Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he will be partially deployed to reinforce his troops in Ukraine prompted airlines on Wednesday (21st) websites to rush to try to leave Russia as soon as possible. Direct flight tickets to the closest destinations to Russia are sold out for today.

The mobilization initially concerns 300,000 reservists, but a total of 25 million Russians could be mobilized to join the army in eastern and southern Ukraine, according to the Ministry of Defense.

According to Google Trends, a statistical tool that tracks how often a word is typed into Google, searches for “ticket” and “airplane” in Russia have more than doubled since 6:00 GMT this morning. Wednesday, the televised speech recorded by Vladimir Putin as the broadcast began.

The question “Leave Russia” was Googled 100 times more in the morning than during normal times.

The Belgorod region, located on Ukraine’s northeastern border and hit several times by Ukrainian rockets since the end of February, is one of the places where these searches were conducted.

flee to the mountains

Direct flight tickets to Russia’s closest destinations – Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan – sold out this Wednesday, according to Aviasales, a popular Russian ticketing site.

“All flights are full” until Saturday for travel to Istanbul with Turkish Airlines, which has become one of the main routes abroad by plane since Western sanctions and the closure of European airspace.

On AirSerbia, the next flight to Belgrade with empty seats is scheduled for Monday (26).

As the tickets offered from Moscow to Vladikavkaz (south) show, prices for domestic flights to cities close to the country’s borders have also exploded… more than $750… compared to the regular price of $70.

At the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, there was the first exodus of Russians who opposed the offensive or feared mobilization. No official estimates were made public, but included at least tens of thousands of people.

An online petition to condemn the mobilization on the Change.org website gathered 160,000 signatures within hours.

Soldiers are sought even in psychiatric hospitals

For Nicolas Tenzer, the political scientist he interviewed RFI, partial military mobilization is a sign of an emergency for the Russian army in Ukraine. “As we have seen over the past few weeks and since the beginning of the operations, the Russian army is extremely fragile. It has suffered significant defeats. It has probably already lost more than 50,000 men. In addition, 150,000 wounded. It is fighting,” he assesses.

According to the expert, “an attempt to make something happen, so to speak”. “The Russian army went to look for a certain number of people in prisons, as well as psychiatric hospitals and even people over 50, so that the Russians were not very fit to fight, in order to turn them into improvised soldiers. Actually, this partial mobilization, just because there are no more soldiers, because there are no more armies. doing”, the expert insists.

For Tenzer, the fact that the West and even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, one of the mediators of this conflict, mediated negotiations with Kiev, as well as Moscow, is a sign that Russia is isolated.

“Russia seems to be getting more and more isolated. We saw this even at the Samarkand summit, to say the least, with critical statements from the Indian president and even from the Chinese. We saw this in the UN General Assembly vote.” said..

“Most countries – even a very large majority, as only a few states like Syria and Eritrea voted against Zelensky – finally agreed, including the former republics. [soviéticas] From Central Asia, which is beginning to see more and more that Moscow is not first and foremost a guarantor, first and foremost a viable partner. So yes, Russia is increasingly isolated and Erdogan as we know supports them. It even supplies drones to Ukraine. Political scientist, no one will recognize these referendums, that’s very clear,” he concludes.