LONDON, Sept 24 (Reuters) – The staunchly pro-Kremlin editor of Russia’s RT news channel expressed anger on Saturday that recruiting officers were sending out call-up documents to the wrong men, as frustration over a mobilization military was growing throughout Russia.
Wednesday’s announcement of Russia’s first public mobilization since World War II, to shore up its faltering invasion of Ukraine, has prompted a rush to the border by elected men, the arrests of more than 1,000 demonstrators and the restlessness of the population in general.
Now, he is also drawing criticism of the authorities from among the Kremlin’s own official supporters, something almost unheard of in Russia since the invasion began seven months ago.
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“It has been announced that privates can be hired up to the age of 35. The subpoenas go to people in their 40s,” RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said on her Telegram channel.
“They are infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite. As if Kyiv had sent them.”
In another rare public sign of turmoil at the top, Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday that the deputy minister in charge of logistics, four-star general Dmitri Bulgakov, had been replaced “for transfer to another role “. He gave no further details.
Russia officially counts millions of former conscripts as reservists, potentially nearly the entire male population of fighting age, and Wednesday’s decree announcing “partial mobilization” gave no criteria for who would be called up.
Officials have said 300,000 soldiers are needed, giving priority to people with recent military experience and life skills. The Kremlin has denied reports by two foreign-based Russian media outlets – Novaya Gazeta Europe and Meduza – that the real target is more than 1 million.
Reports have surfaced in Russia of men with no military experience or previous draft age suddenly receiving draft papers.
On Saturday, the head of the Kremlin’s Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeyev, publicly announced that he had written to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with a request to “urgently resolve” the mobilization issues.
His 400-word Telegram post criticized the way the exemptions were being applied and listed several cases of improper enlistment, including nurses and midwives with no military experience.
“Some (recruiters) hand out the call-up papers at 2 in the morning, as if they think we’re all draft dodgers,” he said.
‘CANNON FOOT’
On Friday, two days after enlistment began, the defense ministry listed some sectors in which employers could nominate personnel for exemptions.
There has been a particular outcry among ethnic minorities in remote and economically disadvantaged areas of Siberia, where Russia’s professional armed forces have long recruited disproportionately.
Since Wednesday, people have been prepared to queue for hours to cross into Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Finland or Georgia, fearing Russia will close its borders, although the Kremlin has said reports of an exodus are exaggerated.
The governor of Russia’s Buryatia region, which borders Mongolia and is home to an ethnic Mongolian minority, acknowledged on Friday that some had received documents in error and said those who had not served in the military or that they had medical exemptions would not be called.
On Saturday, Tsakhia Elbegdorj, Mongolia’s president until 2017 and now head of the World Mongolian Federation, promised those fleeing the draft a warm welcome and bluntly called on Putin to end the war.
“The Buryat Mongols, the Tuva Mongols and the Kalmyk Mongols … have been used as nothing more than cannon fodder,” he said in a video message, wearing a Ukrainian yellow and blue ribbon and referring to to three Mongolian ethnicities. in Russia
“Today you are fleeing brutality, cruelty and likely death. Tomorrow you will begin to liberate your country from dictatorship.”
The mobilization, and the hasty organization of so-called referendums to join Russia in occupied Ukrainian territories this weekend, came after a Ukrainian blitzkrieg in the Kharkiv region, Moscow’s sharpest setback since the seven months war
The anti-war group Vesna called on social media for new demonstrations in Russia on Saturday evening, after more than 1,300 protesters were arrested in 38 cities on Wednesday, according to independent watchdog group OVD-Info.
The interior ministry of Russia’s North Ossetia region advised people not to try to leave the country for Georgia at the Verkhny Lars border crossing, where it said 2,300 cars were waiting to cross.
(This news item corrects the name of the news item in paragraph 8 to “Novaya Gazeta”, not “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”).
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Reporting by Reuters Editing by Peter Graff
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