Yahoo Finance Queues stretch 10 miles as Russians flee country following military orders
New images show thousands of people attempting to flee Russia as the backlash against Vladimir Putin’s military mobilisation grows.
Around 300,000 men have reportedly fled the country since a government announcement last week calling up military reservists to fight in Ukraine.
Satellite images released by Maxar showed a traffic jam stretching 10 miles from the border with Georgia.
The estimated wait to enter Georgia reached 48 hours on Sunday, with more than 3,000 vehicles queueing to cross the frontier, Russian state media reported.
Authorities on the Georgian side of the border said about 115,000 people and 37,000 cars crossed from Russia last week.
The Kremlin admitted it made “mistakes” with the mobilisation order following reports of men with no military background being drafted.
Russian officials insist they have no plans to close the border despite reports in local media that an order could follow the ongoing sham referendums in occupied Ukraine.
Attempts to flee the country came amid reports that some of the men called up in recent days were not offered any significant military training and had already been sent to the front.
It comes after a shooting took place in Irkutsk, Siberia, when Ruslan Zinin, 25, burst into a conscription office and fired three shots, hitting military commissar Aleksandr Yeliseyev in the head.
Video footage posted online showed the attack as well as potential recruits running for their lives.
“No one is going to fight,” shouted Zinin as he fired. “We are all going home now.”
Regional governor Igor Kobzev said Zinin had been arrested and would “absolutely be punished”. Yeliseyev is in intensive care.
On Monday Britain imposed a new round of sanctions in relation to Russia’s “sham referendums” in territories it occupies in Ukraine.
The measures include travel bans and asset freezes targeting 33 officials and “collaborators” involved in organising the votes on joining the Russian Federation, and on four more oligarchs who have helped fund Putin’s war effort.
