his children, has transfixed the nation.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificAuthorities operated a siren to warn residents of dangers in suburban Manila yesterday.Ted Aljibe/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSuper Typhoon Noru hit the main island of Luzon in the Philippines last night. Heavy rains and winds may cause devastating flooding and landslides.North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile yesterday, its first such test in nearly four months.Australian rescuers raced against time and saved dozens pilot whales after 230 were stranded on a beach in Tasmania last week.Eleven children died when Myanmar soldiers fired on a school earlier this month. A U.N. expert called the attack a war crime.Around the WorldItaly voted in national elections yesterday. Giorgia Meloni, the far-right leader of a party with post-Fascist roots, is the favorite to become prime minister. Here are live updates.More than 700 children have died in a measles outbreak in Zimbabwe, driven by a decline in child immunization.Roger Federer lost the last match of his professional career, playing doubles with his friend and rival, Rafael Nadal.A Morning ReadSwen Weiland, a software developer turned internet hate speech investigator, is in charge of unmasking people behind anonymous accounts.Felix Schmitt for The New York TimesGermany has gone further than any other Western democracy to fight far-right extremism. It’s now prosecuting people for what they say online.Lives lived: Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning author of “Wolf Hall,” died at 70. Here is an appraisal of her work and a guide to her writing.ARTS AND IDEASA ferry disaster, two decades laterThe Kantene Cemetery in Ziguinchor, Senegal, has 42 graves of victims of the wreck.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York TimesIn 2002, the Joola ferry left Ziguinchor, Senegal, with about 1,900 aboard. It tilted, then capsized. More people died on the Joola than on the Titanic, and only 64 people survived.For the anniversary of the disaster, The Times’s West Africa correspondent, Elian Peltier, vividly recreated the little known incident. Alongside Mady Camara of the Dakar bureau, Peltier met with survivors who still bear scars.“Their trauma remains so pronounced — the insomnia and speech issues, alcoholism, depression, survivor’s guilt, just to name a few symptoms — but it mostly remains unaddressed,” he said.A prosecutor concluded that only the captain, who died, was culpable, despite a separate report that revealed considerable dysfunction, including warnings about the military-run ship’s condition.The relatives of most victims have given up trying to find justice, instead pouring their efforts into raising the wreck to honor their loved ones. More than 550 have been buried, but most remain 59 feet deep in the Atlantic.“The swell has been hitting these souls for the past 20 years,” Elie Jean Bernard Diatta told our reporters. Her brother Michel died while taking 26 teenagers to a soccer tournament. “They speak to us in dreams, and they ask for one thing only: to rest in peace underground,” she said.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookJohnny Miller for The New York TimesMiso-garlic sauce flavors this juicy chicken dinner.What to ReadCeleste Ng’s new dystopian novel, “Our Missing Hearts,” hits uncomfortably close to reality, Stephen King writes.ExerciseSpeeding up your daily walk could have big benefits.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword.Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Riis Beach has long been a haven for queer New Yorkers. That could soon change with development. “Queer people will always find a way to keep a space that is sacred to them,” said Yael Malka, a photographer who visited the beach more than two dozen times this summer.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the future of American evangelicalism.Lynsey Chutel, a Briefings writer based in Johannesburg, wrote today’s Arts and Ideas. You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Your Friday Briefing: Men Flee Russian Conscription

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      Plus Japan props up the yen and Cambodia concludes its Khmer Rouge trials.A billboard in St. Petersburg promoting military service.Olga Maltseva/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMen flee Russia, fearing draftOne day after President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to bring 300,000 civilians into military service, thousands of Russians received draft papers and boarded buses to training sites. Many others left the country in a rush, paying rising prices to catch flights to Armenia, Georgia, Montenegro and Turkey, some of the countries that allow Russians to enter without visas.Russian officials said the call-up would be limited to people with combat experience. But one journalist said her husband, a father of five with no military experience, had been summoned.Our reporter spoke to a 23-year-old who bought a plane ticket to Istanbul, wrapped up his business and kissed his crying mother goodbye — all within about 12 hours of Putin’s announcement. He said he has no idea when he will return. “I was sitting and thinking about what I could die for, and I didn’t see any reason to die for the country,” he said. Here are live updates.Reaction: The E.U. is scrambling to decide how to respond. Countries are weighing security concerns against their desire to help those fleeing an unjust war.Surveillance: The Times obtained nearly 160,000 files from Russia’s powerful internet regulator, which the government uses to find opponents and squash dissent. Compared with China, much of the work of Russian censors is done manually, but what Moscow lacks in sophistication, it has made up for in determination.The Japanese yen has been sliding against the U.S. dollar.Kim Kyung-Hoon/ReutersJapan props up the declining yenJapan announced yesterday that it had intervened to prop up the value of the yen for the first time in 24 years, in an effort to stop the currency’s continuing slide against the dollar.Yesterday, the yen passed 145 to the dollar after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s announcement on Wednesday that it would raise its policy rate by an additional three-quarters of a percentage point. The yen has lost over 20 percent of its value against the dollar over the past year, and it has been the worst performing currency among major developed economies this year.Context: The yen’s plunge has largely been caused by Japan’s determination to keep interest rates low. The government’s intervention followed an announcement by the Bank of Japan that it would stick fast to its longstanding ultralow interest rate policy — even as most other countries have begun to follow the U.S. Federal Reserve’s increases.Explore the World of the ‘Lord of the Rings’The literary universe built by J.R.R. Tolkien, now adapted into a new series for Amazon Prime Video, has inspired generations of readers and viewers.Artist and Scholar: Tolkien did more than write books. He invented an alternate reality, complete with its own geography, languages and history.Being Frodo: The actor Elijah Wood explains why he’ll never be upset at being associated with the “Lord of the Rings” movie series. A Soviet Take: A 1991 production based on Tolkien’s novels, recently digitized by a Russian broadcaster, is a time capsule of a bygone era. From the Archives: Read what W.H. Auden wrote about “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first volume of Tolkien’s trilogy, in 1954.History: For years, a weak yen was widely seen as a boon for its export-driven economy, making Japanese products cheaper and more attractive for consumers abroad.Elsewhere: The Bank of England raised its key interest rate by half a point to 2.25 percent yesterday, the highest level since 2008. It is the latest effort to tame high inflation.Khieu Samphan, 91, is the last surviving Khmer Rouge leader. Nhet Sok Heng/Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, via Associated PressProsecuting the Khmer RougeFor more than 15 years, a court in a military camp in Cambodia has been working to prosecute the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime, which caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the late 1970s.In its final hearing yesterday, it rejected an appeal by Khieu Samphan, 91, the fanatical communist movement’s last surviving leader, upholding his conviction and life sentence for genocide and other crimes.Many victims think the United Nations-backed tribunal, which spent over $330 million, was a hollow exercise conducted far too long after the atrocities were committed. Only three people were convicted, and many of the Khmer Rouge’s senior figures — including its notorious top leader, Pol Pot — were long dead by the time the court was created.Background: From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge caused the deaths of nearly a quarter of the population from execution, torture, starvation and untreated disease as it sought to abolish modernity and create an agrarian utopia.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificKim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, with Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, in 2019.Pool photo by Alexander ZemlianichenkoNorth Korea denied a U.S. intelligence report that it was selling millions of artillery shells and rockets ​to Russia, accusing the U.S. of spreading a “reckless” rumor.The Malaysian businessman known as Fat Leonard, who was at the center of a U.S. Navy bribery scandal, was recaptured after he escaped house arrest two weeks ago.Tonga’s enormous underwater volcano that erupted in January may have caused a short-term spike in global warming, scientists said.Yoon Suk Yeol, the South Korean president, was caught on a hot mic calling U.S. lawmakers “idiots,” The Washington Post reports.Around the WorldDavid Malpass, the president of the World Bank, refused to acknowledge human-caused global warming earlier this week. Yesterday, he said he accepted the overwhelming scientific conclusion.A U.S. federal appeals court allowed the Justice Department to resume using sensitive documents seized from Donald Trump in its investigation.U.S. veterans are pushing Congress to grant Afghan evacuees a pass to residency, but some Republicans argue they pose security risks.A deadly cholera outbreak is spreading in Syria, where millions of people, displaced by civil war, lack clean water and health care.What Else Is HappeningCameron Smith/Getty Images for Laver CupRoger Federer will play the last competitive match of his career today in London.For the first time, Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Island, a striking demographic shift that could eventually fuel calls to reunite Ireland.The U.S. Senate ratified an international treaty to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, the planet-warming chemicals found in refrigerators and air-conditioners.The U.S. is on track to break its record for guns intercepted at airport checkpoints in one year. So far 4,600 have been discovered, and nearly 90 percent are loaded.A Morning ReadMohammed Zubair, second from the right, is a founder of Alt News. He was jailed this summer over a complaint from an anonymous Twitter user.Atul Loke for The New York TimesFake news is rising in India, with a surge of disinformation after the rise of Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister. Alt News, an independent website, has emerged as a leading debunker of misinformation, such as stories about child-kidnapping gangs and Muslims spreading Covid.But highlighting hate speech against minority groups has put it on a collision course with Modi’s government: A founder was recently arrested and is accused of spreading communal unrest.ARTS AND IDEASTolkien, for Italy’s right wing?Italy’s national election is on Sunday. Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right politician who is the front-runner to become the country’s next prime minister, has a surprising personal manifesto.Meloni loves “The Lord of the Rings” and sees the fantasy adventure series, written by J.R.R. Tolkien, as something of a sacred text. As a youth activist in the post-Fascist Italian Social Movement, she used to dress up as a hobbit.That might seem like a youthful infatuation. But in Italy, “The Lord of the Rings” has informed generations of post-Fascist youth. They have looked to Tolkien’s traditionalist mythic age for symbols, heroes and creation myths free of Fascist taboos, from which they could reconstruct a hard-right identity.Meloni, 45, said that she had learned from dwarves, elves and hobbits the “value of specificity” with “each indispensable for the fact of being particular.” She extrapolated that as a lesson about protecting Europe’s sovereign nations and unique identities.“I think that Tolkien could say better than us what conservatives believe in,” Meloni said. “I don’t consider ‘The Lord of the Rings’ fantasy.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookKelly Marshall for The New York TimesThis roasted mushroom and halloumi grain bowl is warm and adaptable.What to Read“Getting Lost,” a series of diary entries by the French writer Annie Ernaux, recounts an all-consuming romance with a younger man.DrinkThe appletini is back, and it’s ushering in a new martini era.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Even the slightest bit (five letters).Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Phil Pan is our next International editor. He was the first Asia editor of The Times based in Hong Kong and previously served as our Beijing bureau chief. The latest episode of “The Daily” is on Vladimir Putin’s escalation of the war.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Viktor Medvedchuk, a Putin Ally, Is Released in Russia-Ukraine Prisoner Swap

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      Viktor Medvedchuk, the most prominent captive released by Ukraine in a prisoner swap with Russia, is a close friend of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia who had acted as the Kremlin’s primary agent of influence in Ukraine for years.Mr. Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian politician and oligarch, was handed over alongside Russian pilots and senior military officials, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday, in exchange for more than 200 Ukrainian fighters including commanders of the Azov Battalion, who have been celebrated as heroes in Ukraine for their last-stand defense of Mariupol. It was the largest prisoner swap in the seven-month long war.Russian officials had previously disavowed any claims to Mr. Medvedchuk, despite his long-known ties to Mr. Putin, who is the godfather of Mr. Medvedchuk’s daughter. A Kremlin spokesman in May had dismissed the idea of exchanging Mr. Medvedchuk with Ukrainian fighters, saying that he “has nothing to do with Russia,” according to Russian state media.Mr. Medvedchuk was captured by authorities in Ukraine in April after he fled house arrest while awaiting trial on treason charges in a case initiated last year. After his detention, officials in Ukraine also seized some of his vast wealth, amassed through energy deals with the Kremlin while working in support of Russian interests in Ukraine and beyond.At the time of the arrest, Mr. Zelensky posted a photo showing Mr. Medvedchuk in handcuffs, looking disheveled. “Let Medvedchuk be an example for you,” the Ukrainian leader said in a nightly address. Even the former oligarch did not escape.”A former deputy speaker of Ukraine’s Parliament, a presidential adviser and a negotiator in prisoner exchanges with Russia, Mr. Medvedchuk was a polarizing figure in Ukraine who championed a closer relationship with Moscow. His two-decade friendship with Mr. Putin is well documented. The Russian president visited Mr. Medvedchuk’s lavish Crimea residence in 2012, and an official Kremlin photograph showed Mr. Medvedchuk with Mr. Putin at a martial arts tournament in 2013.Mr. Medvedchuk’s influence was such that his name emerged in the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He was a client of Republican political consultant Paul J. Manafort, who advised pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians before becoming chairman of Donald J. Trump’s election campaign.At the time, Ukrainian authorities released entries from an accounting document showing that Mr. Manafort had received $12.7 million from pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. In the middle of the investigation into Russian meddling in 2017, Reuters reported that the F.B.I. was examining phone calls and text messages between people close to Mr. Trump and people with ties to Mr. Putin, including Mr. Medvedchuk.Mr. Medvedchuk has denied wrongdoing, saying Mr. Manafort only advised his political party on electoral strategy.His transfer to Russia is likely to mean he will not stand trial on charges that he faces in Ukraine, or be interviewed by investigators from other countries looking into Russian influence peddling.Mr. Zelensky’s adviser, Andriy Yermak, said in a statement that it was a worthwhile trade and that Mr. Medvedchuk “had already given all the testimony he could.” More

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      Putin Raises Stakes in the War, With Direct Challenge to the West

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      The Russian leader announced a call-up of troops and hinted at using nuclear weapons, accusing the West of trying to “destroy our country” and vowing that Russia would defend itself.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accelerated his war effort in Ukraine on Wednesday, announcing a call-up of roughly 300,000 reservists to the military, while also directly challenging the West over its support for Ukraine with a veiled threat of using nuclear weapons.In a rare address to the nation, Mr. Putin said he was prepared to declare four Ukrainian regions to be part of Russia as early as next week, even though some of that territory is still controlled by Ukrainian forces. And he framed the war he launched seven months ago in existential terms for Russia, insisting that the nation was merely defending itself against a mortal threat to its “sovereignty” and that the West was seeking to “weaken, divide and ultimately destroy our country.”“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people,” he said. “This is not a bluff.”Taken together, Mr. Putin’s speech laid out the Kremlin’s strategy of continuing to raise the stakes in the war, despite the humiliating setbacks Russia’s military has suffered on the battlefield and a potential public backlash in Russia. Protests against the mobilization and arrests were reported in dozens of cities.The address also suggested that even as Mr. Putin was mobilizing more troops, his broader aim was to startle the United States and its European allies into dropping their support for Ukraine or compelling President Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate a peace deal that is acceptable to Moscow.A photograph released by Russian state media on Tuesday shows President Vladimir V. Putin speaking at a meeting on Wednesday.Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik“You get the feeling now that he might do anything, and this is his strategic potential,” Gleb O. Pavlovsky, a Moscow political analyst and a former adviser to Mr. Putin, said in a phone interview. “He is using this strategic potential because he has no other.”Russian occupation authorities in four Ukrainian regions declared on Tuesday that they would stage referendums on annexation by Russia, laying the groundwork for Mr. Putin’s escalation. In his speech on Wednesday, he said he would support the results, likely redefining the territory as part of Russia, while justifying the mobilization as a matter of self-defense.But if Mr. Putin’s aim was to change the terms of the war so profoundly as to shake Ukraine and its allies, there was no immediate evidence that it was working.In Kyiv, Mr. Zelensky told a German newspaper in response to Mr. Putin’s speech that the Russian president wanted to “drown Ukraine in blood” and that he would only negotiate “if they leave our territories.” Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, said in an interview with The New York Times that the situation was “dangerous,” but that Russia’s status as a nuclear power would not “change what we are doing.”At the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, President Biden insisted that “we will stand in solidarity to Russia’s aggression,” and said Mr. Putin was making “irresponsible nuclear threats.’’ He added later, “This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state.”In Russia, the announcement of a major call-up thrust the Kremlin into uncharted political terrain. Until now, the government has sought to assure regular Russians that they could go on living their lives, referring to the war as only a “special military operation” and insisting that no one would be forced to fight in Ukraine against his will.But this month’s stunning counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces, in which Kyiv retook more than one thousand square miles of territory, appeared to change that calculus. Mr. Putin suddenly appeared on the back foot, under fire from even some of his supporters on national television who claimed that he was not waging war decisively enough. And the fact that Russia lacked sufficient combat personnel in Ukraine to make gains or even to hold territory — as Western analysts and officials have asserted for months — became unmistakable.The city of Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, is on the front line in the war with Russia. Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesIn response, Mr. Putin declared for the first time on Wednesday that Russian civilians could be pressed into service in Ukraine. Apparently keen to avoid a public backlash, the Russian leader insisted that the new draft was only a “partial mobilization” and that only men with military experience would receive orders to report for duty.Mr. Putin said that Russia’s goals in Ukraine had not changed and that the move was “necessary and urgent” because the West had “crossed all lines” by providing sophisticated weapons to Ukraine.In subsequent remarks, Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, put the number of potential new call-ups at 300,000 people. He said that university students would not be subject to the draft, and that young conscripts serving the one year of military service that is required in Russia would not be sent to the front lines.But the official order declaring the call-ups was far more vague, leaving open the possibility that the government could later broaden the draft.In Russia, news of the call-up spurred protests across the country; more than 1,200 from 38 cities were detained, according to OVD-Info, a human rights watchdog that monitors police activity. In Moscow, hundreds of protesters gathered on the Old Arbat, a pedestrian street in the city center, screaming “Send Putin to the trenches!” and “Let our children live!”Some Russians rushed to purchase plane tickets out of the country, and the Telegram messaging app was filled with messages about the border situation and possible ways to get out of the country.Vasiliy Horkaviy, center, and his father Alexey Horkaviy, left, in an evacuation vehicle taking them from Kupiansk, Ukraine, on Wednesday.Nicole Tung for The New York TimesThe responses underscored the risks being taken by Mr. Putin as he pushed to escalate a war that has caused heavy Russian casualties and is increasingly violating his unspoken deal with the public: that Russians stay out of politics and the Kremlin lets them live their lives. Mr. Putin has successfully clamped down on dissent since starting the war, with new censorship laws and a spate of arrests, but analysts said that the main reason he long avoided declaring a draft was his fear of public backlash.“This is crossing a red line,” Mr. Pavlovsky, the former Putin adviser, said, referring to Wednesday’s mobilization order. “It will violate, in a sense, the contract with the Putin majority.”Military analysts said the draft would not have immediate consequences on the battlefield because it would take weeks, if not months, for Russia to mobilize, train and equip additional combat-ready troops. Still, the move could begin to address Russia’s manpower shortages, in part because it would prohibit existing contract soldiers from quitting, said Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at the CNA defense research institute in Arlington, Va.Mr. Putin this week has also sought to retake the initiative by setting the stage for claiming sovereignty over more territory in Ukraine. Russian occupation authorities in Ukraine said they would hold five-day, snap “referendums” starting Friday on joining Russia, a likely prelude to annexation.“Russia can’t give up on people living close by to be torn apart by executioners and fail to respond to their desire to determine their own fate,” Mr. Putin said, referring to Ukrainians in occupied territory, even as reports continue to emerge of torture and killings by Russian occupying forces.Pro-Kremlin analysts and officials have said that after annexation, Moscow could claim that any further Ukrainian military action on those territories was an attack on Russia itself, providing Mr. Putin with a justification for retaliation. He did not explicitly threaten a nuclear response, but warned that he was ready to use all of the weapons in Russia’s arsenal to protect what the Kremlin considered Russian territory.“An attack on the people and territories will be an attack on Russia,” a senior Russian lawmaker, Konstantin I. Kosachev, posted on social media, warning the West to “stop playing military games with a nuclear state.”Western officials have condemned the planned referendums as “sham’’ votes, and Ukrainian officials have described them as a red line after which negotiation with Russia would be impossible.But there remained some signals that Mr. Putin was open to a negotiated exit from the war.Hours after his speech, officials in Kyiv announced that Russia had released 215 Ukrainians in a prisoner of war exchange, including the top two commanders of the Azov Battalion and more than 100 other troops who were involved in the last-ditch defense of Mariupol before it fell to the Russians in May — fighters who are regarded in Ukraine as national heroes. Saudi Arabia made its own announcement about an exchange that secured the release of 10 prisoners held by Russia, including U.S. and British citizens.Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research organization close to the Russian government, said in a phone interview that he did not expect Mr. Putin to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine as long as NATO did not directly attack Russia. Doing so would offer no significant battlefield advantage over conventional weapons, he said, while “the political risks associated with this are very high.”Mr. Kortunov said that Mr. Putin’s goal was now pressuring the West, rather than Ukraine, to agree to some kind of peace deal.“This means that there is no hope for political dialogue with Kyiv,” Mr. Kortunov said of Mr. Putin’s apparent plans for annexing more of Ukraine. “If there is any dialogue, it will be with the West, not with Kyiv.”Ukrainian military vehicles in Bakhmut on Wednesday.Tyler Hicks/The New York Times More