PUTIN SIGNS DECREE FACILITATING FOREIGNERS TO OBTAIN CITIZENSHIP IN RUSSIAN ARMY

Sat 24 September 2022:

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed amendments toughening punishment for voluntary surrender and refusal to fight by up to 10 years in prison, just days after ordering a partial mobilisation.

A separate law, also signed on Saturday, facilitates access to Russian citizenship for foreigners who enlist in the Russian army, following the mobilisation designed to increase the ranks of his army fighting a military operation in Ukraine.

Chaos and criticism

Wednesday’s announcement of Russia‘s first public mobilisation since World War Two, to shore up its faltering invasion of Ukraine, has triggered a rush for the border by eligible men, the arrests of over 1,000 protesters, and unease in the wider population.

Now, it is also attracting criticism of the authorities from among the Kremlin’s own official supporters, something almost unheard of in Russia since the invasion began seven months ago.

“It has been announced that privates can be recruited up to the age of 35. Summonses are going to 40-year-olds,” the RT editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, railed on her Telegram channel.

“They’re infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite. As if they’d been sent by Kyiv.”

Officials have said 300,000 troops are needed, with priority given to people with recent military experience and vital skills. The Kremlin has denied reports by two Russian news outlets based abroad – Nezavisimaya Gazeta Europe and Meduza – that the real target is more than 1 million.

Reports have surfaced across Russia of men with no military experience or past draft age suddenly receiving call-up papers.

On Saturday the head of the Kremlin’s Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeyev, publicly announced that he had written to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu with a request to “urgently resolve” problems of the mobilisation.

Since Wednesday, people have been prepared to queue for hours to cross into Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Finland or Georgia, scared that Russia might close its borders, although the Kremlin has said reports of an exodus are exaggerated.

The interior ministry of the Russian region of North Ossetia advised people not to try to leave the country for Georgia at the Verkhny Lars frontier post, where it said 2,300 cars were waiting to cross.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent