Virtually all flights from Russia to foreign destinations were sold out in the Eurasian power, following President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilization of reservists for the war in Ukraine.
The Russians who were looking for plane tickets this Wednesday to leave Russia they found that there were no longer available to Istanbul, Yerevan, Baku or other destinations that do not require a visa, coinciding with the president’s announcement Vladimir Putin of a partial mobilization.
This was reported by media such as RBC y The Moscow Times.
According to the airline search engines Turkish Airlines, Azerbaijan Airlines and Armenia Aircompany there were no flights for a few days or only in Business class, as verified by Efe.
According to The Moscow Times, the tickets “were not available within minutes of Putin’s announcement.”
By noon direct flights to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan also disappeared from aggregators like aviasales.ru.
According to the head of the Federal Tourism Agency, Zarina Doguzova, there are currently no restrictions on Russians leaving the country due to partial mobilization.
“I get a lot of questions about going abroad under conditions of partial mobilization. According to our information, at the moment there are no restrictions on traveling abroad, ”he wrote on his official Telegram channel.
He indicated that “we must wait for the pertinent official clarifications. We have requested this information. We will promptly inform you of any changes,” he added.
The first mobilized will be reserve non-commissioned officers under the age of 35 and officers under the age of 45, according to Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Defense Committee of the Duma or chamber of deputies.
Calls for protests in all cities
The Vesná (Spring) peace movement called a national protest in Russia against the partial mobilization decreed today by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which plans to send 300,000 reservists to Ukraine.
Under the slogan “No to mobilization”, Russian citizens are called to protest at 4:00 p.m. GMT (1:00 p.m. in Chile) in their cities, according to the organization on its Telegram channel.
Vesná asserts that Putin’s partial mobilization means that “Thousands of Russian men, our fathers, brothers and husbands, will be thrown into the meat grinder of war.”
“Why will mothers and children shed tears? For Putin’s palace?” asks the movement.
“Now the war will truly come to every home and every family. The authorities said that only the ‘professionals’ were fighting and that they would win. It turned out that they were not winning and the prisoners began to be recruited for the front. And now the mobilization has been announced”, he indicated.
Vesná maintains that the situation is “extremely difficult”, because “the war is no longer ‘out there’, but rather “has reached our country, our homes, our relatives”.
And those mobilized “must die to correct the mistakes of the Putin regime, which plunged Russia into monstrous carnage, isolation and poverty,” he added.
The deputies and officials who daily shouted about the need for mobilization will remain in their warm seats, alive and kicking, the organization denounces.
Anticipating that the Russian security forces will try to prevent or suppress the protests, the movement published the contact details of the independent human rights organization OVD-Info, which monitors arrests and defends those arrested and which was declared a year ago a “foreign agent” in Russia.
According to this organization, since the beginning of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine there have been 16,437 arrests in protests against the military intervention.