Almost 100,000 Russians Have Crossed Into Kazakhstan Since Putin’s Mobilization Order
The flow is part of an exodus of Russians who have headed to countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Mongolia and Nordic nations in recent days and comes as uncertainty mounts over whether the Kremlin might mobilize additional manpower to complement the more than 300,000 reservists that were called up on Sept. 21.
The exact number of Russians who have left the country since what the Kremlin called a “partial mobilization” was declared isn’t known. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that he didn’t know the number of departures and directed requests for comment to Russia’s border guard agency. Officials at the agency didn’t immediately respond to a request for data on the number of Russians who have left the country in the past week or how the figure compares with departures since the beginning of September.
But data published by nations that Russians don’t need a visa to enter or where they can stay for a temporary period without such documentation show that thousands have entered these countries in the past week.
The head of Georgia’s interior ministry told journalists Tuesday that the number of people entering the country from Russia has almost doubled in recent days, jumping from 5,000-6,000 to 10,000 people a day. At one of eight border crossings into Mongolia, some 3,000 Russians had crossed between Sept. 21 and Sept. 25, local border authorities said. Around 1,000 people usually cross this border each day, according to local media outlets.
Some Nordic countries have also seen an uptick in entries by Russians in recent days. On Sunday, 8,314 Russians entered Finland via the land border, according to data posted on the Finnish Border Guards website on Monday. Some 5,068 Russians left the country the same day. A rising number of Russian men are also crossing into Norway through the town of Storskog, one of the northernmost border posts on Earth. Some 243 Russians transited there on Sunday, a slight increase from previous weekends, local border officials said.
Many of the Russians who crossed into neighboring countries departed for other destinations, data show. In Kazakhstan, for example, Aslan Atalykov, acting chair of the Migration Service Committee at Kazakhstan’s interior affairs ministry told reporters on Monday that some 40,000 Russians had left Kazakhstan in recent days, heading south to neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. And almost 6,000 Russians had left by air. Of the 896 foreign citizens who applied for a residency in Kazakhstan between Sept. 1 and Sept. 24, around 10% were Russians, Mr. Atalykov said.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered his government to help Russians entering his country, because “most of them are forced to leave because of the current hopeless situation,” he said in a meeting of community activists on Tuesday. “We must take care of them and ensure their safety. It is a political and a humanitarian issue,” he added.
On announcing the mobilization last week, Mr. Putin said only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, would be called up and he argued that it was necessary for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia.
He said those mobilized for duty would undergo “mandatory additional military training based on the experience of the special military operation,” Moscow’s euphemism for its war in Ukraine.
But questions have arisen, even among lawmakers, over Russia’s ability to properly support and equip the new recruits and this could present political problems.
Mikhail Delyagin, a political analyst and Russia’s State Duma deputy, said Tuesday that the mobilization had “exacerbated public anxiety about the material support of our armed forces.”
“Reports are multiplying about self-equipping mobilization first-aid kits, sleeping bags, shoes, clothes—almost everything except weapons,” he added in a post on his website. “In a number of places, there’s a shortage of relevant goods. Not everyone has the money for these goods and this social tension could become political,” he said.
Mr. Delyagin said he and a fellow member of his party, A Just Russia—Patriots for Truth, were requesting that Russia’s Ministry of Defense be ordered to provide information on the criteria for providing medicines, first-aid kits and food and clothing allowances to troops participating in Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
Write to Ann M. Simmons at ann.simmons@wsj.com
Comments
Post a Comment