Russia began detailing on Friday the rules for its partial deployment aimed at providing 300,000 reservists to serve in the Ukrainian War. Amid the great dissatisfaction registered with the measure, based on the information available, the Kremlin decided to spare some particularly influential categories in the middle class.
Information technology workers, bankers and journalists will initially be spared, but companies in these fields have been told to provide lists of their professionals for the Ministry of Defense to scrutinize.
In the newsroom of a large Russian state agency, according to a professional who requested anonymity, the feeling is one of great anxiety — as if no one knew anything, in his words. In order to be summoned, the citizen theoretically needs to receive a letter in the hands of a police or military authority, although this does not seem to be the case across the country.
The exceptions, in a way, aim at categories that can reverberate the unpopularity that is expected of the measure, especially in large urban centers, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg. It is possible to speculate that journalists are also not welcome on the front, given that they can always divulge information that is not of interest to the Kremlin.
The mobilization was decreed on Wednesday (21) by Valdimir Putin, seeking to solve the main problem of his campaign in the neighboring country, which he invaded in February. Troop shortages are central to the failure of the initial offensive, marked by tactical errors as well, and the loss of occupied areas in Kharkiv (northeast of the country) this month.
There have since been reports of what would be an exodus from Russia in the Western media. There are some lines at the borders of neighboring countries, such as Finland and Georgia, and some international air tickets, already scarce given the isolation imposed on Moscow, have multiplied in price.
Even given the size of Russia, the largest nation in the world, it is still not possible to establish the diagnosis of a mass flight or something like that, not least because of the lack of financial conditions of the majority of the population.
In Finland, which according to news agencies is studying to prevent the entry of most of those departing from the neighbourhood, there were about 6,000 Russians between Thursday and Friday – double the number seen in the previous week, according to border guards.
According to what Admiral Vladimir Tsimlianski, in charge of informing the details of the mobilization, said, the priority remains to summon people with some combat experience. Soldiers and sergeants, up to 35 years old; junior officers, up to 50; and senior officers, up to 55 years.
People with four or more dependents under the age of 16, those who care for vulnerable family members, who are the equivalent of breadwinners in Brazil, veterans who are no longer reservists and Russians who live abroad and are not registered are also exempt from the call. in military sections in the country of origin.
The ministry denies that there will be quotas by federal entities, but images on the internet show different realities across the country – similar to the mortality recorded among troops already deployed in Ukraine, according to official data.
In Siberian Buryatia, the place with the most proportional deaths so far, videos and reports show young people being taken by authorities to recruitment posts. In Donetsk, an occupied region in Ukraine undergoing a referendum to be annexed to the Kremlin, a soldier tells a voter that “now the game is over, you are a soldier”, linking the vote to military membership.
On the other hand, Chechnya leader Ramzan Kadyrov said he would leave his republic out of the mobilization because “it has already exceeded its recruitment plan before the announcement of the mobilization”.
This is true, given that perhaps 20,000 Chechens have already taken part in fighting in Ukraine in the seven months of the war. But it also signals dissatisfaction: a close ally of Putin, Kadirov harshly criticized an exchange of 55 Russian prisoners for more than 250 Ukrainians that took place on Thursday (22).
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