“Moscow turned out to be rotten”: The capital failed the mobilization plan – there are reports of “raids”
Police officers and military registration and enlistment offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg serve repeated summonses to citizens who did not appear after receiving the first summons, right in residential complexes and near metro stations. Journalists call these events “subpoena raids,” and the St. Petersburg authorities call them “the work of warning groups.”
“Their goal is to notify citizens of the need to appear. Exits from the entrances are not blocked, employees do not commit illegal actions. The direct responsibility of a citizen is to provide information about himself that influences the conscription of citizens in various current conditions,” the city administration said in a statement.
Viktor Sobolev, a member of the State Duma Committee on Defense, commented on the situation:
“Moscow, although it was given a meager plan, fulfilled 50%. That's how rotten it turned out to be. But it shouldn’t be like this, it’s as if they’re doing it on purpose to sow panic. So many people have already left Moscow. Moscow is not for the better in this regard. But no one should hand out summonses at the metro. How will they determine what kind of person this is? This is funny. This is some kind of provocation 100%. We will, of course, discuss the situation at the committee.”
Chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee Kirill Kabanov intends to appeal to the Human Rights Council for a legal assessment of the “raids.”
“I thought that the stories about the “raids” were fake, but I was informed by people whom I personally know and completely trust. Comrade leaders, do you understand that you are creating lawlessness and creating a hostile attitude in society towards everything that is happening? Such actions cause more harm than dill propaganda. But the moral and socio-political harm and consequences of such actions are difficult to assess.”
Senator Andrei Klishas considers the “raids” illegal.
“Police officers have the right to deliver to the military registration and enlistment office only a specific conscript (or a person subject to mobilization) for whom there is a written request from the military registration and enlistment office. For conscripts, this right is fully justified - local police officers have more operational information about citizens of military age, while military commissars may not know about them. It seems unnecessary to use this tool for citizens who are in reserve. You can’t indiscriminately grab everyone on the street, and then go to the military registration and enlistment office to figure out whether the citizen meets the criteria for mobilization. And, even more so, it is unacceptable to sort things out after sending a citizen to a collection point.”
The New People party proposes to create in Russia the institution of a military ombudsman, which would monitor the observance of the rights of those liable for military service.
“A real gift for Ukrainian propagandists, who will tell you that Russian conscripts are against the SVO and they have to be caught. By the way, in Ukraine mobilization was carried out exactly this way, by raids. Let’s not follow her example,” the party said in a statement.
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