Not quite “domestic politics”, but wouldn’t this be the perfect time to start feeding disinformation about the cronies? As is a VERY crude example: “Cell phone recordings indicate, Mr. so-and-so has started to quietly reach out to western governments - asking if he would be acceptable as a replacement after a coup.”
On the other hand, maybe feeding the paranoia wouldn’t be a good idea.
In a speedrun of not doing what they said they were going to do, men who got arrested at protests against mobilization are being given mobilization papers. Russia drafts anti-war protestors into military
Police detained the protesters across 38 cities in Russia on Wednesday, according to figures released shortly after midnight by independent monitoring group OVD-Info. The group’s spokeswoman Maria Kuznetsova told CNN by phone that at at least four police stations in Moscow, some of the protesters arrested by riot police were being drafted directly into Russia’s military.
Or for a more lively reading of the events, its mentioned at about 1:30 in this video
He also notes that the decree Putin signed doesn’t actually specify who is going to be drafted.
Reports now of mobilized units being sent to Ukraine after one day of training. Granted these reports may turn out to be unfounded, but if true…wow.
(Link is to google translation of page despite the Russian preview)
Considering what we hear about the culture inside Russian training, this is more about let’s send these people to be abused and brutalized by people who like doing that to others.
My apologies for posting something you’d already posted, I either didn’t see it, didn’t remember it or possibly missed the edit.
No need at all to apologize; threads move so fast that it’s easy to miss when someone else has posted what one is discussing; also, what you posted adds a lot more than my brief mention offered.
Story about Russian stocks dropping post mobilization announcement:
From the article - they talk about the problems with Russians leaving the country after the mobilization announcement, but I did not know this one:
“Official figures show total outward migration of 216,000 in the first half of the year and unofficial figures put the number closer to half a million,” Peach said.
Half a million Russians leaving the country is nothing to be sneezed at. Russia can ill-afford to lose population like this.
Especially if they tend to be young, as seems likely.
I follow a Russian guy who makes funny youtube videos about his dachshunds with his wife and friends. He’s in his early 30s, I’d guess. He left the country months ago.
Given the number of potential draftees fleeing the country, how likely is it that Putin will try to stop it by closing Russia’s borders, not allowing military-eligible men to leave?
I recently met a young man who claims to have dodged the draft via the sophisticated method of taking the bus to Helsinki, and not coming back. Who knows how long that will remain possible…
Moscow Times says close to 1 million Russians had entered the EU by August 22. Moscow Times is anti-Putin, but the article cites to a news release from the EU border agency, Frontex. I can’t read it since it’s in German.
That’s not counting what’s happened since the mobilization - I’ve seen estimates of a quarter million in the past week, but can’t find the article.
If even partly true, this is unsustainable for Russia, given their population dynamics. Especially since it’s likely that most of the emmigrants are from the 20 - 50 year old cohort.
Another unintended consequence of this whole Putin cluster-fuck.
Have you looked at the lenght of the borders …? and who will be the 100.000s of border-guards needed to enforce that? …
my guesstimate is that the US-MX boarder is probably 10% of the lenght of russia’s border - and how many resources has the US thrown at illegal migration and with what results? → swatting flies
FWIW people started selling their cars that wait in line at the georgean border - so those guys are committed to get out!
from what I gather (looking at those videos) - they seem to be mostly 20-30ies and def. solid middle (and upper) class … so chances are a venezuelan scenario, where the inteligentsia were the first to flee to miami, and those that flee now (20 years later) to colombia are pretty much the bottom of the pyramid.
So, I agree and would say that those are the “better off / educated / more competitive” people who are leaving -
Quite likely. There are reports of soldiers being seen en route to the only official crossing-point into Georgia.
So Putin drafts more soldiers so he can send them to prevent young men from leaving the country to avoid the draft. Foolproof!
Sending reinforcements to the border crossings will just mean the bribes have to be shared among more guards.
More criticism appearing internally:
(My italics)