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Nicolas Tenzer, teacher at Sciences Po and guest of Talk franceinfo, on Twitch, believes that the announcement of the partial mobilization decreed by the Russian president created a form of panic among “people who had been very apathetic until then”.
Less than a week after the announcement of the partial mobilization decreed by Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, September 21, this initiative seems to be turning into a fiasco in Russia. Russian authorities arrested more than 700 people on Saturday during demonstrations against the mobilization of reservists to fight in Ukraine, reports the NGO OVD-info, which specializes in counting the arrests. Arrests which are in addition to those observed on the day of the announcement of this mobilization.
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Faced with this situation, many Russians are trying to leave the country so as not to be enrolled in the army. The movement is visible elsewhere in the airports where flights to Armenia, Serbia or Turkey were sold out as soon as the partial mobilization was announced. “Many people thought that Vladimir Putin would never make this announcement, because we knew that this mobilization would be extremely unpopular, underlines Nicolas Tenzer, teacher at Sciences Po, specialist in international issues and director of publication of the desk-russie.eu site, Monday September 26 in Le Talk de franceinfo on Twitch. It created a kind of dread. Many Russians who could be mobilized who had not moved at all when the war against Ukraine was started felt directly concerned this time around.”
“This situation is not that of a revolution because it concerns despite everything a minority of Russians, but it creates a form of consciousness. People who were very apathetic tell themselves that something is malfunctioning.”
Nicholas Tenzerat franceinfo
Russia is looking for a parade in the counter-offensive of Ukrainian troops which made it possible to retake thousands of square kilometers of territory at the beginning of September. For Nicholas Tenzer, “Vladimir Putin is desperate. The Russian president realizes that his regular army is experiencing absolutely massive failures, that the equipment is starting to run out. It is becoming more and more difficult to repair or to have new weapons.”