More Russians flee than join Putin’s army after war call-up

Bloomberg

Far more Russians have fled abroad than have enlisted in the military since President Vladimir Putin announced a mobilization to bolster his faltering invasion of Ukraine.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said more than 200,000 people have been conscripted into the army since Putin’s Sept. 21 order for a partial call-up, Russian news services reported Tuesday.
That matches an exodus of more than 200,000 Russians to neighboring Kazakhstan alone over the same period reported Tuesday by the central Asian country’s interior minister. Almost 69,000 Russians crossed into Georgia by Sept. 30, according to Interior Ministry data in the Caucasus republic, where vast lines of vehicles built up at the land border with Russia following the mobilization announcement.
The European Union reported last week that 66,000 Russians had entered the bloc in the week to Sept. 25. Most came through Finland which heavily restricted Russian tourist arrivals on Friday in response to the surge in entrants.
In Mongolia, which this week offered to ease residency rules for people from Russia, border officials reported that more than 12,000 Russians entered the country by October 2.
Other popular destinations such as Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Russians can enter visa-free, haven’t disclosed data on arrivals since Putin’s mobilization order shocked the country and brought home the reality of the war in Ukraine that’s now in its eighth month.
While not everyone who’s left Russia since Putin’s mobilization order would have been eligible for conscription, many rushed to get out of the country amid widespread uncertainty about the terms of the call-up. After Shoigu said 300,000 reservists were being mobilized, reports piled up of men being drafted who were officially exempt, including those who were too old or had chronic illnesses.
Social media also filled with complaints from some conscripts about dire living conditions and a lack of training and equipment before being sent to the front. That all prompted a demand from Putin to “promptly correct our mistakes and not repeat them” at a meeting with his Security Council on Sept. 29. “Those who have been drafted without proper grounds must be sent home,” he said.

Putin Foe Navalny Revives Protest Movement
Top aides to jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny said they’re restarting a national protest movement to capitalize on growing discontent over the war in Ukraine.
“It’s a unique situation which hasn’t existed for the last few years,” said Ivan Zhdanov, a Navalny lieutenant, in a video posted on YouTube on Tuesday. “The sleeping majority woke up. Putin woke it up himself.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision last month to call up at least 300,000 reservists to fight in his struggling invasion of Ukraine, now in its eighth month, alarmed the population, according to opinion polls. It prompted a rush by Russian draft-age men to flee the country.
The government banned Navalny’s organizations last year as “extremist” amid an unprecedented crackdown that has accelerated since Putin invaded Ukraine in February. The new network will be underground because of the heightened risks of repression, his allies said.
The opposition leader, who survived a poisoning in August 2020 that he and Western governments blamed on the Kremlin, is serving a 9-year sentence after being convicted of fraud and contempt of court. Russian officials denied any role in the attack.