“I call on the people who are in reserve to come to the war commissariats. Today I have signed an order for a general mobilization,” Donetsk militia leader Donetsk Pusin said in a video message released on Saturday.
Luhansk militant leader Leonid Pasechnik has also signed an order for general mobilization.
Men aged 18 to 55 are not allowed to leave the part of the Luhansk region controlled by pro-Russian militants.
The administration can confiscate vehicles and other property “necessary for protection” for companies, institutions, organizations and citizens, Paschnik said.
Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said on Saturday they had seen a “dramatic increase” in ceasefire violations on the front line in eastern Ukraine.
The situation on the front between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed militant gangs in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions has become more volatile at a time when Russia is concentrating troops on Ukraine’s borders and plans to invade Ukraine.
According to pro-Russian militant leaders on Friday, part of the population in the eastern part of Ukraine’s Donbass region outside the control of Ukraine’s central government will be evacuated to Russia’s Rostov region due to rising tensions in the region.
It is planned to evacuate several hundred thousand inhabitants.
Washington estimates that Russia has pulled in about 130,000 troops from Ukraine’s borders. Despite this concentration of forces, Russia says it does not intend to attack Ukraine and accuses the West of causing panic.
The United States has expressed concern that Moscow intends to create an excuse to invade Ukraine.
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