98,000 Russians enter Kazakhstan; total 194,000 flee to escape Putin’s military call-up
Interior Ministry of Georgia revealed that an estimated 53,000 Russians may have entered the country since last week after mobilization announcement.
In a desperate attempt to escape President Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilisation to fight a war in Ukraine, an estimated 98,000 Russians have crossed into Kazakhstan via the land border. Over 194,000 Moscow nationals in total have fled to neighbouring Georgia, Kazakhstan and Finland on a bicycle, in a car or even on foot, covering more than a 1,100-mile journey to enter the neighbour’s frontier, either legally or in a breach.
Kazakh officials said Tuesday, that men of military age have been trying to avoid the call-up and have infiltrated the neighbouring countries in what looks like scenes of mass exodus. The ex-Soviet Union countries were popular destinations for the Russian men to find refuge other than Russia’s one other geopolitical ally Turkey.
At 26, I do not want to be carried home in a zinc-lined [coffin] or stain [my] hands with somebody’s blood because of the war of one person that wants to build an empire,” Vsevolod, who drove non-stop for over four days to make it to Russia’s southern border with Georgia told the Associated Press.
He requested the agency not to give out his last name fearing reprisal from the Russian government.
Footages from the border depicted the long lines of cars snaking on roads toward the borders, and waiting up to several hours in the traffic congestion. Some, exhausted from waiting, abandoned their vehicles and resumed their journey on foot. Yandex Maps showed heavy traffic on the route leading to Verkhny Lars, a border crossing into Georgia from Russia’s North Ossetia region. Russian nationals were spotted lined up at the military checkpoint installed by Federal Security Service (FSB), Moscow’s main successor agency to the Soviet Union’s KGB.
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The latter claimed that the armoured tank and hundreds of troops were moved there, “not to halt those travelling at a checkpoint” but to avoid these reservists crossing into the border of another country without completing the legal formalities.
FSB allegedly rounding up men outside military criteria
Interior Ministry of Georgia in a statement revealed that an estimated 53,000 Russians may have entered the country since last week after Putin announced the partial but biggest mobilization since WWII. Interior Ministry in Kazakhstan put this figure at 98,000 while the Finnish Border Guard agency said over 43,000 Russians arrived in Finland. Some 3,000 Russians entered Mongolia. While Russia’s Defense Ministry at a conference clarified that it will recruit only 300,000 military-aged men with prior combat training, reports have emerged that the FSB has been rounding up men for enlisting outside the criteria.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Tuesday announced that Russians trying to enter his country must be provided full assistance “because of the current hopeless situation.” “We must take care of them and ensure their safety. It is a political and a humanitarian issue. I tasked the government to take the necessary measures,” Tokayev said, adding that Kazakhstan will hold talks with Russia on the matter.
