The men were given an hour to pack up and report to muster stations across the country, but mostly in Russia’s poorest and most deprived provinces. Officials in Buryatia, one of the country’s poorest regions, were reported to have distributed thousands of draft proclamations after Putin’s announcement. A video emerged of people clashing with a female official in Dagestan, a Muslim republic in the Caucasus ruled by Moscow, who support the draft. “You are fighting for your children’s future,” the official shouted to a crowd outside a municipal building. A man in the crowd replied, “We have no present, what future are you talking about?” Another social media video from Yakutia, in northeastern Siberia, showed dozens of men saying goodbye to loved ones before being bussed to recruitment centers.
