The European Union needs to demonstrate “openness towards those who do not want to be instrumentalized by the Kremlin”, said the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, in an interview with the online publication Politico on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Charles Michel at the UNPhoto: Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Profimedia

Days after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the immediate mobilization of 300,000 reservists, reports of Russians fleeing the country to avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine are mounting.

“The European Union (should) welcome those who are in danger because of their political views. If people in Russia are in danger because of their political views because they don’t obey this crazy decision by the Kremlin to start this war in Ukraine, then we have to take that into account,” Charles Michel told Politico. News.ro.

The President of the European Council believes that EU member states need to “cooperate and coordinate very quickly, because this is a new fact – this partial mobilization.”

Read also:

  • Poland declares that it will not grant asylum to Russians fleeing mobilization
  • The Czech Republic will refuse visas to Russian defectors
  • Finland will close its borders to Russians
  • Germany insists: “Russians should leave open the way to Europe, as well as to Germany”

The mobilization announced by Putin comes in a context in which the Kremlin is monitoring the advance of the Ukrainian army, which, with the help of weapons provided by the West, announced new territorial grabs on Friday.

An important organizational challenge is the mobilization of reservists. This requires calling up reservists in this vast country, equipping them, sending them to training centers, and then to the front.

However, the Russian military intervention in Ukraine revealed significant logistical difficulties, and a number of analysts point to these shortcomings as one of the reasons for the difficulties faced by Russian forces from the beginning of the invasion until the end of February.

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