Putin's escalation exhausts tickets to flee Russia while protests are called

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The Russians have woken up this Wednesday and

.

Parents, children, co-workers.

The fighting in Ukraine is no longer a television content, but the fate of hundreds of thousands of Russians who until a few days ago were indifferent to the conflict.

Tickets to escape the country on time are running out and protests have been called for this afternoon.

"Half of my staff has been mobilized, let's see what we do now," laments Katia, a Muscovite businesswoman with a business on the outskirts of the capital.

Her friend Marina de Ella lost her husband in Donbas in 2015, when Russia denied fighting in that war, she is now looking at the computer screen:

.

Reservists may be prohibited from leaving Russia after receiving their summons.

To escape this Wednesday of the recruitment there is nothing left.

Minutes after Putin's speech, all direct flights for September 21 to places like

and Yerevan, which are the main destination airports for Russians since European skies were closed, disappeared.

There are no other outlets left, and these too are closed, overwhelmed by demand, "Around noon Moscow time, direct tickets from Moscow to Tashkent, Baku, Bishkek and Astana disappeared from sale. There are still options with a stopover," confirmed the medium Neska.

The demand for plane tickets began to grow yesterday, after the media announced Vladimir Putin's speech.

inquiries on the internet

on Tuesday night.

Serguei, 18, was in Europe studying when the war started.

His parents forbade him to return in February for fear that Putin would decree a massive call-up.

His fears were confirmed this morning: Russia's first mobilization since World War II.

Defense has reported that the partial mobilization will call up

of the two million that the country has.

anti-war protests

The turmoil that the government feared if called up has begun.

The liberal Vesna movement has called for an all-Russia protest against the mobilization announced by the Russian president this morning.

And opposition leader

's team urged Russians to take to the streets.

They support any form of protest, including the burning of military enlistment offices.

On Tuesday night, as rumors spread that the mobilization would lock up all males between the ages of 18 and 27 in Russia, the liberals of Vesna (Russian for 'spring') made a dramatic appeal.

and to surrender before the amendments adopted by the Russian Parliament, which make refusal to fight a crime, come into force.

Putin has signed this Wednesday the decree.

Many Russians are afraid of combat.

The Ministry of Defense, after months of concealment, has given an official number of dead Russians:

.

Refuting that figure is a crime in Russia.

"Some people are so scared that they don't even want connecting flights, they want direct flights," explains Anna, one of whose friends, a pilot, is waiting for the notification to arrive.

Another, without a visa to enter the EU,

, although there are no direct flights to the latter place either.

Putin's announcement has also sent Russia's stock market to its lowest levels since he ordered troops to attack Ukraine on February 24.

No Exit

The mobilization decree

in the list of personnel of the Armed Forces.

"They are prohibited from leaving their place of residence without the permission of the military police stations," the decree explains.

This can also affect other professions such as doctors, mechanics or drivers.

A Telegram channel that collects experiences of Russian travelers crossing the border says it has received isolated accounts of border guards barring men of military age.

With rumors of border closures rising,

and airline

said they had "yet" not been ordered to ban men aged 18 to 65 from buying plane tickets, reports

.

RIA Novosti

, quoting the Human Rights Council member Kirill Kabanov, assures that

.

The mobilization is effective from the moment the citation is received.

Recruitment concerns those with the best military experience, the ministry, but the decree does not specify who is saved and whose turn it is to go to fight.

Various human rights lawyers point out that the "partial" mobilization decree leaves room for maneuver to mobilize even more troops than is publicly declared.

It seems that the government will have a free hand depending on the progress of the war.

Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Duma Defense Affairs Committee, said that

.

"Relax in the resorts of Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory," she said.

According to Kartapolov, until the moment of receiving the summons, people can move around the country, "but it is better not to do so."

Meat mincer

Since prison, Navalny has been acid about the mobilization of Putin.

"I don't understand one thing: the army has a million people; the National Guard, 350,000 people; the Ministry of the Interior has between a million and a half and two million... and there are so many people in the Federal Penitentiary Service.

?

Navalny described a situation in which five million draft evaders "are fleeing from one side of the country to the other. And a million policemen will run after them to move them somewhere."

"Thousands of Russian men, our fathers, brothers and husbands,

. Why will they die? Why will mothers and children shed tears?" reads the Vesna movement's appeal .

In Moscow, the police have already started to take measures to deal with street disorders this afternoon.

The activists urged citizens across the country to take to the central streets of Russian cities.

"Now it is already clear that this criminal war is getting worse and Putin tries to involve the largest number of people. [Putin]

," Navalny said in a video conference during a court hearing, according to his team on a Telegram channel.

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