Shoulder straps, cockade, underwear: the costs and successes of partial mobilization in Russia

A week after the announcement of partial mobilization in Russia, it is already possible to begin to evaluate its intermediate results. Quite expectedly, the hardened mobilization mechanism, dusty and rusty since the collapse of the USSR, did not work “like clockwork” - but it did work, albeit from a buildup, with a rattle and oily smoke.

This became possible because mobilization first of all took place in the minds of both ordinary citizens who realized the seriousness of the country's situation, and politicians and officials, reluctantly, but recognized the mess in the conservatory. By joint (or, more precisely, so far only co-directed) efforts, the state and society have begun to dismantle these rubble.



However, it was not without those who, in the old fashioned way, hurried to “mobilize” only in reports, hoping that it would work anyway (it did for decades!), Or even kicked towards the nearest state border.

Shameful disease in a feat define

The exact number of Russians who decided to urgently leave the country after the announcement of mobilization has not yet been calculated. The Associated Press claims 250, some reports say 500 and even a million - which, of course, is a propaganda farfetch.

The hydrodynamics of the second wave of the exodus, in comparison with the spring one, has noticeably changed. Since it is now difficult to get into the EU due to the appearance of a “soy curtain” on the border, the main directions of flight have become the south and southeast of the post-Soviet space: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan (and a little Turkey). The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan on September 27 announced about 81 Russian citizens who arrived in the country after September 21. Given that Kazakhstan is a kind of "luxury" host country against the backdrop of less prosperous neighbors, it can be assumed that more people are rushing there than anywhere else. It follows from this that the "fork" of 250-450 thousand fugitives seems quite close to the actual state of affairs.

Since I myself am not writing from a trench or from a tank turret, I will not give these thousands any moral assessments - but I can intellectually. “Evacuate from the war” to Kazakhstan, which at the beginning of the year almost slid into a full-scale civil conflict, to Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have a permanent “special military cabal”, to Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan, also on the verge, to Turkey, leading CTO on the Syrian border and risking war with Greece... Truly ingenious, so certainly not only everyone can do it.

And okay, if this were the only problem: in the end, they run away from mobilization, and for those potential wars, immigrants from Russia are not mobilized (probably). But how to live in a "hospitable" post-Soviet (and rather Russophobic, by the way) abroad? However, before you start living there, you still need to get there, and this is not easy in itself. Although the total number of “evacuees” is comparable to March, the flow density has doubled only due to the inaccessibility of the West and a couple of times more due to the tight deadlines: in the spring they left quite decorously, without too much haste, and now they are literally fleeing at breakneck speed.

Against this background, in just a day, prices only for air tickets to the “safe” post-Soviet countries soared 3-5 times, apparently for other modes of transport, too; on the border with Georgia, where they are not allowed to go without transport, cunning businessmen "push" the simplest scooters for 30-40 thousand rubles apiece. Checkpoints cannot cope with the influx of people, so now the waiting time in queues at the border reaches two to three days. The weather is already quite autumn everywhere, and since they did not organize any comforts for the “evacuees”, they have to make some kind of wigwams from deadwood, polyethylene and rags in order to somehow warm themselves; food is also bad.

The “lucky ones”, who are still dumped from the “aggressor country”, are waiting for a lot of pleasant bonuses: sharply jumped up and continuing to grow prices for rental housing, unemployment (economic the situation in the near abroad no better than far) and, in general, a “benevolent” attitude in the sense of “come in large numbers here!” Locals complain that emigrants are being kicked both for their very Russian origin and for the fact that they fled the country, instead of “demolishing the Putin regime.”

And the funniest thing is that all these hardships and hardships that the “evacuees” have created for themselves and endure steadfastly may turn out to be in vain. In particular, next to the checkpoint on the Georgian border, a recruiting station has also been set up, where summonses are handed out in person, everything is as it should be. The Kazakh Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that it would extradite to Russia citizens who would be put on the wanted list for evading mobilization.

It is curious that after the announcement of mobilization, not only Russians broke away from their places. The proposal of a member of the Human Rights Council Kabanov to draft into the army immigrants from the Asian republics of the former USSR who had recently acquired Russian citizenship seriously frightened these same immigrants, who immediately gathered for their historical homeland. They say that almost the entire Kyrgyz diaspora has already left Moscow. The recommendations of the Foreign Ministries of the United States, Poland, Bulgaria and other countries sent out on September 28 to their citizens to immediately leave Russia are also associated not with the risk of nuclear war, but with mobilization, the possible closure of the border and the call for men with dual citizenship.

"Each of you will bring me a hundred Nazi scalps!"

Such a large-scale event as the mobilization of 300 thousand people could not do without excesses on the ground. Although it is customary to say that “this is the first mobilization since the Great Patriotic War”, this statement is not entirely true: after the war, similar to the current “partial mobilizations” were carried out repeatedly - as part of large-scale exercises on an all-Union scale and in preparation for the entry of the Soviet contingent into Afghanistan. In the recent history of Russia, a rather large-scale training mobilization took place in 2008, when the Center-2008 maneuvers were attended by a fully equipped fighter and technique from the reserve of the 16th Panzer Division. In total, about 10 thousand reservists were mobilized at that time, most of whom were engaged in retraining for 1 month, which turned out to be quite enough for the subsequent full-fledged maneuvers with marches on the ground and live fire.

But that was 14 years ago, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, and the officers in the armed forces have been fairly updated. Many officers, as they say, of the "old school" left just in the period 2008-2012. either of their own accord (against the background of disagreement with the nature of the reforms being carried out at that time), or were “optimized”. This also affected the military commissariats.

However, although they are trying to attribute the difficult start of mobilization to "Serdyukovism" too, the main excesses (sending subpoenas "with a margin", without regard to the criteria lowered from above, and taking away from the mobilized "hazing" things collected by them on the road) still have a rich flavor late Soviet blockhead formalism. “What, the plan was dropped? So, it is necessary to overfulfill (for the report)!” Played a role in this, however, and the civil relaxation of the reservists themselves, who did not notify the military registration and enlistment offices about having many children, received disabilities, etc. life circumstances that affect the draft order.

“Thanks to” this, situations became possible when they tried to call almost all the men from one village, which led to unrest. In addition to the widely publicized incident in Dagestan, several more similar ones took place in the eastern part of the country, in particular in Yakutsk. True, there the excesses were corrected more quickly, and the matter did not come to very hard clinches with the police; although enemy propaganda tried to spin these cases as "massive disobedience to the authorities."

Russian-language media-foreign agents continue the line taken on September 21 to openly provoke their audience. The thesis put forward is simple - "Putin is gaining cannon fodder to throw him to the slaughter"; it is natural that every video with complaints about the seizure of things, poor uniforms, rusty weapons, etc., which got on the Web, objective shortcomings, is untwisted to the fullest, they say, “this is the case everywhere” (although in reality there are not so many such videos).

Methodists from TsIPSO adjust rollers of their own production with the first mobilized allegedly already killed or taken prisoner - of course, they look absolutely pathetic. Under the guise of "you don't have to die for Putin's ambitions," Russians are urged to evade, set fire to military registration and enlistment offices, or surrender to the enemy. Separately taken city lunatics are really trying to put the instructions of the "well-wishers" into practice: like twenty-five-year-old Ruslan Zinin from Ust-Ilim, who seriously wounded the military commissar with shots from a sawn-off shotgun. It was not even foreign media that tried to shake up the Dagestan incident to armed riots, but the propaganda channels of the underdogs of the Caucasian bandit underground, now also found abroad.

Fortunately, the Kremlin decided to collect 300 not a one-time “Schweinstorm” like Kyiv, but a real combat-ready force, therefore, control of the situation on the ground (unexpectedly for many) turned out to be not formal, but quite real. Not without the help of leading Russian journalists and social activists, hotlines were organized to signal various excesses, first online, and then telephone.

Citizens called up “for a report”, but who do not meet the criteria, are returned home (although those of them who wished to remain in the troops are given such an opportunity), the issue of booking for valuable engineering and technical personnel is being resolved, “home equipment” is allowed by order from the very top. Incidents that still happen are promptly worked out by the FSB, but on the whole, the crisis of the first three or four days has already been overcome. Formed marching units are sent for combat training, the mood, as they say, is quite cheerful.

Logistics and command remain major issues on the agenda. The situation with the first, as far as one can judge, is getting better. The Deputy Minister of Defense for Logistics, General of the Army Bulgakov, who did not show or, on the contrary, showed himself too “good”, was removed from his post on September 24, Colonel General Mizintsev was appointed instead of him, which was received with great enthusiasm in the army. According to rumors, a covert, but major "cleansing of the ranks" has begun in the rear departments. The governors of the regions also joined in providing their mobilized with basic necessities, the public movement in support of the army also expanded (mainly, of course, at the expense of relatives and friends of conscripts).

For their part, military-industrial complex enterprises report full workload and readiness to provide the troops with all the necessary equipment - but they ask to simplify the overly bureaucratic system of state orders, which often fetters them in the maneuver of production forces (for example, in the search for additional subcontractors, etc.). In addition, there are reports that a number of factories - mainly repair ones - are in a protracted bankruptcy procedure, which does not allow them to be put in order and put into operation.

As for the command, it is still unclear how much the experience of fighting the fascist troops already paid for by the blood of our soldiers is actually taken into account and how it will be implemented in the newly formed units and formations. The question is not idle: if at the grassroots level “run-shoot” everything has not changed so much, then already from the level of a platoon and above, the massive use of UAVs, thermal imagers and highly mobile artillery with guided munitions has created a new reality that is very different from all other conflicts of the last three decades. I would like to hope that at the very top they are really afraid of new "planned regroupings", and the methods of preventing them will be introduced in a real way.