Tens of thousands of people are trying to find shelter in Kazakhstan as many leave Russia in response to the announcement of a partial troop enlistment order, according to officials.
The sudden influx of Russians, almost 100,000, have crossed the border since the mobilisation announcement, the government said, has left hotels and hostels full and rent skyrocketing.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, whose administration has refused to support what Russia calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, urged patience and tolerance.
“A lot of people from Russia have come here over the last few days,” he said in a speech on Tuesday.
“We must take care of them and ensure their safety. This is a political and humanitarian matter,” Tokayev said.
Kazakhstan, home to a significant ethnic Russian minority and where the Russian language is spoken widely, does not require Russians to have a visa or a passport to enter the country.
“There are cases when the decree is violated,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said, adding that “all the errors will be corrected”.
Multiple reports say people with no military experience – or who are too old or disabled – are being called up.
Last week’s mobilization decree has already triggered widespread protests.
President Putin announced what he described as partial mobilization on 21 September, with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu later saying 300,000 reservists would be called up.
However, reports in opposition Russian media suggested that up to one million people could be called up, pointing out that one paragraph believed to be about the exact number of the required reservists was omitted (classified) in the published version of Mr Putin’s decree on the official Kremlin website.
A number of military experts in the West and Ukraine say Mr Putin’s decision to call up reservists shows that Russian troops are failing badly on the battlefield in Ukraine – more than seven months after Moscow launched its invasion.
Since the mobilization announcement, more than 2,000 people have been detained at protests across Russia.
At a briefing on Monday, Mr Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, conceded that mistakes were being made.
He said that in some regions, “governors are actively working to rectify the situation”.
Mr Peskov also said he was unaware of any decisions to shut Russia’s borders and impose martial law in the country.
Media reports earlier suggested this could be done to stop potential recruits from escaping abroad.
Footage has emerged on social media apparently showing the attacker approaching the officer and then shooting him. People in the building are then seen screaming and running in panic after the gunman shouted to them to flee.
Over the weekend, people in Russia’s Dagestan republic in the North Caucasus clashed with police over the mobilisation drive. More than 100 people were arrested during protests in the regional capital, Makhachkala, said OVD-Info, an independent Russian human rights monitor.
There have also been reports of a number of arson attacks on recruitment centres and other administrative buildings across Russia.
In his last week’s mobilisation announcement, Mr Putin did not specify how many reservists would be called up.
But speaking immediately after the president, Mr Shoigu said 300,000 reservists – people who have had military experience and required specialist skills – would be enlisted.
The minister said this was just over 1% of Russia’s 25 million military reserve potential. The process would be spread over several months.
Certain age and disability limits would apply, the mobilisation decree said. It provided no further details. It is believed that males aged 18-60 – and in some cases even older – could be mobilised.
Russian commentators have cast serious doubts on the promises of the president and his defence minister that the call-up will be limited.
They also point out that the decree says nothing about exceptions, such as not recruiting students or conscripts.
It is believed to have been left to regional heads to decide who to call in order to meet quotas.
Before launching its invasion on 24 February, Russia had amassed about 190,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders.
British intelligence has reported that, as men called up for the country’s partial mobilization began arriving at military camps, a man shot a recruiter and set a conscription office on fire in Russia.
In Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk, a conscription office was shot at by theassailant, severely injuring a military recruitment officer.
Sky News has confirmed a video purportedly taken by a would-be recruit of the shooting.
It shows the gunman shooting the recruiter who falls to the ground, as others at the draft office start running out to the sounds of a woman screaming.
He was detained by police and identified himself as 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin in a separate video posted on social media.
Irkutsk region Governor Igor Kobzev wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the recruitment officer was in hospital in a critical condition, adding the detained gunman “will absolutely be punished”.
It comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin – faced with a series of defeats in Ukraine – announced a partial mobilization last week that could see 300,000 reserves called up to fight.
Elsewhere, a man was seen throwing Molotov cocktails at a military registration and enlistment office in Uryupinsk, in footage circulating on social media.
It shows the man driving a car up to the entrance of the local government building in the center of the town.
He can then be seen lighting several Molotov cocktails, throwing them one by one at the entrance to the building.
Town officials confirmed the building was set on fire early on Monday morning, and a man was detained. Damage was minimal and no one was injured, they added.
The threat of mass conscription has sparked protests around the country, and military-aged men have been fleeing in droves.
“Everyone who is of conscription age should be banned from traveling abroad in the current situation,” Sergei Tsekov, a member of Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, told RIA news agency on Monday.
Russia faces an administrative and logistical challenge to provide training for the new recruits, the UK Ministry of Defense said in its latest intelligence update.
Many tens of thousands of call-up papers have already been issued.
“Many of the drafted troops will not have had any military experience for some years,” the MoD said.
“The lack of military trainers, and the haste with which Russia has started the mobilization, suggests that many of the drafted troops will deploy to the front line with minimal relevant preparation.
“They are likely to suffer a high attrition rate.”
Videos have emerged showing men being forced onto buses as many citizens refused to take part in the war.
Protests over mobilization have taken place in more than a dozen cities across Russia, with girls as young as 14 years old detained.
Hundreds of people were arrested over the weekend, and there were major protests in the Dagestan region yesterday.
Sky correspondent Alex Rossi in Moscow said: “Russia is a very heavily securitized police state. Dissent isn’t tolerated, but there have been sporadic protests all over the country. Thousands of people have been arrested, protesting against what the Kremlin is calling a partial mobilization, but really, what to you and I, looks like mass conscription.”
The call-up of 300,000 reserves is almost double the initial invasion force, “so is a reflection really of how badly things are going on the battlefield, and shows that they have a very significant manpower problem”, he said.
General Sir Richard Barrons, a former head of the Joint Forces Command, told Sky News some individuals who are mobilized may find themselves on the front line in Ukraine very quickly.
“Of course, they wouldn’t necessarily be very enthusiastic about that,” he said. “And they won’t be very well trained and are probably not very well equipped for this kind of mobilization to make a difference.
“Russia would have to invest in training and equipping these large numbers of people that would take them well into next year. And it just doesn’t look like they have the training machinery, the logistics, or the weapons to make this really work any time soon.”
As Russia steps up its conscription of citizens, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged opposition troops to surrender to his country’s forces.
It comes as “sham” referendums continue in contested territory, which could lead to the formal annexation of Ukraine’s land.
They are being held in the self-declared Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republics (LPR), and in Russian-occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
The move comes eight years after a similar process in Russian-occupied Crimea, which Moscow said was justification for annexing the peninsula.
Sky’s security and defense editorDeborah Haynes in Dnipro, Ukraine, said the move was “a further escalation of the war”.
“There is no sign on the Ukraine side that they are backing down, but they are clearly going to have to counter an ever-increasing Russian force as they try to defend their territory and win back their land,” she added.
People are out on the streets after Putingave a partial mobilization announcement earlier today, according to Sky news’ Diana Magnay’s reports from the city.
“We haven’t seen protests in cities for the last five or six months, people have been so scared of the fact that they will be detained and that is clearly what is happening.
“But this mobilisation announcement has brought people out onto the streets here in Moscow and in various other cities across the country.
“I’m not saying everybody in this country is against this partial mobilization, I’ve been out on the streets talking to people today and some people, especially the older generation, are saying, ‘this is what we have to do, we have to save the people of Donbas’, and they soak up Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric.
“But there are people here who don’t agree with this, who are worried about this escalation, who don’t want to go and have to fight.
“This is something that the Kremlin has avoided, they have said this entire duration, that they are not considering a partial or full mobilisation, and just two weeks after that counteroffensive, president Putin makes that announcement.”
