Moscow offers debt forgiveness to new recruits and AP sees wreckage of a new Russian missile

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law granting debt forgiveness to new army recruits who enlist to fight in Ukraine.

The measure, whose final version appeared on a government website Saturday, underscores Russia’s needs for military personnel in the nearly 3-year-old war, even as it fired last week a new intermediate-range ballistic missile.

According to Russian state news agency Interfax, the new legislation allows those signing up for a one-year contract to write off bad debts of up to 10 million rubles ($96,000). The law applies to debts for which a court order for collection was issued and enforcement proceedings had commenced before Dec. 1, 2024. It also applies to the spouses of new recruits.

Russia has ramped up military recruitment by offering increasing financial incentives, in some cases several times the average salary, to those willing to fight in Ukraine.

The strategy has allowed the military to boost its ranks in the conflict zone while avoiding another mobilization order. A “partial mobilization” in September 2022 sparked an exodus of tens of thousands of Russian men, who fled the country to avoid enlistment.

The intense and drawn-out war has strained Russian resources. Putin in September called for the military to increase its troops by 180,000.

The U.S., South Korea and Ukraine say North Korea sent more than 10,000 troops to Russia in October, some of whom have recently begun engaging in combat on the front lines, piling more pressure on Ukraine’s also weary and overstretched army.

The push for recruits coincides with a new intermediate-range ballistic missile the Kremlin fired at Ukraine on Thursday. Putin said it was in response to Kyiv’s use of American and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russia.

Ukraine’s Security Service showed The Associated Press on Sunday wreckage of the new experimental ballistic missile, which struck a factory in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

The fragments of the missile called Oreshnik – Russian for hazel tree, and which the Pentagon said is based on Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile – have not been analyzed yet, according to security officials on site in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. The AP and other media were able to see the fragments before they were taken by investigators.

Charred, mangled wires and an ashy airframe the size of a large snow tire was all that remained of the weapon, which can carry either conventional or nuclear warheads.

“It should be noted that this is the first time that the remains of such a missile have been discovered on the territory of Ukraine," said an expert with Ukraine’s Security Service, who identified himself only by his first name Oleh because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue with the media.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the missile was fired from the 4th Missile Test Range, Kapustin Yar, in Russia’s Astrakhan region and flew for 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. The missile had six warheads, each carrying six submunitions. The peak speed was 11 Mach.

Meanwhile, Moscow sent 73 drones into Ukraine overnight into Sunday. According to Ukraine’s air force, 50 drones were destroyed and four lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russian forces over the past week had struck Ukraine with more than 800 guided aerial bombs, about 460 attack drones and more than 20 missiles.

In Russia, the Defense Ministry said that 34 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight into Sunday in four regions of western Russia, including Kursk, Lipetsk, Belgorod and one over the Oryol region.

A journalist looks on fragments of a rocket which struck Dnipro on November 21, at a center for forensic analysis in undisclosed location, Ukraine, Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A journalist walks in front of fragments of a rocket which struck Dnipro on November 21, at a center for forensic analysis in undisclosed location, Ukraine, Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Fragments of a rocket which struck Dnipro on November 21 are seen at a center for forensic analysis in undisclosed location, Ukraine, Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Fragments of a rocket which struck Dnipro on November 21 are seen at a center for forensic analysis in undisclosed location, Ukraine, Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Fragments of a rocket which struck Dnipro on November 21 are seen at a center for forensic analysis in undisclosed location, Ukraine, Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Fragments of a rocket which struck Dnipro on November 21 are seen at a center for forensic analysis in undisclosed location, Ukraine, Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Journalists film fragments of a rocket which struck Dnipro on November 21, at a center for forensic analysis in undisclosed location, Ukraine, Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Fragments of a rocket which struck Dnipro on November 21 are seen at a center for forensic analysis in undisclosed location, Ukraine, Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguayans went to the polls Sunday for a second round of voting to choose their next president, with the conservative governing party and the left-leaning coalition locked in a close runoff after failing to win an outright majority in last month's vote.

The election has turned into a hard-fought race between Álvaro Delgado, the incumbent party's candidate, and Yamandú Orsi from the Broad Front, a coalition of leftist and center-left parties that governed for 15 years until the 2019 victory of center-right President Luis Lacalle Pou. It oversaw the legalization of abortion, same-sex marriage and the sale of marijuana in the small South American nation.

Orsi's Broad Front took 44% of the vote while Delgado's National Party won just 27% in the first round of voting Oct. 27. But the other conservative parties that make up the government coalition — in particular, the Colorado Party — notched 20% of the vote collectively, enough to give Delgado an edge over his challenger this time around.

Congress ended up evenly split in the October vote. Most polls have shown a virtual tie between Delgado and Orsi, with nearly 10% of Uruguayan voters undecided even at this late stage.

Analysts say the candidates' lackluster campaigns and broad consensus on key issues have helped generate extraordinary voter indecision and apathy in an election dominated by discussions about taxes and social spending but largely free of the anti-establishment rage that has vaulted populist outsiders to power elsewhere.

“The question of whether Frente Amplio (the Broad Front) raises taxes is not an existential question, unlike what we saw in the U.S. with Trump and Kamala framing each other as threats to democracy," said Nicolás Saldías, a Latin America and Caribbean senior analyst for the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit. “That doesn't exist in Uruguay.”

Both candidates are also appealing to voter angst over a surge in violent crime that has shaken a nation long regarded as one of the region’s most safe and stable.

Delgado, 55, a rural veterinarian with a long career in the National Party, campaigned on a vow to continue the legacy of current President Lacalle Pou — in some ways making the election into a referendum on his leadership. He campaigned under the slogan “re-elect a good government."

While a string of corruption scandals briefly tainted Lacalle Pou's government last year, the president — who constitutionally cannot run for a second consecutive term — now enjoys high approval ratings and a strong economy expected to grow 3.2% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Delgado served most recently as Secretary of the Presidency for Lacalle Pou and promises to press on with his predecessor's pro-business, market-friendly policies. His coalition would likely continue pursuing a prospective trade deal with China that has raised hackles in Mercosur, an alliance of South American countries that promotes regional commerce.

Orsi, 57, a former history teacher and two-time mayor from a working-class background, is widely seen as an heir to iconic former President José “Pepe” Mujica, a former Marxist guerilla who boosted Uruguay's profile as one of the region's most socially liberal and environmentally sustainable nations during his 2010-2015 term.

“He was born from ordinary workers," Mujica said in a closing campaign ad for Orsi. “He represents, precisely, the average type of what Uruguay is.”

Promising to forge a “new left” in Uruguay, Orsi has proposed tax incentives to lure investment and industrial policy to boost Uruguay’s critical agricultural sector.

He has also floated social security reforms that would buck the demographic trend in lowering the retirement age but fall short of a radical overhaul sought by Uruguay's unions.

The contentious plebiscite on whether to boost pension payouts failed to pass in October, with Uruguayans rejecting generous pensions in favor of fiscal constraint.

Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Villa Tunari, Bolivia, contributed to this report.

A ray of light illuminates a poster of Frente Amplio presidential candidate Yamandu Orsi on a street wall covered in ads ahead of the presidential run-off election in Montevideo, Uruguay, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A poster of Alvaro Delgado, presidential candidate for the ruling National Party, covers a building ahead of the presidential run-off election in Montevideo, Uruguay, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Supporters of Alvaro Delgado, presidential candidate for the ruling National Party, attend his closing rally ahead of the presidential run-off election in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Santiago Mazzarovich)

Alvaro Delgado, presidential candidate for the ruling National Party, holds his closing rally ahead of the presidential run-off election in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Santiago Mazzarovich)

Children hold up masks of Frente Amplio presidential candidate Yamandu Orsi as they wait for the start of his closing rally ahead of the presidential run-off election in Las Piedras, Uruguay, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

Frente Amplio presidential candidate Yamandu Orsi holds his closing rally ahead of the presidential run-off election in Las Piedras, Uruguay, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

Supporters of Broad Front coalition presidential candidate Yamandu Orsi campaign one day ahead of the presidential run-off election, in Montevideo, Uruguay, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

FILE - This photo combo shows presidential frontrunner Yamandu Orsi, left, of the Broad Front coalition, on Oct. 22, 2024, and opponent, National Party candidate Alvaro Delgado, on Nov. 20, 2024, both in Montevideo, Uruguay. (AP Photo Matilde Campodonico, left; and AP Photo Santiago Mazzarovich, File)