Putin backlash grows
■ Gridlock at border as 260,000 men flee ■ Officer shot at recruitment base ■ Protests at call-ups spread
RUSSIA descended further into chaos yesterday as the backlash against Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation grows.
A commandant calling up troops was shot at point-blank range amid rumours that the country’s borders would soon be shut to stop conscripts fleeing.
A protester set himself on fire in Ryazan near Moscow in one of a number of demonstrations, including in the restive Caucasus region. Crossing-points to neighbouring Georgia were gridlocked because so many families were trying to escape.
The shooting took place yesterday in Irkutsk, Siberia, when Ruslan Zinin, 25, burst into a conscription office and fired three shots, hitting military commissar Aleksandr Yeliseyev in the head. Video footage posted online showed the attack as well as potential recruits running for their lives.
‘No one is going to fight,’ shouted Zinin as he fired. ‘We are all going home now.’ Regional governor Igor Kobzev said Zinin had been arrested and would ‘absolutely be punished’. Yeliseyev is in intensive care.
Zinin’s mother Marina said her son had not been called up and instead was ‘very upset’ that a friend with no army experience had received draft papers. ‘They said there would be partial mobilisation, but it turns out that they are taking everyone,’ she added.
Russian authorities yesterday promised they would seek to draft experienced reservists only.
In a rare show of humility, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said mistakes had been made with the call-ups, adding: ‘Governors are actively working to correct the situation.’ Peskov refused to deny Russian media reports that the country’s borders could be closed to men between 18 and 55 as early as tomorrow. ‘No decisions have been taken,’ he said after days of queues at the frontiers with Georgia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.
But a Kremlin-backed senator in occupied Crimea suggested the plan would soon become law after prices of one-way airline tickets out of Russia spiked to as high as €9,000. ‘Everyone who is of conscription age should be banned from travelling abroad in the current situation,’ said Sergei Tsekov.
The Novaya Gazeta newspaper said more than 260,000 men had left the country since Putin’s decree was issued. Eleven military buildings have been attacked by arsonists and police have arrested at least 2,000 demonstrators.
In the largely Muslim region of Dagestan, social media footage yesterday showed protesters burning portraits of Putin.
Protests in Makhachkala turned violent for the second day in a row as locals fought with the security forces. The region is thought to have proportionally lost the most men in the Ukraine conflict.
Putin yesterday endured a bizarre lecture from Russia’s only rock-solid ally, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus. He assured Putin he would win the war – despite the growing unrest. ‘We will win. We have no other choice. We, as Slavs, would not tolerate humiliation,’ Lukashenko told him.
Meanwhile, a horrific school shooting in central Russia claimed 13 lives, including those of seven children. The gunman, named as Artyom Kazantsev, was said to have been wearing Nazi symbols.
Also, relatives of a British aid volunteer captured in Ukraine, who died in a Russian jail, have told of their struggle to raise the money to bring his body home.
Paul Urey, 45, who had diabetes and heart trouble, is believed to have been denied medication.
The UK government has not provided help towards the €11,000 repatriation cost and the family has had to rely on internet crowdfunding – which is €1,100 short. His daughter Chelsea said: ‘We don’t have that sort of money.’
It comes as Britain yesterday imposed a new round of sanctions in relation to Russia’s ‘sham referendums’ in territories it occupies in Ukraine. The measures include travel bans and asset freezes targeting 33 officials and ‘collaborators’ involved in organising the votes on joining the Russian Federation, and on four more oligarchs who have helped fund Putin’s war effort.
‘Will not tolerate humiliation’