Russian authorities on Sunday promised to fix the mistakes in their troop call-up for Ukraine, after some public outrage over students, older or sick people being mistakenly ordered to report for duty.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilisation on Wednesday, he said only people with "relevant" skills or military experience would be concerned.
But many expressed outrage after seeing — sometimes absurd — cases of authorities summoning people unfit for service.
Authorities in the southwestern Russian region of Volgograd sent a 63-year-old diabetic ex-military staffer to training camp, despite poor health and cerebral issues.
The 63-year-old came back home Friday night, according to Russian state agency RIA Novosti.
In the same region, 58-year-old school director Alexander Faltin received a call-up order despite having no military experience.
His daughter posted a video on social media that became viral.
He was allowed home after his documents were reviewed, according to RIA.
A rare admission
Upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko called on all governors — who oversee the mobilisation campaigns — to avoid mistakes, in a rare admission on Sunday.
“Incorrect cases of mobilisation... are provoking fierce reactions in society, and rightly so,” Ms. Matviyenko said in a statement on Telegram.
“Some are assuming that handing in their report (to their superiors) quickly is more important than correctly fulfilling this important mission,” she added.
“This is unacceptable... Make sure that partial mobilisation is carried out in full and complete compliance with the criteria. And without a single mistake!” she ordered.
The governor of the northwestern Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko told local districts heads to “take the residents’ appeals under your personal control and deal with each single case,” according to a statement on his administration’s website Sunday.
The Vladimir region governor Vladimir Avdeev already said on Saturday that “anyone mobilised by mistake will return home.”
The errors are painted as isolated cases.
But the very fact that Russian authorities are talking about them point to concerns about the level of indignation coming from some of the population.
Published - September 25, 2022 10:07 pm IST
