Hours after President Vladimir Putin announced his decision to mobilize 300,000 men and women, Mikhail, a 29-year-old musician, protested on Moscow’s Arbat Avenue. Mikhail Suetin knew it was possible to be stopped at the demonstration, but he had not foreseen that he would receive a mobilization order to go to the front.
Like 1,300 other people from all over the country, the musician was arrested. “I expected the usual procedures: prison, police station and court,” says the young man interviewed by AFP. “But to be told, ‘Tomorrow you go to war,’ was a surprise,” he added.
According to the independent specialized NGO OVD-Info, Mikhail Suetin is not the only protester who has been ordered to mobilize at the police station after his arrest.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said there was nothing “illegal” about the decision.
Suetin says that after his arrest, police took him to a room where they wanted him to sign a document to go to an army mobilization center. “Sign This or Spend Ten Years in Jail”threatened.
Last Tuesday, on the eve of the mobilization, parliament passed heavy prison terms for deserters and those who refuse to join the army. However, this measure has not yet entered into force.
Suetin refused to sign the subpoena, at the behest of his lawyer, and was released Thursday morning.
However, the agents warned that the Russian Commission of Inquiry, which is responsible for the main criminal investigations, would be informed of the rejection, which would cause it “big trouble”.
“Unfortunately I signed”
Andrei, who turned 19 last week, was also detained at the demonstrations in Moscow. Like Mikhail, he was arrested and given the same order to travel to Ukraine.
Unlike Suetin, the teen signed the document under “threat”, of which AFP had access to a digital copy.
“Obviously I couldn’t escape. I looked around and decided I couldn’t resist the temptation,” he told AFP by phone. “Unfortunately, I signed,” the teenager says.
Andrei had just started his studies at university. Despite assurances from the Kremlin and Defense Minister Serguei Shoigou that no students would be drafted and that Russian troops would prefer those with specific skills or military experience, the young man was recruited.
“But as they say here, Russia is a country where the expansion of the possible is infinite,” he vents bitterly.
Andrei, who is still looking for a lawyer, finally decided not to go to the mobilization center at the scheduled time – Thursday at 10 am – despite not knowing what the consequences will be.
“I haven’t said anything to my parents because they’re going to be worried,” he explains. “I’ll tell you when I have a clearer picture of what’s going to happen to me,” the boy adds.
Source: DN
