Russians protested in the streets against President Vladimir V. Putin’s “partial mobilization” policy, which would force 300,000 people into military service, on Wednesday morning. According to OVD-Info, a human rights organization that keeps track of police activity, at least 1,252 people from 38 cities were detained.
On the Old Arbat, a popular pedestrian street in the heart of Moscow, hundreds of protesters gathered. “Send Putin to the trenches!” and “Let our children live,” they yelled. riot police could be seen dragging people away in video.
Three police officers in Tomsk dragged a woman holding a sign that read, “Hug me if you are also scared,” while she was peacefully grinning. I don’t want to die for Putin and for you, a man with a ponytail in Novosibirsk told police before being taken away.
According to OVD-Info, protest in Russia is essentially illegal; up until this week, nearly 16,500 people had been detained for antiwar activity. This number includes people who were simply protesting by holding a piece of paper in public. It is forbidden to “disseminate false information” about the conflict and “discredit the Russian Army” as of March.
Russians showed up to protest in spite of the general prosecutor’s office issuing a warning on Wednesday that unapproved demonstrations could result in imprisonment for up to 15 years for disseminating false information about the military, which was made a crime in February.
Both the antiwar organization Vesna, or Spring, and imprisoned opposition politician Aleksei A. Navalny called for demonstrations on Wednesday.
The idea of being detained has become so commonplace in Russia that one animal shelter that makes money from clothing sales created T-shirts depicting kids playing outside of what appears to be a school bus but is actually an AvtoZak, the vehicle riot police use to transport detainees to be booked at the police station.
In order to maintain Russians’ passive support for the war, Mr. Putin has relied on a strategy of maintaining life as normal as possible for them. On February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, thousands of people demonstrated, but law enforcement authorities were able to quell most of the unrest.
Now that reservists could be called up, the war is getting closer to the homes of regular people.
Because the majority of Russian men of military age are legally considered reservists and a year of military service is required for men between the ages of 18 and 27, Mr. Putin’s draft announcement may frighten the Russian public. Even though Sergei K. Shoigu, the defense minister, has stated that only those with prior military experience are eligible to be drafted, some common Russians worry that there may soon be broader conscription, which could have repercussions for Vladimir Putin at home.
“Mobilization raises the stakes not only in war, and not only in international relations, it raises the stakes in domestic politics,” Ivan Kurilla, a professor of history and international relations at the European University in St. Petersburg, wrote on Facebook.
Even though the “partial” mobilization order did not limit the draft, Greg Yudin, a professor of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences who is now at Princeton University, said it was “not a breach of the famous ‘you don’t mess up with our business, we don’t mess with yours’ contract either.”
By Wednesday night, a petition opposing “full and partial mobilization” had nearly 300,000 signatures.
“I think people couldn’t pull themselves out of shock — they simply couldn’t believe that there would be a mobilization announced,” said Anastasia, 36, one of the petition’s organizers, who lives in St. Petersburg and whose last name is being withheld for security reasons. “Even yesterday we thought that it couldn’t happen,” she said, referring to the anticipation of Mr. Putin’s announcement speech, which was initially expected on Tuesday evening. “But it seems to me that today people are still in shock that it is happening. And they finally realized: ‘This concerns me, too.’”
Mr. Navalny released the findings of a poll his organization had commissioned on Wednesday afternoon, asking participants how they would feel about mandatory mobilization. The majority claimed to disagree.
