Putin’s partial mobilization is causing unrest and mass exodus in Russia. When two governors now announce a second wave of conscription, the Kremlin quickly calms down. Meanwhile, there are reports of massive recruitment in prisons and detention camps.
According to the Office of the President, there is no increased mobilization of reservists in Russia. “There is no new wave,” Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the press. In doing so, he was responding to reports from some regional authority officials that they were increasingly conscripting men with military experience. Peskov urged journalists to ask individual governors directly what they meant by increased conscription.
Representatives of two Russian regions said this week that they had received new mobilization orders. The Rostov governor said he had received a “new mobilization order”. The deputy governor of the Kursk region was quoted as saying that a “second” mobilization target had been obtained. This fueled fears that there might be a second wave of conscription. Tens of thousands of Russians have already fled abroad to avoid conscription.
According to the Defense Ministry, more than 200,000 reservists were drafted in the first few weeks after President Vladimir Putin announced partial mobilization. Putin did not name a specific number in his decree. According to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s proposal, 300,000 men with military experience should be called up to support the military operation in Ukraine.
At the same time, Russian media critical of the government and civil rights activists reported that the regular Russian army is now also recruiting new soldiers for the war in Ukraine in prisons and detention camps. “Since the end of September, the Ministry of Defense has started recruiting convicts,” the Internet portal Vashnye Istorii said. The Kremlin-critical medium reports on visits by the military to penal colonies in the Ryazan region near Moscow and in Stavropol in the North Caucasus. Generals would promise the prisoners their release after the action. The civil rights activists from Gulagu.net had previously reported on poaching attempts in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The “Wagner” mercenary group, financed by Putin’s confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been recruiting prisoners for use in Ukraine since the summer.
The government in Moscow did not say how many Russian soldiers were killed or injured in the war that Russia started on February 24. Russia continues to speak not of war, but of a special military operation.
