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It's not a war, but a Special Military Operation. And that operation goes so well, it is now time not to call a general mobilisation, but only a partial mobilisation.
On Wednesday September 21, at 09:15h, Russian President Vladimir Putin made the announcement that was rumored since days: all members of the Russian Army's reserve, as well as anybody who has ever served in the Russian military, are called upon to do their duty in the Special Military Operation, fighting the Nazi-Ukrainian forces.
Refusing to report will result in 15 years prison. Skipping out during service will result in 15 years prison. And surrendering to the enemy without being incapacitated will result in 15 years prison, as will not trying to flee from a POW camp.
The move is not unexpected. The Ukrainian counter-offensive triggered the first comments on Russian television about the need for mobilisation, and it was just waiting until Russian regional elections had passed, last week. On top of that, the recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation didn't go to plan, apparently.
First there was India's Modi publicly stating that this ain't a time for war, and that he had repeatedly asked to stop the whole thing. Then there was a falling out over the same subject with both Turkey and Kazakhstan, to which Putin apparently reacted very agressively. All combined might perhaps explain the rather confused press conference afterwards.
Immediately after the end of the SCO Summit, one Nikolai Patrushev stepped on a plane to meet with Chinese colleagues to discuss strategic stability and public security and law and order. He returned after 2 days, on the 19th. On the 20th, a statement by Putin was announced for the evening, but that was postponed for reasons unknown.
In a first phase, 300,000 reservists are being called up but, as Russia's Kommersant business newspaper noted, the total number of people who will be called up is secret, hence open to modification.
Do I need to add that it all ended with the threat to use nuclear weapons?
Official announcement here.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @02:14AM (6 children)
Putin is the war monger.
People are being arrested on the streets of Russia in protest at being conscripted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @02:37AM
> People are being arrested on the streets of Russia in protest at being conscripted.
Yes, came here to say the same thing. BBC reports over a thousand detained/arrested already, mostly in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. It might take a little while to verify, but there appear to be documentary photos/videos from private cell phones confirming this.
Also various reports of airliners full of men leaving Russia. One report seemed clever, Google reports a spike in air ticket purchase requests from Russia to Turkey and other countries that accept Russians with no special visa.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @03:21PM (4 children)
Of course, no-one in America has ever been arrested for protesting conscription or dodging the draft.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @05:26PM (3 children)
Not sure what point you are trying to make. Protests in the USA against the Vietnam war built in intensity through the 1960s and were eventually successful in the early 1970s. That war became so unpopular that the government eventually withdrew (and not very gracefully, if there is such a thing in war).
Things happen faster today with social media making it much easier to gather people for demonstrations on short notice, etc.
Reports (BBC) suggest that a dozen or so of the recent Russian demonstrators that were detained were then conscripted, nearly "on the spot". I don't recall if the USA ever tried that trick?
(Score: 3, Informative) by quietus on Friday September 23 2022, @06:53AM (2 children)
The source of these reports might have been Kommersant* (a newspaper in Russia, comparable to the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times), which reported people being arrested and, upon release, immediately being served with their mobilisation papers. There's no doubt they'll get 'additional training' before being sent to the front line. If you were still in doubt, this clearly shows that mobilisation is not going to be "partial".
In other words, in Putin Russia they don't bother anymore with sending you to prison -- Stalin is spinning in his coffin for not having thought about that himself.
This was predicted, btw, by a Russian journalist, who suggested that could be one of the main reasons for declaring mobilisation -- put any protests down:
As a final note, the number of 300,000 conscripts. Izvestia reported yesterday that that number could rise to a million, with especially the people younger than 30 being targeted. As Russia has an obligatory military duty, effectively everyone healthy has served in the military, and can be called up. Also reported by Izvestia (or Ria Novosti) is that the current crop of conscripts will be receiving their mobilisation order once they've finished their conscription.
*: I would link to the original article, but yandex' translation doesn't work on the desktop currently (while the translation app still does its thing).
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday September 23 2022, @09:08AM
Also people who were discharged from Russia's obligatory draft at age 18 due to health reasons, can be mobilised, according to the Military Kommissar of the Irkutsk region, Yevgheny Fuzhenko, reports Kommersant.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday September 23 2022, @02:58PM
The number has now been upped to 1.2 million [meduza.io] people, mainly from rural areas.