A familiar exodus is taking place on Russia’s southern border with Georgia. More than 113,000 Russians left their country last week via the so-called Upper Lars checkpoint — a spike in movement that reflects growing fears that the Kremlin is poised to announce a new mobilization effort. In recent months, Russian authorities have adopted increasingly aggressive recruitment measures, ramped up data collection on reservists, and expanded the National Guard’s remit, all fueling talk of another call.
Alexey Tabalov — founder of the human rights organization School of the Conscript, which works to protect conscripts and military personnel — said his NGO has noted a recent rise in requests for legal assistance from men of military age, “primarily from those in the military reserve.” And in early August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country’s intelligence services expected Russia to launch a “rapid mobilization” of several hundred thousand men by the end of the year. What’s more, Georgia has seen this type of border traffic before. In September 2022, when President Vladimir Putin launched a partial military mobilization that called up some 300,000 men following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Georgia was one of the main destinations for those looking to flee.
As one of the few Eastern European border countries allowing visa-free entry to Russian citizens, it had received more than 100,000 Russians within a week. Georgian authorities did not reply to a request for comment by the time of publication. But the Kremlin has denied the mobilization rumor for months.
Speaking to reporters last week, Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said: “We do not need mass mobilization at the moment; it is neither planned nor expected, as far as I know.” Meanwhile, government spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said this week that any talk of a mobilization was “being planted by the Ukrainian authorities.” However, shifting battlefield realities are hard to ignore: Though Russia does not release official casualty numbers, former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi said that Moscow’s losses have exceeded the number of volunteers willing to join the army for the first time. And while Russia has largely succeeded in using generous payouts to recruit volunteers and prisoners to fight in the war, “it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to recruit new people,” said a lawyer with Russian Peace Plea, an organization helping men evade military service, who was granted anonymity over security concerns.
The “social contract” between the Kremlin and the Russian people, they said, is “visibly crumbling.” Russia’s military reserve consists mainly of men under the age of 55 who have completed their compulsory military service. A year-long military service is obligatory for every Russian male aged 18 to 30, with some exceptions made for health concerns and continuing education. In 2022, then-Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu estimated their number at around 25 million.
According to Tabalov, in recent months the Russian government has been actively collecting reservists’ personal data through their employers. These men are then called to military enlistment offices and given assignments specifying which unit they would report to if a mobilization was declared. Tabalov sees this as laying the foundation for a faster, more discreet call-up.
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