In Putin’s Russia, fortunes can change rapidly. A week on from the partial mobilisation of the army, Russians are gripped by the fear that the closure of the country’s borders is next. Those who are not willing to risk death in Ukraine are looking for a way out.
In the six days since 21 September, when Putin announced his plan in a pre-recorded television address, protests have sprung up in at least 43 towns across the country; the human rights organisation OVD News has said that more than 2,300 people have been arrested for taking part.
According to the official terms of the Kremlin’s partial mobilisation, those with military experience aged between 18 and 35 are being called up first (those holding higher military ranks can be summoned up to the age of 65). The Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu said that the decree would affect no more than 300,000 individuals.
The more the Kremlin denies the possibility of something happening, the more likely it is to happen
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it appears the Russian public doesn’t want to take the Kremlin’s word for it. Almost immediately, Putin’s announcement began to trigger an exodus of Russians – predominantly groups of young men – from the country unwilling to wait around to be called up. Within hours of the announcement, tickets for flights to countries where Russians have visa-free travel, such as Turkey, Georgia and Armenia, sold out.
The choice by those fleeing not to believe the Kremlin’s dictat has been made with good reason. Many reports have surfaced of the Russian authorities playing fast and loose with the terms of the partial mobilisation order: both men above and boys below conscription age, with health conditions or no military experience have been drafted. Social media is awash with claims of conscription officers turning up to collect individuals in the middle of the night and issuing draft papers at the scene of traffic accidents. Like something out of a Kafka novel, even some of those protesting the war and the mobilisation order have, upon arrest, been issued with conscription orders.
With tickets for flights difficult to get hold of, streams of Russians are also attempting to cross the country’s borders by land. The queue to cross into Georgia at one stage, according to some reports, reached 10 miles. Thousands of desperate, sad people waiting their turn at the checkpoint. More than 115,000 have reportedly safely made it across; nearly 100,000 have crossed into Kazakhstan since Wednesday too.
Such high numbers fleeing Russia represents a huge drain of manpower from the country. According to a document leaked to the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, a secret clause allows for the Kremlin to call up as many as one million people. Given the heavy losses sustained by the Russian army in Ukraine, Putin will need all the recruits he can get. It is vital to the course of Putin’s war that he finds a way to stem the flow of those fleeing Russia.
Reports from Russia’s borders suggest that the state is already taking unofficial measures to restrict the movement of fighting-age men. On the Russian side of the Kazakh border, passport inspectors have reportedly started turning away eligible men. In a show of the degree of the Belarusian regime’s complicity, border guards at Minsk airport have been instructed to prevent Russian men from leaving the country.
On the Russo-Georgian border the situation is becoming more acute. TASS, the Russian state-owned news agency reported today that a pop-up mobilisation point had been set up to ensnare and enlist those ‘subject to conscription and wishing to leave the country’. More such ‘recruitment points’ are due to follow imminently at other border crossings.
So could Putin actually close the country’s borders? Yesterday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied that the government was discussing this as an option. But his denials carry little weight. Just two weeks ago, Peskov said that no form of mobilisation was being considered, only for it to be introduced a week later. The more the Kremlin denies the possibility of something happening, the more likely it is to happen.
The rush of people currently attempting to flee Russia demonstrates that people are certainly scared that Putin could soon close the borders and potentially even officially announce full mobilisation. The independent Russian outlet Meduza reported that this could happen as soon as tomorrow, once the staged referendums to annex Ukrainian territory to Russia have concluded.
Putin is due to give a speech to the Duma this Friday. The speculation is that he will announce the successful outcome of the Ukrainian referendums, but there is a possibility that, as in his speech last week, he will use it as an opportunity to announce developments in the country’s mobilisation efforts. The worse Putin does in the war with Ukraine, and the more civil unrest he faces at home, the more unpredictable his decisions are likely to become. That he will make it more difficult for Russians to escape his regime seems inevitable.
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