Two weeks ago the leading propagandists on Russian television were all coming to terms with the loss of territory as a result of Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive. Almost immediately their talk turned to the need for a full mobilization. That would allow Putin to call up more troops and help Russia regain the initiative.

Here were are two weeks later and the Russian mobilization is not going very well. Flights leaving the country sold out immediately and there are still long lines of people trying to leave by car. There have been renewed protests and even some violence.

Angry demonstrations — not just in Moscow and St. Petersburg — but in the remote far north province of Yakutia and in the southern region of Dagestan, with women chasing a police officer and shouting, “No to war!”

A gunman who opened fire in an enlistment office in a Siberian city and gravely wounded the military commandant, saying, “We will all go home now.”

Five days after President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization to call up hundreds of thousands of reservists to fight in Ukraine, the move has triggered outraged protests, a fearful exodus and acts of violence across the vast country.

“Panic. All the people I know are in panic,” said David, a Russian who gave only his first name out of fear of reprisals, in an interview with The Associated Press at a border crossing with Georgia. “We are running from the regime that kills people.”

None of this is the sort of stoic response the TV propagandists were counting on. The Daily Beast’s Julia Davis reports that those same nationalist talking heads are now busy complaining about how the mobilization is being badly implemented:

Top pro-Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov and head of RT Margarita Simonyan spent much of the broadcast of the state TV show Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov complaining about the issues with the mobilization…

She angrily recounted numerous instances where the new recruits included students, those outside the age limit, people with serious illnesses, barbers, teachers, musicians, and a single mother of two young children. Among the people swept up in the mobilization efforts, Solovyov and Simonyan recounted seeing information about draftees as old as 62 and 59 years of age…

Solovyov pointed out: “All of them have phones and they won’t stay silent. If they’re being handed rotten things, if they have no helmets, no body armor, no one is going to hide it… I will tell you very politely: Don’t play games with people… This isn’t some liberal riff-raff, these are our people and I refuse to be silent about it.” Continuing with the same theme, Simonyan cautioned: “Comrade Commanders, this is not the time for this… don’t anger the people!”

RT’s Margarita Simonyan went on to warn that if conscripts were treated badly there could be a mutiny. She may be right about that. Once you hand all of these people guns I wouldn’t be so certain they won’t aim that at their own officers.

Earlier today, Julia Davis published a 7-minute excerpt of Vladimir Solovyov talking about the mobilization on what appears to be his radio show. Here again he wonders if Russia has the equipment it needs to support all of these conscripts. “It’s straight-up torture when we have to ask ‘Pardon, but those 300,000 who are being called up, being partially mobilized, do they have body armor, proper ceramic body armor? Do we have it or do we have to buy it from China?'” he said. He continued, “Helmets, combat boots, warm clothing, do we have all of that?”

He went on to say that grabbing people off the street only created panic and to express concern about factories losing key workers. None of that seemed to concern him two weeks ago when he was calling for full mobilization. Solovyov concluded with this completely delusional claim: “Understand guys, the Fatherland is in danger. A war has been declared against us.” Here’s the clip.

Top Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov is quite upset with how Putin's "partial mobilization" is going and everything the supposed "superpower" is lacking. So much in this video, just watch. It fits right in with what I described in my latest article⤵️https://t.co/bgYMYZma24 pic.twitter.com/qk3qiUdkm3

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 27, 2022

Finally, this video shows a female medic talking to a group of recent conscripts. I’m only halfway convinced this is real but Julia Davis RT’d it so I guess the translation is basically correct. In any case, the medic tells the new recruits they’ll need to bring everything they need—sleeping bags, camping mats, medial supplies— from home because the government doesn’t have supplies to give them. But stick around for the end of this clip which is pretty hilarious. If this isn’t real it’s a great trolling effort by someone.

a medic tells newly mobilized russian recruits they need to buy their own camping mats and sleeping bags because the army won’t provide it
#mobilization #mobilisation #MobilizationInRussia #Russian #RussiaIsATerroristState #RussianUkrainianWar #UkraineInvasion #RussianWarCrimes pic.twitter.com/QwSV2xpLpf

— Epi Ona (@epi_ona) September 27, 2022