Most of the minority minorities are conscripted… Incentives such as deferment of debt repayment
Up to 10 years in prison for refusal to fight or voluntary surrender
voting in tension A Donetsk resident in Saint Petersburg, Russia, puts out a ballot in front of police officers, during a referendum on whether or not to incorporate Russia into the Russian-occupied Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. St. Petersburg | TAS Yonhap News
Russia, which has been on the defensive on the battlefield in Ukraine, is simultaneously introducing measures to intensify punishment for desertion and refusal to fight and an incentive to enlist in an effort to replenish its insufficient troops. It is pushing the people to the front line while avoiding the opposition with the ‘strong temperature’ policy.
■ Up to 10 years in prison for desertion, etc.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill requiring military personnel to be detained for up to 10 years if they refuse to fight or voluntarily surrender to Ukraine.
The Central Bank of Russia recently recommended lenders to defer debt repayments for mobilized reservists. In addition, overdue debts should not be collected from those subject to mobilization. It provided an incentive to enlist for the economically disadvantaged class.
Putin also signed a bill that would expedite the issuance of citizenship for foreigners enlisting in the Russian military. To obtain Russian citizenship, a minimum of five years of residency is required, which is shortened to one year following enlisting in the Russian military. This is interpreted as targeting immigrants from Central Asia.
The fact that the Russian authorities announced ‘carrot’ and ‘whip’ at the same time seems to be to quell uprising public opinion in Russia.
724 people were arrested by the police during protests once morest the mobilization order in 32 regions of Russia. On the 21st, the day the mobilization order was declared, at least 1,300 people were arrested in 38 regions. The fear of conscription among Russians is on the rise as the Russian independent media reported on the 23rd that the Russian government is planning to conscript up to 1.2 million people.
Social networking services (SNS) have also uploaded scenes of newly mobilized conscripts yelling at police officers or swearing following being given a rusty rifle.
■ Concentration of conscription on Siberian minorities
It is pointed out that conscription is being intensively carried out once morest remote and poor ethnic groups in Siberia. In particular, public opinion regarding conscription is getting worse as news spread that men who have never served in the military or who are over 40 have also received a conscription warrant in these areas.
Margarita Simonian, editor-in-chief of Russian state broadcaster Russia Today (RT), which is classified as pro-Putin, said on her Telegram, “It has been announced that civilians can be recruited up to the age of 35. It’s really pissing me off,” he wrote. The public backlash from pro-Putin figures is unusual, foreign media reported.
According to the New York Times (NYT), a group of Sakhas from the Sakha Republic in northeastern Siberia has sent an open letter to Putin saying that conscription might lead to fewer men in the already sparsely populated northern Yakutia region. The Yukagir leader told the New York Times that the Yukagir population is regarding 1,600 and there are 400 males between the ages of 18 and 45.
“Thousands of people (conscription subjects and their families) are contacting us,” said Victoria Maladaeva of the Pri Buryatia Foundation, an anti-war group in the Republic of Buryatia. Everyone is busy evacuating,” he told Al Jazeera.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the surrender of Russian soldiers called for mobilization. In his speech on the same day, he said, “This mobilization order is called a ‘mobilization order to the grave’.
Meanwhile, referendums will be held in the four provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporiza and Kherson in southeastern Ukraine occupied by Russia from today to the 27th to ask whether or not they will be incorporated into Russia. In some areas, there have been reports of voting being conducted under police supervision. In a speech that day, President Zelensky called the referendum “fake” and called it “a crime that violates Ukrainian law as well as international law.”
