Since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced yesterday the partial mobilization of additional troops to fight in Ukraine, chaos reigns in Russia. As we discussed yesterday in this article, up to 300,000 reservists will be called up to reinforce the front, which has suffered setbacks in Ukrainian territory in recent weeks. And of course, after the announcement, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in different Russian cities, ending the night with more than 1,000 detainees.
At this limit point, thousands of Russians have stopped protesting and are already considering leaving the country to avoid being sent to war.
flee the country. Although Putin has said the decree is aimed at trained and experienced reservists and will not affect students and newly recruited soldiers, the rules about who is exempt or not are rather unclear. Cases are already being shared on social networks of people who receive call notices and shouldn’t. As a result, many are already trying to escape out of fear that the borders will close or that Putin will announce a larger convocation anytime soon.
Air tickets sold out. The phenomenon is palpable on airline websites, where airline tickets to destinations where Russians are not required to have a visa have been sold out or prices are unaffordable. Direct flights from Moscow to Istanbul in Turkey and Yerevan in Armenia are already sold out, according to data from Aviasales. Some routes with stopovers, including those from Moscow to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, are also not available, while the cheapest flights to Dubai cost almost 5,000 euros. The route to Serbia is just as collapsed.
Not one flight available between Moscow and Istanbul in all of September and October. And those of November cost 5,000 euros. pic.twitter.com/zIebiklru1
– Alfredo Pascual (@Guyb) September 21, 2022
Looking for ways to escape. Google searches for “how to get out of Russia” skyrocketed as soon as Putin announced the mobilization. Searches on “how to break an arm at home”, “flat feet” or “How many children do you need to not go to the army?” have also increased. Telegram has also filled with channels of people determined to leave Russia asking for advice or reports on closed land borders, where people learn that people have already been turned away at the border with Georgia and that the Russian state railway website has gone down because too many people want to buy tickets.
Penalties for desertion toughen. Russian lawmakers this week even passed a law to toughen punishments for desertion and surrender. Under the amendments approved by the State Duma, there will be a 10-year prison sentence for desertion, failure to report for military service or surrender. Looting will be punished with 15 years and the destruction of weapons carries a sentence of five years.
Can you guys go? Neither President Vladimir Putin in his speech nor Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said anything about whether men subject to partial mobilization would be barred from leaving Russia. But the presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has said that he cannot yet answer the question of whether the borders will be closed to those who are called up. Another clue is that they have advised people who could be summoned “not to travel to resorts in Turkey” and instead spend their vacations in “resorts in Crimea or in the Krasnodar region (southern Russia)”.
Not all of Europe will accept them. “The refusal to fulfill one’s civic duty in Russia does not constitute a sufficient reason for being granted asylum in another country,” explained the Estonian foreign minister. For security reasons, Latvia will also not issue humanitarian visas to Russians who avoid mobilization. And Lithuania says it has neither the purpose nor the ability to issue humanitarian visas to all Russian citizens who request them.
For its part, Finland, which has the largest border in the EU with Russia, does not completely close its doors, although it explains that Putin’s mobilization will give rise to a tougher policy throughout the EU on Russian visas. And in Poland, a diplomat gave the following indication: “That those who flee go to France, Spain or Italy, that they obtain political asylum there. The Baltic states and Poland do not have to do it.”