More than 800 people were arrested and detained in Russia as protests erupted in the country after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the partial military mobilization that will demand 300,000 men to go to war amid the Ukraine-Russian crisis.
According to independent Russian human rights media project, OVD info, at least 796 people had been detained in 33 cities on Sunday alone with nearly half of the total reported in Moscow.
In addition, the report also revealed that some of those detained after Putin’s military call-up were minors.
In a separate report on Monday, a young Russian man entered a military enlistment centre in the Siberian city of Ust-Ilimsk, saying “No one will go fight,” and “We will all go home now,” and shot the commander at close range.
The commander was immediately brought to the hospital and is currently in intensive care in “extremely grave” condition.
In the report released by the Russian media, it was revealed that the young man was upset by Putin’s recent military movement after his best friend who did not have any combat experience, which authorities say is the main criteria for the draft, received a call-up notice from the government.
Following the incident, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov released a statement and acknowledged that there were some call-ups that had been issued in error and mistakes would be corrected.
On Sunday, at least 100 people were detained in the southern Russian region of Dagestan after they protested against the new military call-ups that would send hundreds of thousands more people to fight in Ukraine.
Moreover, since the invasion of Ukraine, protests have taken place routinely in Russia.
The recent call-ups came after Russia suffered significant losses of occupied territories in Ukraine’s east owing to a counteroffensive launched by the Ukrainian military.
As a result, Putin imposed harsher penalties against Russians who would willingly surrender to Ukrainian forces or refuse orders to mobilize.
According to the Russian officials, up to 300,000 reserve forces would be called up to fight. They also made it clear that only those with relevant combat and service experience will be drafted to fight.
