Mistakes keep occurring in the Russian partial mobilization. Reports that old and sick men are also being conscripted and that those mobilized are being mistreated fuels anger among Russians. This is currently causing enormous problems for the Kremlin, reports the US think tank ISW.
According to experts, Russia is threatened with increasing resentment among the population and the administrative apparatus with numerous mistakes in the partial mobilization. The government not only faces the challenge of enlisting enough men to continue fighting in Ukraine as quickly as possible, but also has to calm the frightened and angry population, writes the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
In many places, the Kremlin plays down violations of mobilization laws as failures of individual local officials. But the mistakes are too obvious for the population to believe, according to the ISW situation report on Monday (local time). Because unlike the Russian defeats in Ukraine, which the population does not get to see directly, they do not have to rely on the media to find out about the mobilization errors.
Reports that men who had never served or were too ill or too old to fight were being conscripted, or that mobilized people were being mistreated, spread by word of mouth as families vented their anger. According to information from the ISW, the Kremlin is increasingly trying to correct this picture with reports according to which those who were wrongly conscripted were released from the recruiting centers after state intervention.
However, according to the ISW, the government also risks undermining the integrity of its vital administrative machinery if local authorities continue to be blamed for mistakes for which they are not solely responsible. The institute referred to the first cases in which resistance to the mobilization was directed against the executing officials on site, such as on Monday in the eastern Siberian city of Ust-Ilimsk, where a reservist shot the head of a conscription office. In addition, there have been protests against the conscription in dozens of towns in the past few days.
