Russian conscripts attend a military training at a ground training range in the Rostov-on-Don region in southern Russia.
Photo:
arkady budnitsky/Shutterstock
How popular in Russia is
Vladimir Putin’s
war in Ukraine? Maybe less every day. Tens of thousands of Russians have fled the country to escape military conscription, and now reports say Russia is resorting to press gangs to hunt and snatch male civilians to send to the front lines.
A recent raid on a business center in Moscow, according to the Washington Post, grabbed musicians who were rehearsing, a courier who was making a delivery, and a “very drunk” man in his mid-50s who had a walking disability. A raid last week on a homeless shelter in Moscow reportedly netted dozens of, uh, recruits.
Russia’s mobilization goal had been 300,000 troops. Mr. Putin said Friday that 220,000 have been registered so far, with 16,000 of them already deployed for combat after mere days of training. The Institute for the Study of War said last week that Mr. Putin’s statement “corroborates dozens of anecdotal reports from Russian outlets, milbloggers, and mobilized personnel of untrained, unequipped, and utterly unprepared men being rushed to the frontlines, where some have already surrendered to Ukrainian forces and others have been killed.”
The institute also provided this assessment: “Even the 10 days of training that mobilized personnel may receive likely does not consist of actual combat preparation for most units; anecdotal reports suggest that men in some units wandered around training grounds without commanding officers, food, or shelter for several days before being shipped to Ukraine.”
Mr. Putin has been brutal toward Ukraine, and it takes nothing away from that outrage to note that he is also brutal toward his own people. This month two Russian nationals, according to news reports, sought asylum in the U.S. by piloting “a small boat” to an Alaskan island about 50 miles from their homeland. The open ocean isn’t without risk, but frightening options are all that many Russians have left. Time may be on Ukraine’s side, not Mr. Putin’s.
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Appeared in the October 18, 2022, print edition.
