Many Russians want to leave the country
Now the country's citizens are to be forced to take up arms in order to solve alleged personnel problems in the army. To be sure, many people in Russia have so far watched the war with indifference and confirmed their support for Putin. But the mood could change now. Surveys never showed that citizens were very willing to go into battle themselves against Ukrainian brothers and sisters.
This is one of the reasons why many Russians rushed to the airports to fly to Armenia and Turkey, for example. Thousands made it. But the flights are fully booked for days, other destinations further away are hardly affordable. A flight to Tashkent (Uzbekistan) for Thursday evening cost 3,000 euros. Miles of queues formed at the borders to Finland, where visas are required, or to the South Caucasus Republic of Georgia.
Even after Putin's invasion of Ukraine began in February, many Russians had fled and sought exile abroad. But now many are talking about panic. In Moscow, a 41-year-old man says on the street that he has no combat experience or real military training. But he's a reserve lieutenant. Because he is registered in a different Russian time zone of the huge empire, he would have to be handed the draft notice against signature there at his place of residence. The registration address is far away.
"There's no way I'm going to fight in Putin's senseless war, I'd rather go to prison," says the engineer. He's afraid he'll be arrested if he tries to leave the country and sent straight to Ukraine: "Hiding is one way out. But the worst thing is the uncertainty, you hardly dare to go out on the street," he says, also referring to the protests the previous evening in Moscow.