LARGE NUMBER OF MOBILISED RUSSIANS SENT HOME, DEEMED UNFIT FOR DUTY

Mon 03 October 2022:

The latest setback to President Vladimir Putin’s recruitment of 300,000 servicemen is the sending home of thousands of Russians who had been mobilized for military service in Ukraine.

The governor of the far eastern Russian region of Khabarovsk, Mikhail Degtyarev, reported that several thousand men had shown up for enlistment in the previous ten days, but many of them were ineligible.

“About half of them we returned home as they did not meet the selection criteria for entering the military service,” Degtyarev said in a video post on the Telegram messaging app.

He said the military commissar in Russia’s Khabarovsk region was removed, but that his dismissal would not affect the mobilisation.

Russia’s first call to arms since World War II, declared on September 21, led to widespread discontent and drove thousands of men to flee abroad.

The move was billed as enlisting those with military experience.

Criticism grows

Meanwhile, criticism over Putin’s war in Ukraine has been growing at home.

Some 2,000 people were arrested at anti-war protests in more than 30 towns and cities, with independent news outlets saying some detained were served summons to report at military enlistment offices.

Russian officials usually supportive of the president also expressed anger over the mobilisation move, in a rare show of dissent.

Among them, Valentina Matviyenko, the chairwoman of Russia’s upper house, the Federation Council, said mistakes made in sending call-up papers were “absolutely unacceptable”.

On Monday, the Russian military showed signs of increasing unrest after suffering a devastating setback in the Donetsk region’s Lyman, a key strategic rail hub.

According to Ukrainian forces, the major bastion’s recapture paves the way for further advances that could cut off thousands of Russian troops from all supplies as winter approaches.