Russians rush the borders to evade draft

Putin orders first mobilization since WWII

• Some Russian men headed swiftly to the borders on Thursday after President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization, with traffic at frontier crossings with Finland and Georgia surging and prices for air tickets from Moscow rocketing.

Putin on Wednesday ordered Russia's first mobilization since the Second World War and backed a plan to annex swaths of Ukraine, warning the West he was not bluffing when he said he'd be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.

Prices for air tickets out of Moscow soared above US$ 5,000 for one- way tickets to the nearest foreign locations, with most air tickets sold out for coming days.

Social media groups popped up with advice on how to get out of Russia while one news site in Russian gave a list of “where to run away right now from Russia.” There were long tailbacks at border crossings with Georgia.

“War is horrible,” Sergei, a Russian who declined to give his surname, told Reuters as he arrived in Belgrade, the Serbian capital. “It's OK to be afraid of war and of death and such things.”

One Russian man who gave his name as Alex told Reuters in Istanbul that he had left Russia partly due to the mobilization.

“The partial mobilization is one of the reasons why I am here,” he said.

“A very poor step it seems to be, and it can lead to lots of problems to lots of Russians.”

He said he felt that not many Russians would want to be sent to fight.

A truck driver who crossed the Russian-kazakh border on Thursday near the Kazakh city of Oral told Reuters he saw unusually heavy traffic from the Russian side.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that reports of an exodus of draft-age men were exaggerated.

Asked about reports that men detained at antiwar protests were being given draft papers, Peskov said it was not against the law.

Some 10,000 volunteers have turned up to enlist for Russia's military campaign in Ukraine without waiting for call- up papers issued under a partial mobilization, Russian news agencies reported, citing the Russian General Staff.

Russian state-owned pollsters say that more than 70 per cent of Russians support what the Kremlin calls the “special military operation,” though polling leaked in July showed an even split between those who wanted to fighting to stop or continue.