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A powerful pro-Kremlin editor of Russia’s state-run RT news channel Saturday expressed anger that recruiters were sending call-up papers to the wrong people amid growing dissatisfaction with military mobilization.
Russia’s first public mobilization since World War II was to intensify the stalled war in Ukraine, resulting in border floods, the arrest of more than 1,000 protesters and the spread of the wider population. caused anxiety.
It has also drawn criticism from official supporters of the Kremlin itself, something almost unprecedented in Russia since the invasion began.
“It was announced that civilians can be recruited up to the age of 35. The summons will be at 40,” RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simoyan denounced on her Telegram channel.
Pact with Putin Broken
“As if on purpose, as if they were mean, they are infuriating people. As if they were sent from Kyiv.”
In another rare sign of chaos, the Ministry of Defense announced that the deputy minister in charge of logistics, General Dmitry Bulgakov, was replaced by long-time army officer Colonel Mikhail Mizhintsev “for a transfer to another role.” said he did.
Mizhintsev, under British, European Union and Australian sanctions, was dubbed the “Mariupol butcher” by the EU for leading the siege of a Ukrainian port early in the war that killed thousands of civilians. I came.
Russia plans to formally annex a swath of Ukrainian territory next week, according to a major Russian news agency. This follows so-called referendums in her four occupied territories of Ukraine that began on Friday. Kyiv and the West denounced the vote as a sham and said the outcome was predetermined in favor of annexation.
Over 740 arrests
For the mobilization effort, officials said they needed 300,000 troops, prioritizing those with recent military experience and significant skills. It denies reports by two foreign-based Russian news outlets that it is.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had repeatedly called on the Russians not to fight, but that pro-Moscow authorities knew they were killing people.
“Escape from this criminal mobilization is better than being maimed and having to answer in court for participating in a war of aggression,” he said in a video address in Russian on Saturday.
Russia targets dam as Ukrainian forces surge south
Russia officially counts millions of former conscripts as reservists, most of them male population of fighting age, and Wednesday’s order announcing a “partial mobilization” said who would be called up. did not give a standard for
Reports have surfaced that men of military age with no or past military experience are receiving call-up papers, reviving dormant anti-war demonstrations and fueling forbidden outrage.
More than 1,300 protesters were arrested in 38 towns on Wednesday, and more than 740 were detained in more than 30 towns and cities from St. Petersburg to Siberia on Saturday night, according to independent watchdog OVD-Info. rice field.
A Reuters image from St. Petersburg showed police in helmets and riot gear pinning protesters to the ground and kicking one of them into a van.
Earlier, the head of the Kremlin’s Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeev, said he had sent a letter to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu urging him to “quickly resolve” the issue.
In his Telegram post, he criticized the way exemptions were applied, citing instances of inappropriate enlistment involving nurses and midwives with no military experience.
Finland closes border with Russia, men of military age escape Putin’s orders
“Some[recruiters]turn in call-up papers at 2 a.m. It’s like they think we’re all draft dodgers,” he said.
“Canon Feed”
On Friday, the Defense Department listed several sectors where employers can nominate staff for exemptions.
Protests have been particularly loud among ethnic minorities in remote and poor regions of Siberia. In Siberia, the Russian professional military has long been disproportionately recruited.
People have been queuing for hours since Wednesday to cross to Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Finland or Georgia, fearing Russia will close its borders, but the Kremlin said reports of the exodus were exaggerated. It states that
Asked by UN reporters on Saturday why so many Russians left, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: right to liberty of movement.
The governor of the Republic of Buryatia, a region bordering Mongolia and populated by ethnic Mongolians, has admitted that some people received documents in error, exempting those with no military experience or medical exemptions. said it would be
On Saturday, Mongolia’s president until 2017 and now head of the World Mongolian Federation, Tsahia Elbegdorj, promised to warmly welcome those fleeing conscription, especially three groups of Mongolians in Russia, to Putin. He called out frankly to end the war.
More on Russia avoiding conscription, war in Ukraine
“Buryat-Mongols, Tuva-Mongols, Kalmyk-Mongols… are just cannon fodder,” he said in a video wearing Ukrainian yellow and blue ribbons.
“Today you are escaping cruelty, cruelty and possible death. Tomorrow you will begin liberating your country from dictatorship.”
The mobilization and hasty organizing of votes in the occupied territories came on the heels of this month’s lightning-fast Ukrainian military attack in the Kharkov region – the sharpest reversal of the war for Moscow.
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