War has come home to Russia

A week of somewhat mixed messages from the Kremlin. One day Vladimir Putin opened Europe’s largest Ferris wheel and presided over citywide celebrations of Moscow’s 875th anniversary, full of calm and good cheer and mentioning the war only in passing. A few days later he appeared on national TV telling the world that he was ‘not bluffing’ about using nuclear weapons and announcing a partial mobilisation. Putin has never fought a contested election in his life, so he’s never been a great one for the common touch. But in his latest address he looked as pale and dead-eyed as Nosferatu.

Russians know better than most that the more strenuously something is officially denied, the more likely it is to happen. Defence minister Sergei Shoigu appeared after Putin to explain that the call-up would apply only to 300,000 military reservists with combat experience. In practice the povestki – summonses to report at recruitment centres – rained down apparently randomly. The whole of one recently graduated class of young Moscow architects were called up on the grounds that they had completed some compulsory military training as part of their course. The 55-year-old father of a schoolfriend of one of my neighbours received papers despite never having served. He went to the recruiting office to explain the mistake. Two hours later he was on a bus to a training camp.

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Ross Clark

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In Russia, every crisis is also a business opportunity. Within a day of Putin’s mobilisation call, reports a businesswoman friend, a network of consultants specialising in bronirovanie – literally, to ‘armour-plate’ something – had sprung up. Because vaguely defined ‘specialists’ are exempt from the draft, managers scramble to furnish employees with papers proving they are indispensable. Average cost: £120 per person, most of which gets kicked back to the draft offices issuing the exemptions.