Mobilization is unfolding with high intensity from the very beginning. There are multiple videos of the departure of the first drafted recruits (some are not quite sober): Makhachkala, Sakhalin, Kolyma,Neryungri, Yuzhno-Kurilsk, Yakutia (Vitim village), Blagoveshchensk, Ussuriysk, V yshny Volochek. In Samara, enterprises like the Metallurg steel plant and the Kuibyshev refinery are supplying large numbers of conscripts.
The draft is accompanied by violations – people who are not subject to mobilization receive draft notices: a 63 year old retiree from the Volgograd region (released after the story hit the media), in Buryatia – fathers of large families, Pskov – a 41 year old factory employee who never served in the army.
At eh same time, information about persons subject to conscription remains contradictory: the head of Buryatia declares that those who didn’t serve in the army will not be drafted, while the head of the military commission of the Irkutsk region informs that partially fit individuals (category B) are subject to conscription if no category A candidates are available. He also announced that the region plans to complete the draft by early October.
The situation is similar regarding the ban on travel. In some places people subject to conscription are not allowed to leave the region, in others the ban only prohibits leaving the country. In some cases military commissars are modifying orders issued the day before easing the travel ban to the country level, rather than the region. Human rights activist Pavel Chikov describes the “mess of restrictions”.
Map of regions that permit/ban leaving (a more recent version).
Four deputies of the State Duma [Russia’s lower house of Parliament] announced their intention to join the army. The “Head” of the Crimea Sergei Aksyonov said that his son has been drafted.
Military enlistment offices continue to burn. In addition to the three from yesterday several more caught fire: Svobodny (Amur region), Khabarovsk, Tselinny (Altai region), Kamyshin, Kyra (Transbaikal).
In Moscow military commissars will be accompanied by the police. From the new news, we can conclude that door-to-door sweeps are conducted from 6 to 9 am and from 8 to 11 pm. We do not recommend opening the door during these hours. Moscow enlistment offices are now guarded.
Some museums in Moscow are availing their premises to the conscription efforts.
Moscow plans to draft 32 thousand people or about 1% of those subject to conscription, the Kursk region will provide 2.5-3 thousand, Kalmykia - 1 thousand, Yakutia - 4.75 thousand, Primorye – 7.5 thousand, Yamal – 900 people.
The independent TVRain channel reports on three waves of conscription: from September 26 to October 10, from October 11 to October 25 and from October 26 to November 10.
Just like yesterday, traffic jam on the borders with Kazakhstan, Mongolia,Georgia and Finland are reported. The latter made a Decision-in-Principle to restrict entry to Russian citizens.
The new pastime “Dialogues with commissars” takes place in not the most friendly atmosphere: Kabardino-Balkaria, Vladimir region.
Recruitment to the volunteer battalions of Tatarstan and St. Petersburg has been stopped.
– The video shows reasonable, sober and cultured (not really) mobilized Russian soldiers;
– Video of the mobilization in Dagestan. The recruiter states that the citizens of Dagestan must fight for the future. “We don’t even have a present, what future are you talking about?”, they reply;
– The video shows Patriarch Kirill (head of the Russian Orthodox Church) urging people not to be afraid of death while mobilized. “Go valiantly to do your duty to the military. And remember that if you were to die for your country, you will join God in his kingdom, glory and eternal life”;
– Video: no fewer than 4 buses with mobilized soldiers left Makhachkala (Dagestan);
– Mobilization in Dagestan. The video shows locals blocking a federal highway near the village of Babayurt;
– Video: mobilized Russians laugh and drink vodka;
– Pavel Chikov, a famous Russian lawyer and human rights advocate, says that he has become aware of numerous cases of males aged 40, 50 and even 60 receiving draft notices as of yesterday;
– Aleksandr Kots, а Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent, admits the Russian forces are facing manpower shortages, particularly among riflemen, drivers, and artillerymen in motorized infantry units. He says that he knows of brigades with just 60 infantrymen left;
– An activist from Yakutsk spoke of how recruits were moved by planes out of remote arctic villages. “The have sown panic and fear everywhere”;
– Opinion piece on mobilization from Mikhail Pozharsky, a Russian blogger. He believes that the Russian government broke its informal contract with the citizens, where they weren’t directly involved in wars and instead were able to follow them on TV much like sports (Georgian and Syrian conflicts come to mind). The consequences are now impossible to predict;
– A video dated September 22nd, described as “mobilization in Chechnya”, was geolocated. It was actually filmed near the Soloti railway station in the Belgorod region;
– Artem Drabkin, a pro-Russian “military historian” who supports the referendums in the occupied territories, complains of a “fool who issued a draft notice” to his eldest son, who never served in the military before;
– Head of the Internal Affairs Unit at Finnish Border Guard reports on the amount of people who crossed the country’s border as of September 23rd, 8:00 a.m.: “yesterday 6470 Russians entered Finland via the Finnish-Russian land border. 3227 exited. The number is typical of weekend traffic”;
– Video: brawl among the conscripts;
– Video: intoxicated conscripts on the territory of the Dolinsk-Sokol air base in the Sakhalin region;
– Video: Alexander Yermolayev , b.1959 (63 years old), a retired lieutenant colonel was drafted as part of the mobilization campaign. No medical examination took place, medical history includes diabetes and ischemia;
– A Russian student from the Republic of Buryatia published a video, in which alleged Russian security officials are leading students away to recruitment offices. This is about people mobilized for military duty.
– In a video, Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov says that there will be no military draft in Chechnya since they have already provided more than 254% of the required number of recruits.
– The pro-Russian “Povernutye na Z Voine” TG channel claimed that according to a Russian Ministry of Defense briefing, there is a secret, underground factory for the production of Su-25 jet aircraft somewhere in Ukraine and that today Russian forces shot down their 89th Su-25. The number of aircraft before the war was 49 (that number includes those aircraft mounted on pedestals as monuments).
– Video shows an argument aboard an airplane among inebriated newly mobilized draftees from Yakutia;
– Russian airline companies are preparing for the consequences of mobilization since sources in three companies say that 50-80% of their employees could potentially be mobilized. One source, close to the Aeroflot group, says that this could affect more than half of the company’s staff;
– Joke: Ivan, you are being mobilized for the war in Ukraine. - Oh, but I’m missing an arm and a leg. - Ivan, the president clearly stated that this is a partial mobilization!;
– Mobilization on the Kola Peninsula. The Barents Observer online newspaper has seen the first list of draftees consisting of 106 individuals from the PhosAgro company;
– Video of a rather awkward meeting between mobilized soldiers and their commanders (location unknown);
– A report with a link to Meduza, a Latvia-based independent news website, about the three stages of mobilization: September 26 - October 10, October 11 - 25, and October 26 - November 10;
– Video footage of a group of mobilized soldiers on Sakhalin Island;
– According to a Meduza source close to one of the federal ministries, “Russian authorities plan to conscript 1.2 million people as part of their “partial mobilization” plan”. They also plan to conscript up to 16,000 residents of Moscow;
– Video: A passenger bus carrying mobilized soldiers leaves for Ukraine. One of the women seeing them off says, “Don’t bother to cross yourself. They’re going to be killed anyway”;
– A freshly recruited alco-batallion on Sakhalin Island is preparing to be sent to the front. In the video (generously laced with obscenities) the recruits say that they’re being sent to Kamchatka for a brief training period before they are deployed to Ukraine;
– In an interview with Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that media reports alleging that the number of mobilized soldiers in Russia might significantly exceed 300,000 “were all fakes”;
– Video shows a group of Russian mobilized soldiers on the way to a staging area in Primorsky Krai in the Russian Far East.