“The mobilized population is not fooled and understands that Russia is entering the war“, explained Saturday September 24 on franceinfo Carole Grimaud, specialist in Russian geopolitics, teacher at the University of Montpellier, and expert at the Geostrategic Observatory of Geneva, while Moscow launched the partial mobilization of its reservists. For Carole Grimaud, there is “great confusion in the implementation of this mobilization“. She believes that “over a million” Russians would be affected by this mobilization, “vsis a fairly general confusion between what the authorities say and what is happening on the ground in the recruitment centers“.
franceinfo: The Russians did not expect the partial mobilization. Is there a break between the population and President Putin?
Carole Grimaud: This mobilization was not planned. On many occasions, the government had denied any rumors of mobilization. The fear of mobilization has existed among the population for several months. And that had always been denied by the authorities. However, today we see this mobilization taking on a large scale. The population is taken aback. We have seen all these departures. We also see great confusion in the implementation of this mobilization with many errors and contradictory information, and regions that would be more targeted than others. It’s a fairly general confusion between what the authorities say and what happens on the ground in the recruitment centres. No one understands anything anymore.
Is this mobilization broader than what the Kremlin says? The feeling is that we are enlisting with a vengeance in Russia at the moment.
That’s the feeling we have. Even women are enlisted. There is the case of a female doctor who received her mobilization summons. The number is kept secret. It would be a clause that has not been published. The suspicions which have already weighed since yesterday are that this mobilization would relate not to 300,000, like the figure given by the Minister of Defence, but rather to a million and perhaps even more than a million people.
In the eyes of the Russians, with this mobilization, is the war now revealing its true face?
We are still not talking about war, we are still sticking to this special operation. But of course, the mobilized population is not fooled and understands that Russia is entering the war with this mobilization. There are also the mobilized who do not resist, and who, out of patriotic feeling, declare that they want to do their duty and go to the recruitment office voluntarily. But what we see is above all this confusion and this contradictory information which is causing the population to panic. Checks have been repeated at the borders, the police appear more and more numerous in the cities where there are always demonstrations, arrests and even today. For the flow of Russians, those who were able to leave the territory by land or by air, the controls are tightening. You must prove that you have a return ticket, or you are asked how much money you have to leave. You are asked for all kinds of documents. And it gets harder and harder.