The partial mobilization in Russia causes an exodus. Moscow is trying to send every available Russian to the front lines in Ukraine. Denial is almost impossible. Those who do not want to fight face long prison sentences.
They are supposed to film the Ukraine war for Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin: the Russian president wants to send an additional 300,000 Russians to the front. Unofficially, there are probably hundreds of thousands more: The Russian newspaper “Novaya Gazeta”, citing a source in the Russian presidential administration, even speaks of a million recruits that the Kremlin is targeting.
They are currently being drawn together from all over the country. Men from the annexed areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Cherson and Crimea are said to be fighting for Russia in Ukraine. So far, more than 222,000 recruits have been drafted, says Putin. 16,000 men are said to be already engaged in combat.
Many Russians don’t want to go to war. Hundreds of thousands of men are fleeing, by plane, train, car or even bicycle. Miles of queues form at the borders with neighboring countries.
But those who refuse military service and are caught risk their freedom. Shortly after the partial mobilization, Putin tightened the measures against conscientious objectors. Russians of draft age face up to 10 years in prison if they choose not to take part in combat operations. “You can’t appear, you can actively resist – there are gradations. And depending on that, the prison sentences are different,” says Sebastian Hoppe in the ntv podcast “Again we learned”. The political scientist is a research associate at the East European Institute at Freie Universität Berlin.
Conscientious objectors do not go straight to prison. You will first be warned, reports Hoppe. If the recruits do not respond to their call-up notice and do not show up at the recruiting office, they will initially be fined. There are also high formal hurdles: “This call-up order has to be handed over correctly, it has to come on time. The recruits have to have time to deal with it.”
Theoretically, in Russia it is possible to refuse military service. That is what Russian law provides for. Anyone who is ill or physically handicapped or who has to look after family members should not actually be drafted. Some people intentionally break their arms or legs as a result, reports Hoppe.
A few cases have already ended up in local courts. Conscripts had sued against their draft notice, says Hoppe. “Interestingly, it worked out partially in favor of the plaintiffs.” However, the political scientist estimates that these initial successes should be treated with caution, since the Kremlin is currently subordinating everything to war. “That will then be given a level higher. It is still open how the decision will be made.”
So if you can’t fight, you’re not automatically protected. Many reservists have already been called up, although they have chronic illnesses or are actually too old. In the Khabarovsk region in the far east of Russia, half of the several thousand conscripts have now returned. They had been drafted even though they weren’t really fit for military service. At the end of September, Putin himself spoke of mistakes made in the conscription that had to be “corrected”.
The background to this massive recruitment, including men who are actually unsuitable, are strong specifications from the Kremlin, reports Hoppe. For example, a certain number of people would have to be recruited from a district or a small town. “The Russian bureaucracy is structured in such a way that loyalty and meeting these requirements is paramount. Then these bureaucrats also have a high incentive to mobilize these people. If people then refuse, conflicts arise and you can’t count on them then have the law on their side.”
Men in selected professions, with contacts in the Kremlin or from large cities and metropolises are somewhat safer from being called up. “The big cities in Russia and above all Saint Petersburg and Moscow are left out,” observes Sebastian Hoppe. In St. Petersburg, only 0.27 percent of all reservists between the ages of 18 and 50 were called up, reports “Novaya Gazeta”, in Moscow 0.61 percent. In the poor Russian republic of Buryatia in Siberia, on the other hand, 3.19 percent have been confiscated so far.
It is similar in the north-eastern republic of Yakutia. There, almost 1.7 percent of conscript men are affected by forced conscription, almost twice as many as in Kursk in western Russia. In some villages it is said to have hit almost every sixth person. “It mainly affects poorer people who cannot afford to migrate,” says Hoppe. In addition, in regions with a high proportion of ethnic minorities, people are drawn in disproportionately.
That’s a trend in the Ukraine war: So far, Russia has mainly sent men from the south and far east of the country, from the poor regions and from villages and small towns, to the battlefield. This “shadow mobilization” of the past few months is now being continued with partial mobilization, Hoppe estimates in the podcast.
Ethnic minorities in Russia are not only sent to the front in a targeted manner, they can hardly escape conscription. Individual groups such as Chechens would be refused exit, reports ntv reporter Jürgen Weichert. “That may be because Chechen ruler Kadyrov says the Chechens will stay in the country and be used in the war against Ukraine.”
The Muslim minority of Crimean Tatars is also affected. According to Sebastian Hoppe, many of them received notifications that they would be called up. They live, among other things, on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea, which Russia has occupied for eight years.
Men are also being recruited in the four other Ukrainian regions that Russia annexed in early October: Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Cherson. “It is a war crime under international law to mobilize the civilian population in occupied territories and use them for acts of war,” explains Sebastian Hoppe. In some areas, the men’s mobile phones were taken away from them.
Anyone who makes it across the Russian border, to Georgia or Kazakhstan, for example, can stay there for a few months. There is initially no danger that they will be discovered as deserters and brought back. Nevertheless, the conscientious objectors did not feel safe, reports the Russia expert. “They distrust this peace and security and pay attention to whom they tell what, because they are afraid that the secret services will then selectively pay attention to them and they will be arrested in Turkey, for example, and transferred back to Russia.”
Anyone who is drafted will eventually end up on the Ukrainian front. Many of the new Russian recruits will die on the battlefield. Many military experts call them cannon fodder. The soldiers often have little experience on the battlefield and are poorly trained. Their last resort is often to defect or be captured.
