September 21, 2022
A "partial mobilization" began in Russia. The day it became clear that the regular army was incapable of ending the war on its own, and that paying 200 rubles for a flight to Yerevan wasn't all that expensive.
We cannot, we have no moral right to hand over our loved ones to be torn to pieces by executioners; we cannot but respond to their sincere desire to determine their own fate (from Vladimir Putin's televised address)
The authorities promised to mobilize only those who had served in the army and had combat experience. However, in reality, military recruitment offices began sweeping up everyone they could lay their hands on. Men were rounded up: they were stalked at entrances to buildings and factory gates, and caught on buses and the subway.
According to various estimates, between 300 and 500 people were mobilized within a month. Meanwhile, between 200 and a million people left Russia. At the end of September, traffic jams at the border with Georgia and Kazakhstan stretched for 20 kilometers, with people stuck in them for several days. International airfare prices increased 10-15 times.
A series of propaganda videos about "those who left" have appeared online. The most famous is the one with the words "the boys left, the men stayed."
The mobilized soldiers were nicknamed "mobiki." During their training camps, they slept in buses, on the floor, and even in the open. They had to buy their own food and beg their relatives for money for underwear, socks, military uniforms, sleeping bags, and body armor. The "Second Army of Peace" sometimes greeted the mobilized soldiers with rusty machine guns and broken armored personnel carriers, which they had to repair at their own expense.
More than 50 people died before reaching combat positions, mostly due to drunkenness and fights. Another three thousand died during the first year at the front (and that's a conservative estimate). Mobilized soldiers complain of being used as "cannon fodder" in the assault on Ukrainian positions.
A year later, their wives and relatives are demanding a new wave of mobilization. According to their logic, their loved ones have already paid their debt to the Motherland, and now it's the turn of others.