New images show thousands of people trying to flee Russia after President Vladimir Putin announced a new violent military mobilization in Ukraine, where a counteroffensive has pushed them back.
According to the reports, around 550,000 men have fled Russia since the government announced last week a call for “military reservists” to fight in Ukraine.
Satellite images published by Maxar show a traffic jam that extends some 10 miles from the border of Russia with Georgia.
The estimated wait to enter Georgia arrived last Sunday at 48 hours, with more than 3,000 vehicles doing line to cross the border, Russian state media reported.
Authorities on the Georgian side of the border said some 115,000 people and 37,10 Cars crossed from Russia last week.
The Kremlin admitted it made “mistakes” with the mobilization order after reports of men with no military background being recruited.
Russian officials insist they have no plans to close the border despite reports in local media.
The attempts to flee the country occurred amid reports that some of the men called up in recent days were not offered any significant military training and had already been sent to the front.
This report comes after a shooting in Irkutsk, Siberia, when Ruslan Zinin, aged 26, broke into a recruiting office and fired three shots, hitting military commissar Aleksandr Yeliseyev in the head.
Video footage posted online showed the attack, as well as potential recruits running for their lives.
“No one is going to fight,” Zinin yelled as he fired. “We’re all going home now.”
The regional governor, Igor Kobzev, said that Zinin had been arrested and that he would be “absolutely punished”. Yeliseyev is in intensive care.
On Monday, Britain imposed a new round of sanctions in connection with Russia’s “fake referendums” in the territories it occupies in Ukraine.
The measures include travel bans and freezing of assets directed at 33 officials and “collaborators” involved in organizing the vote to join the Russian Federation, and four other oligarchs who helped finance Putin’s war effort
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