Scenes of drunken insubordination and brawling by those being conscripted into the Ukrainian meatgrinder continue to emerge as Vladimir Putin’s chaotic conscription of the Russian male population continues.
Thousands of Russian people have received call-up orders, suggesting that only days after Putin’s brutal war in the Donbass was purportedly partially mobilised, the desperate inhabitants of Russia are now realising just how brutal it is.
Videos show reluctant conscripts pounding the bottle and drinking themselves silly at recruiting offices and staging areas as military officers attempt to corral them before boarding buses and aeroplanes.
When it comes to leaving Putin’s totalitarian nightmare, flights out of Russia are sold out, and the lines at border crossings into neighbouring Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan may last up to 30 hours.
While it is forbidden to walk to the border crossing, scooters are still legal, and local business owners are selling them to Russians trying to escape Putin’s call-up.
The city of Vladikavkaz, which is close to the Georgian border, has also been the target of Russian police attempts to obstruct entry, although 99 percent of Russians using the crossing so far have been permitted into the former Soviet republic.
One deserter said, “The border is a nightmare. Without a bike or scooter, there is nothing to do there except wait.
Several movies show Russian recruits becoming wasted as they get ready to fly out for two weeks of basic training before being sent to the front lines, in what is quickly emerging as a popular subgenre of Russian combat vids.
A Russian conscript is shown passing out on the grass next to a runway in one video as others rush to catch the aircraft, while in another, a drunken gang tries to fight as the bus waits for them.
Keep your lips shut! Why are all of you shouting? In still another video, a recruiting officer sobs at the new recruits.
Answer: “Why are YOU yelling?”
Another recruit commands, “Stop shouting, let him talk.”
“This is it!” Game over! You’re all in the military now. The policeman yells.
Although the 300,000 additional soldiers to be raised by the partial mobilisation are only meant to be called up from among Russian males with military experience, the age distribution and sheer quantity of individuals suggest that a far bigger conscription may really take place.
According to a source in Vladimir Putin’s administration, a concealed seventh line in the martial mobilisation proclamation permits the Russian Ministry of Defense to mobilise one million people.
The draught is also believed to unfairly target non-Russians and Russian areas while avoiding middle-class population centres like Moscow and St. Petersburg, where the likelihood of organised resistance is much higher.
According to reports from distant Siberian villages and towns, students are being herded out of institutions to enlist, and men — often in their middle years — are being awakened in the middle of the night to get draught notices.
In an effort to “guarantee the operation of particular high-tech companies, as well as Russia’s financial system,” Russia did state on Friday that it was exempting some bankers, IT professionals, and journalists from being recruited into the army.
According to a statement from the central bank, “Employees who are engaged in critical areas will remain in their positions so the financial system can continue to operate smoothly, people can receive their wages, pensions, and social benefits on time, card payments and transfers work, and new loans can be issued.”
Putin’s mobilisation order, which came after weeks of rumour about how Russia would react to a war now approaching its seventh month in which Kyiv and the West claim Russia has suffered tens of thousands of deaths, seems to have taken many Russian enterprises off surprise.
We are currently investigating it. A source at a significant non-state corporation told Reuters on Friday, immediately after the military ministry’s declaration, that they were “trying to understand how this would operate.”
Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya and a steadfast Putin friend, was caught on camera promising his people they would not be called up for military service since they had already contributed to the conflict. Alexander Lukashenko, the tyrant of Belarus, who only two years ago had to suppress a sizable protest movement, has similarly declared that there would be no conscription there.
The mobilisation is in Russia; there won’t be one here, Lukashenko reportedly said, according to official media.
However, there are rumours that Russian males trying to cross the border into Belarus to avoid the mobilisation are being turned away.
As an extension of a previous policy forbidding visitors, the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are likewise refusing entry to Russians. The conflict is fiercely opposed by all three countries.
Finland, another war opponent, has said that it would investigate preventing Russians from entering after previously refusing to turn away visitors.
Four Russian MPs who support Vladimir Putin have reportedly enlisted in the reserves.
Hardliner From Donbas, United Russia party leader and father of six Vitaly Milonov, 48, wrote on social media: “Greetings to all you couch critics who are holed up and not watching their filthy language.
It is a man’s sacred duty to protect his country.
I am a State Duma representative and the father of several children, and I do not abstain. I want you to do military actions for the benefit of the Motherland.
“This is a terrific chance for you to show your worth.” There is a possibility. Men, go ahead.
Members of parliament Dmitry Sablin, 54, the deputy leader of the Combat Brotherhood veterans organisation, and Dmitry Khubezov, 50, a professor of medicine, are standing next to him at the front.
I’ll request the front’s riskiest portion, Khubezov said.
“If we don’t stop the Bandera guys there in Ukraine now, tomorrow they’ll come here,” said a Ukrainian military commander who fought with the Nazis against the Soviets. to each home.
“And I believe that those of my generation and older recall it exactly as they dealt with the civilian population.” Young folks who can not recall may consult history courses.
It occurs as Putin seeks to intensify his conflict in Ukraine, which has dragged on for seven months with nothing to show for Moscow’s efforts.
Voting is now taking place in phoney referendums that will almost certainly result in the annexation of four areas of Ukraine by Russia.
Despite the fact that nothing has changed on the ground, Putin will be able to convince his own supporters that any Ukrainian strikes on those regions are really attacks on Russia.
As a result, he has a wider range of choices for reacting, like as launching an all-out war, mobilising additional troops, or even using Russia’s nuclear weapons.
The governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said that Russian officials in the town of Starobilsk had forbade the populace from leaving the city until Tuesday and had dispatched armed groups to inspect houses and force people to leave so they could participate in the vote.
The greatest course of action right now for the inhabitants of Kherson would be to keep their doors closed, according to Yuriy Sobolevsky, the exiled first deputy chairman of the Kherson regional council from Ukraine.
The referendums have been denounced by the West and Ukraine as being fraudulent and a staged prelude to unlawful annexation. There won’t be any neutral observers, as the majority of the pre-war population has already left.
Election results won’t have any legal significance, according to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which oversees election monitoring, since they don’t follow Ukrainian legislation or international norms and the locations are unsafe.
According to Gaidai, a firm director in the Russian-controlled town of Bilovodsk instructed staff members that voting was required and that anybody who chose not to participate would be dismissed and have their identities sent to security authorities.
According to Kherson’s Sobolevsky, who spoke on the messaging app Telegram, “The atmosphere of the Russians is anxious because they were not ready to take out so rapidly this so-called referendum, there is no support, there is not enough people.”
The plebiscites were denounced by Gaidai as “elections without elections.” In order to prevent voting, he said that individuals were being forced to fill out “pieces of paper” in public places like kitchens and yards. He also claimed that towns were being closed off.
According to Russia, the referendums provide residents of the area a chance to voice their opinions.
According to Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, “from the very beginning of the operation… we stated that the peoples of the individual areas should determine their destiny, and the whole present scenario demonstrates that they wish to be masters of their fate.”
Ukraine asserts that it will fight against Russia until the last Russian soldier is expelled and that it will never allow Russian control of any of its land.
All permanent residents of Russian-controlled territories who are now in Russia will be allowed to vote in the town where they are living, according to Russian-installed officials in Kherson, upon presentation of the necessary papers.
According to Ukraine, Russia plans to use the referendum results as justification for annexation, just like how it annexed Crimea in 2014, a move that was not recognised by the international world.
Former president Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy chairman of the Kremlin’s national security council, hinted to the geopolitical reasoning for the conduct of the referendums by warning that Moscow would going forward see any assault on the four areas as an attack on Russia itself.
In a Telegram message on Thursday, Medvedev said that encroachment on Russian territory was a crime that entitled the perpetrator to use all means of self-defense, including strategic nuclear weapons.