Russia reveals IT workers, bankers and state 'journalists' will be exempt from military call up as thousands flee country
23 September 2022, 18:46
IT workers, bankers and reporters who work for Russian state media will be exempt from Vladimir Putin's mobilisation order, the Kremlin has announced.
His conscription to send 300,000 people to fight in Ukraine has triggered a wave of protests in cities and forced young men to try and flee the country to avoid a call-up.
The Russian defence ministry has told businesses to draw up lists of workers who meet the criteria for being pressed into military service.
But those who work in "specific high-tech industries, as well as Russia's financial system" will be exempt, it said on Friday.
The draft is a major escalation that shows just how badly Putin's failing invasion of Ukraine has gone.
A race to the border has ensued, with men of fighting age who could be vulnerable to conscription trying to flee into neighbouring Georgia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, while flights out of Moscow have booked out despite ticket prices soaring into the thousands.
Despite the Kremlin's insistence that the mobilisation is limited to 300,000 people with military and relevant experience, critics have said the wording of Putin's decree is vague to allow a wider draft.
Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper, reported that an unnamed government source said a redacted part of the order would allow the government to call up about one million people.
Reports also suggest men who do not fit the criteria set out by the Kremlin are being called up too, with people previously exempt for health reasons now being readied to fight in Ukraine.
It was also reported that some of the anti-war protests who were arrested in dozens of cities across Russia after protesting the mobilisation order have now been forced into service.
Read more: Russians flee on one-way tickets to avoid being hauled to frontlines of Putin’s ‘meatgrinder’
Footage of families saying their goodbyes as they're ripped apart by the new draft has emerged, with heartbroken relatives saying farewells to men who are due to be shipped off.
Video said to have come from a small town called Yakutsk, in Siberia, shows men embracing weeping loved ones before boarding a white bus.
Twitter user Gantcho Mantchorov sent LBC a screengrab of his chat with a friend in St Petersburg.
His friend said: "My friend's brother is getting mobilised today. He has never served in the army. Completely random.
"They are grabbing whomever they can. IT graduates with PhDs are no exceptions. There will be ocean of blood."
Asked if he can escape, the response is: "15 years in prison. Prison sounds like a better trade."
The mobilisation order is a desperate ploy by Russia after it lost thousands of soldiers during its invasion.
Ukraine has made rapid gains in a counter attack to the east, which has now seen Putin declare sham referenda in a bid to annex the regions already taken by the Kremlin's forces.
