Panicking Putin plotting to mobilise half-a-million fighters in weeks as WW3 fears soar

 Vladimir Putin is plotting to mobilise half a million new fighters within weeks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned. The aim would reportedly not only be to boost his fighting force against Kyiv, but also to scare Europe's NATO members over a looming wider war.

"To show that I am mobilising half a million people in the autumn - and there is no guarantee that I will use these half a million only in Ukraine," he quoted Putin as saying. Zelensky claims to have intelligence on the Kremlin dictator's plans involving a massive stealth mobilisation to send a chill of a World War 3 immediately after Russia holds parliamentary elections on September 18-20.

"He is thinking about how to deceive his people," said the Ukrainian president. "He will carry out a mass mobilisation without officially declaring it."

Men will be fooled into signing "shady contracts" for safe work away from the frontline - then sent direct to his meat grinder units, he claimed.

Those of military age will be stopped from travelling abroad as Putin acts to "block the borders", preventing them escaping, Zelensky also claimed.

The Ukrainian president said: "We are already seeing many of these steps."

The aim of the mass mobilisation would be to exert psychological pressure on European countries.

Zelensky implied the fear of WW3 was intended to stop them backing Ukraine to lessen the risk of a major escalation in the conflict.

Zelensky told a United News telethon: "He needs to sell a victory. But there will be no victory for him in Ukraine. He needs to seize the Donbas region. We are not going to withdraw on our own."

As well as mobilising half a million Russians, Putin was drafting in up to 50,000 North Korean fighters, Zelensky said.

In savage overnight missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian civilians, Russia blew apart an apartment building in Kharkiv, where at least two died with 13 injured.

"There are people trapped in the building, and a rescue operation has been launched at the scene," said mayor Ihor Terekhov.