Following Vladimir Putin’s call-up of Russian residents to join the battle in Ukraine, videos posted on social media display turmoil, bewilderment, and heightened emotions.
The Russian president’s order to partially mobilize his country’s population for the war has drawn worldwide rebuke, widespread demonstrations, and a frantic migration of Russians from their homeland. Reservists and former service members with specific military specializations and pertinent experience are affected by the conscription order.
The Russian military reportedly sent mobilization officers to a university in the nation’s far east to enlist students, despite their assurances that those enrolled full-time in school would not be called up.
A student at Buryat State University in Ulan-Ude, the Siberian republic of Buryatia’s capital, informed the news source The Village that military police and members of the national guard showed up to pick up students right after lessons. A mobilization point, according to the student, had been established.
On social media, a local blogger said that the cops had reached the campus at 7:48 on Thursday morning.
More than 300,000 people had watched the footage from the source by Friday afternoon. It supposedly shows the officials coming at the university and their trucks outside the building. The video was also tweeted by Mediazona.
Мобилизованные в самолете pic.twitter.com/pdVsMruPoa
— Грани.Ру (@GraniTweet) September 23, 2022
The film was tweeted by Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, who called it an exceptional illustration of the Kremlin’s ambition to go far beyond the rhetorical limitations of its mobilization effort.
Another widely circulated video shows Russian officers boarding a plane. Apparently, it belonged to Yakutia Airlines, which has its headquarters in the eastern Sakha Republic, where many people are being drafted. Leaflets on the back of the seats indicated this.
Although neither video has been independently authenticated, they contribute to a picture of chaos in the application of Putin’s conscription order, which aims to call up 300,000 reserve members.
Families bidding their loved ones farewell before sending them off to fight in Ukraine may be seen in shared video. Russians arrested for opposing the mobilization were among those called up after Putin’s announcement, according to the independent protest-monitoring organization OVD-Info.
While military analysts have expressed skepticism that it will provide the war effort with any immediate benefits, Western officials have characterized the mobilization as Russia’s acknowledgment that it has failed to win the fight in Ukraine since its invasion in February.
