Putin hides a clause of the mobilization edict that would allow a million Russians to be called up

The fate of the 300,000 Russian reservists with military experience called on Wednesday to fight in Ukraine was written before Vladimir Putin announced it on television in an unprecedented and unexpected address to the nation. And it is the one that the Russian president had already signed the decree ordering a “partial military mobilization” in Russia. An open and vague text that does not specify the end date of the measure. Neither the number of citizens summoned.

In what seems like ten points, the document lays out the terms under which recruits can skip service (such as exceeding the maximum age or being in poor shape) and talks about the remuneration of the Armed Forces. Three pages full of generalities in which point number seven draws attention. “for official use” reads the article.

This is an apparently classified clause that could allow the mobilization of one million people and not 300,000 as Putin had announced. This is what the independent Russian newspaper maintains Novaya Gazeta Europeheir to the renowned and critical header Novaya Gazeta that the Russian Supreme Court closed just a few days ago.

[Estos son los 300.000 reservistas que Putin envía a la guerra: menores de 35 años y bajo pena de prisión]

Quoting confidential sources from the presidential administration, the newspaper assures that this secret clause would confirm the worst fears of the Russian population: that “partial mobilization“, already unpopular, is actually a “general mobilization“of the population.

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Perskov, has been forced to deny this information, which he has called a “lie”. However, he has not revealed what article seven of the decree contains. “It’s something I can’t talk about,” he added in statements to the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS.

What he has explained is that the 300,000 reservists the Kremlin maintains it will send to war “will not all be called up at once,” implying that recruits will be trained and sent to the battlefield in batches.

Protesters cited

The first of them, apparently, has started this Thursday. Barely 24 hours after Putin’s announcement, thousands of reservists from different parts of Russia received the official summons to join the army. Those who have not tried, have not been able or have not wanted to flee have said goodbye to their families and are already on their way to the front.

[Putin provoca una huida masiva en Rusia: agotados todos los vuelos para salir del país]

The night before, hundreds of Russians crowded the country’s borders trying to escape military service. Within hours plane tickets sold out to leave Russia and, in different regions of Russia, thousands of citizens took to the streets to protest the mobilization. Demonstrations that ended with about 1,300 detainees in more than 40 cities.

According to the NGO OVD-Info, some of those protesters were served with summonses to enlist by police while in custody. Under Russian law, which condemns with long prison sentences to those who evade the call, the authorities have the power to arrest a person suspected of avoiding the mobilization.

In this regard, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, limited himself to saying that “it is not against the law“, collects the agency Reuters. Likewise, the human rights organization also warns that called up too to journalists.