About 10,000 volunteers appeared to participate in Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine without waiting for draft documents issued after partial mobilization, Russian news agencies reported on Thursday with reference to the Russian General Staff, Reuters reports.
On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s first public mobilization since World War II. The country’s defense minister has said he intends to bring in 300,000 experienced specialists for Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, where it has recently suffered major setbacks.
However, a secret clause in the decree on partial mobilization, signed by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, allows one million people to be enrolled in the Ministry of Defense, Novaya Gazeta writes.
The Kremlin denies that Russian men are fleeing to avoid war
The Kremlin has dismissed reports of Russian men of working age fleeing after Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization as “exaggerated”.
However, in Russia, plane ticket prices have increased due to high demand and queues at the border.
Ticket sales data showed that flights from Moscow to the capitals of Georgia, Turkey and Armenia, all visa-free destinations for Russians, sold out within minutes of Putin’s announcement on Wednesday.
Small-scale protests erupted in 39 cities across Russia, with authorities arresting more than 1,000 people by Wednesday evening, who were attacked and mistreated by law enforcement even as people protested peacefully.
Some of the men detained by law enforcement officers were ordered to join the army at police stations.
During a regular briefing with journalists, the press secretary of the Kremlin, Dmytro Peskov, refused to refute the reports of the Russian mass media that some participants of the anti-mobilization actions, detained on Wednesday evening, received draft documents.
“It is not against the law,” he said.
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Source: Hot News RU
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