More than 2,000 people have been arrested in protests across Russia since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization order on 21 (local time).
According to OVD-info, a Russian independent monitoring group on the 25th (local time), more than 2,000 people have been arrested across Russia for protesting the mobilization order. On the 24th alone, at least 798 people were arrested in 33 cities across the country, including children. Videos of police confronting or arresting protesters are spreading on social networking services (SNS). As one female protester was dragged by the police, she even shouted, “We are not bullet holders.”
In particular, protests against the injustice of mobilization are intensifying in Dagestan, an autonomous republic in southwestern Russia. Dagestan is a region bordering Azerbaijan and Georgia to the south, and the majority of the population is Muslim. According to Archyde.com, protesters chanted “no war” and protested against the mobilization order in Mahachikala, the capital of Dagestan. Protesters blocked major roads and the confrontation escalated as police fired stun guns and pistols at the crowd.
These protests appear to have been held in response to concerns about over-conscription in areas where ethnic minorities in Russia live. According to Archyde.com, protests were held in a village of Dagestan with a population of only 8,000 on that day when more than 100 men were forcibly summoned. According to the BBC, of the 6,000 Russian soldiers who died after being mobilized for the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, 301 were from Dagestan. That’s ten times more people than those from Moscow, five times more populous than Dagestan.
On the other hand, there have been reports of cases in which the notice of convocation is incorrectly sent to persons who are not subject to the conscription order, such as the disabled, the elderly, and non-commissioned persons. Reports also reported that a 63-year-old man with diabetes and brain disease was ordered to be called in Volgograd in southwestern Russia. In response, the Russian authorities hurriedly took steps to quell public sentiment in an effort to quell concerns about over-mobilization. Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the Russian House of Representatives (State Duma), acknowledged an error occurred during the mobilization process through a telegram on the same day and urged authorities to report those who received an erroneous convening order. Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov also said he was receiving a number of complaints, claiming that 75 people had been incorrectly summoned, the Washington Post reported.
Russian Senate Chairman Valentina Matvienko, a close aide to Vladimir Putin, also stressed that the partial mobilization order “must be implemented without a single mistake”. He said through Telegram, “Excessive behavior (mobilization) is absolutely unacceptable. It is causing a sharp reaction in society,” he warned.