Russia concluded this Friday (28) the so-called partial mobilization ordered by President Vladimir Putin in September to reinforce the Russian military contingent in the war in Ukraine.
Of the 300 thousand reservists called up, 82 thousand were sent to the neighboring country to participate in what Moscow calls a “special military operation”, said the defense minister. Russian Sergey Shoigu during a meeting with Putin broadcast on state television.
Other 218 thousand draftees are still receiving military training in various parts of the country. “The average age of mobilized citizens is 35 years old,” Shoigu said. Among them, all men, there are more than 1.300 civil servants and 27 a thousand businessmen, self-employed and entrepreneurs.
“Other 13 thousand, without waiting for the summons, expressed their desire to fulfill their duty and were sent as volunteers”, he declared.
Por Putin, in turn, highlighted that the current priority is to train and equip those mobilized “so that these people feel safer if they are called to take part in military actions”.
“I want to thank everyone who enlisted in the armed forces. I mean thank you for your loyalty, for your patriotism, for your firm conviction to defend our country,” he said.
Putin admitted difficulties and problems during the mobilization, but considered them “inevitable “, as it had been “a long time” since the last mobilization of this type in Russia, which took place in World War II.
Putin also considered that the experience accumulated during the current military campaign in Ukraine makes it necessary a the introduction of reforms, both in the Army and in the conscription system.
He gave Shoigu until December to present proposals for reforming the army, which has suffered several setbacks in Ukraine in the last two months, forcing him to o to withdraw from several areas of Donbas and the south of the neighboring country.
On 21 in September, Putin decreed the mobilization of 300 thousand reservists who had completed their military service or worked in a specialty required by the Army, which led to a mass exodus of Russians of military age.
According to various sources, hundreds of thousands of Russians fled to post-Soviet countries such as Georgia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and neighboring Finland, which was recently accepted into NATO.
