THE NEW YORK TIMES: As Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” enters a new chapter, Russians are being plucked from villages around the country for training and military service.
A day after President Vladimir V. Putin announced a call-up that could sweep 300,000 civilians into military service, thousands of Russians across the country received draft papers on Thursday and some were being marched to buses and planes for training — and perhaps soon a trip to the front lines in Ukraine.
Mr. Putin’s escalation of the war effort was reverberating across the country, according to interviews, Russian news reports and social media posts. As the day wore on, it became increasingly clear that Mr. Putin’s decision had torn open the cocoon shielding much of Russian society from their leader’s invasion of a neighbor.
Mothers, wives and children were saying tearful goodbyes in remote regions as officials — in some cases, ordinary schoolteachers — delivered draft notices to houses and apartment blocks. In mountainous eastern Siberia, the Russian news media reported, school buses were being commandeered to move troops to training grounds.
Russian officials said the call-up would be limited to people with combat experience. But the net appeared wider, and some men decided it was best to head for the borders.
Yanina Nimayeva, a journalist from the Buryatia region of Siberia, said that her husband, a father of five and an employee in the emergency department in the regional capital, had been inexplicably called up. She said he received a summons to an urgent 4 a.m. meeting where it was announced that a train had been organized to bring men to the city of Chita.
“My husband is 38 years old, he is not in the reserve, he did not serve,” Ms. Nimayeva said in a video addressed to regional officials. » | Anton Troianovski, Valerie Hopkins, Ivan Nechepurenko and Alina Lobzina | Published: Thursday, September 22, 2022; updated: Friday, September 23, 2022
