Reports are prompting concerns that Russia may from Wednesday seal its border, after Putin announced a military draft
Public criticism of Putin’s “special military operation”—as his Feb. 24 full-scale invasion of Ukraine is termed officially—is banned in Russia, but the visceral public reaction to the mobilization order has sparked the first sustained protests locally since the war began. Over 3,000 people have been arrested in recent days, according to monitoring groups. On social media, videos have showed protesters chanting “” in several Russian cities.
“There is potential for the mobilization orders to be expanded further,” Alex Lord, senior Eurasia analyst specializing in security and politics of the former Soviet Union at the Sibylline global strategic risk advisory firm, tells TIME. “What we’re seeing now is likely to be just the first phase, so there’s potential for further backlash moving forward as well.
Although Russian state television has shown crowds of eager men lining up to enlist, the chaos of the mobilization order has alsofrom pro-Kremlin figures. Some commentators have said that draft officers who call up the wrong people should be sent to the front to fight themselves. Lord says this is part of a new effort by the Kremlin to pin blame on Russia’s failure on Russia’s Defense Ministry, with Deputy Minister Dmitry Bulgakovlast week. However, the issuing of draft papers to students, the infirm, and people with little combat experience, Lord adds, was likely a direct result of Kremlin quotas that local commissars were scrambling to fulfill.
Chechnya leader and staunch Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov—who has prominently mobilized his people to volunteer for Russia in Ukraine—even felt it necessary to clarify that the mobilization orderMeanwhile, enlistment offices and other administrative buildings have been torched by Molotov cocktails since Putin’s order. Independent media outlets noted at least 17 such incidents in recent days,
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