Mobilized Russians Looking to Surrender

Since Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of troops, the number of appeals regarding surrender from Russian citizens to the hotline of the “I want to live” project sharply increased, according to Yuri Yusov, a Ukraine intelligence spokesperson, on September 26. 

“There are many calls to the hotline from newly mobilized Russians or those who have not yet been mobilized. They call and say: If I am mobilized, what are my actions? What should I do? How to give up correctly?” said Yusov.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has recently stated that Ukraine guarantees every Russian soldier who surrenders civilized behavior. Moreover, the Ukrainian President ensured that no one in Russia would find out that the surrender was voluntary. Zelensky also promised that Ukraine would find a way not to send a prisoner to Russia as part of an exchange if the Russian soldier himself did not want it.

In addition, according to Yusov, Crimeans are actively calling the hotline. Yusov stressed that residents of the occupied parts of Ukraine trying to avoid forced mobilization into the Russian army could also use the hotline. According to Ukraine’s intelligence, the Russian Federation plans to call up conscripts from the newly occupied territories -particularly in the south. According to him, so-called volunteer units are created using coercion and torture.

However, Yusov contends that in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, mobilization “began and immediately ended” because there was no one to mobilize there – only those who work at certain enterprises and patients – remain of the men.

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