In Russia, the obituary of a department head of the Moscow City Administration is published. This causes panic among many other officials and employees – they leave their jobs and flee.
Putin’s general mobilization does not stop at Moscow officials – and that is causing some panic in Russia. As the “Institute for the Study of War” (ISW) reports, citing several Russian sources, an obituary recently led to a veritable mass exodus of city administration employees and officials.
What happened? Two days ago, Russian sources published an obituary for the 28-year-old Alexey Martynov, head of department at the Moscow City Administration. Martynov was mobilized on September 23 and sent to the front a few days later – although he had no combat experience. On October 10 he fell in Ukraine.
The obituary has now led to a mass exodus of employees of the Moscow city government “of military age”. According to a well-known Russian Telegram channel: “Even well-meaning people from the Moscow government report: ‘We are having a mass exodus – the employees are leaving us and leaving notes on their desks. IT people, advertising people, marketing people, PR people and civil servants. A real mass exodus”.
In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the partial mobilization of 300,000 soldiers to compensate for losses in the Ukraine war. So far, 222,000 reservists have been called to arms, and the planned number of 300,000 will be reached in around two weeks, Putin said on Friday. Of the conscripts, 16,000 were already “in combat units”.