Flights out of Russia have sky-rocketed in price as Russians rushed to book one-way tickets while they still could Wednesday after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of military reservists to bolster his invasion in Ukraine.
Many others are rushing to cross land borders by car to visit neighbouring countries, pay bribes to recruitment officers, buy medical certificates, claim dual citizenship, enrol in university and use other exceptions/deferment to avoid President Putin’s unjust war mobilisation to fight.
And of course, some can just evade the draft because they are relatives of somebody in the government.
These things are common and have always been wide spread in Russia but a YouTube channel host wanted to test this out anyway.
Dmitry Nizovtsev, host of Popular Politics, a YouTube channel created by Russia's most prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny's supporters, called Nikolai Peskov, son of Putin's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, live on air posing as a military commissar (recruitment officer) to confirm if he will attend next day's medication examination.
In the conversation live on youtube for five and a half minutes, the host told Peskov Junior he was "Major Anton Matrynov, from a Moscow enlistment office" and calling to check if he would turn up for next day's 10 AM medication examination as specified in the electronic draft-card they sent to him.
“At 10 am, of course, I won’t come tomorrow. If you know that I am Mr. Peskov, you must understand how it is not entirely correct for me to be there. I will solve this at a different level,” Nizovtsev, 32, replied after he dropped several calls from the host.
Asked if he was happy be marked as a volunteer to fight for the homeland in the recruitment sheet, Peskov Junior replied, "No, don’t tick that box for me."
Peskov Junior explained his refusal by “certain political nuances” that prevent him from coming to the enlistment office, but did not explain which ones.
After the news broke out, his father Dmitry Peskov dismissed the conversation between his son and the channel host as "cut out of context" (Note: the whole conversion from the start to end was live on YouTube).
