Protests erupt across Russia

IN A SPEECH on September 21st, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, ordered a partial mobilisation of reservists to fight in Ukraine. The announcement sparked a visceral public response. Many thousands of Russians have since tried to flee the country to avoid conscription. The numbers could well come to exceed the 300,000 who fled when the war began. One Russian man, who spoke to The Economist on the condition of anonymity, says he avoids the metro in St Petersburg—he heard men were being grabbed there at random. Others are taking to the streets to voice their opposition to Mr Putin’s mobilisation drive. A few recruitment centres have been set on fire (see map).

In the five days after Mr Putin’s announcement the Institute for the Study of War, a think-tank, recorded 100 protests, 14 attacks on military recruitment centres and two attacks against other administrative buildings across the country. Large demonstrations took place in wealthy cities, such as Moscow and St Petersburg. According to OVD-info, a Russian human-rights group, more than 1,000 people were arrested there on September 21st alone.

But the backlash has also spread to poorer parts of the country with large ethnic-minority populations. They include Bashkortostan, in central Russia; Dagestan, a Muslim-majority republic in the south; and Sakha, a region in the far east.

Although far from the centre of political power, these regional protests may prove to be more of a concern for the Kremlin than the flare-ups in Moscow. Poorer areas have provided much of Russia’s military recruitment. A report by the BBC Russian service and Mediazone, an independent Russian media organisation, found that Dagestan, where the median monthly income is just 23,600 roubles ($404), had suffered at least 306 casualties in Ukraine by September 25th, the highest toll of any region in the country. Moscow, where the median income is close to 65,000 roubles per month, was known to have suffered just 24 casualties. (The true number for both regions is likely to be higher.)

Since the recruitment drive began, reports quickly emerged that draft papers were being dished out liberally in places such as Buryatia, an ethnic-Mongolian region in eastern Siberia, and Chechnya, in the south. The Kremlin’s plan, so much as one exists, appears to involve relying on poor ethnic minorities to fight its war.

But the backlash suggests that these populations are increasingly unhappy to act as cannon fodder. Discontent has been especially clear in Dagestan, where there have been six reported protests against mobilisation in five days. A rally on September 25th in Makhachkala, the republic’s capital, led to at least 101 arrests, according to OVD-info. On the same day 24 people were detained in Yakutsk, Sakha’s capital.

Mr Putin desperately needs men to feed his faltering war. But he faces a tough challenge in persuading Russia’s minorities that it is a cause worth dying for. ■