US Expresses Openness To Accept Russian People Seeking Asylum Amid Vladimir Putin's Mobilization Order

The White House stated on Tuesday that Russian men who are emigrating to avoid being enlisted into Moscow's conflict with Ukraine should apply for asylum in the US.

At her routine press briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre informed the media that the reaction within Russia to the alleged partial mobilization ordered by President Vladimir Putin last week demonstrates this war that was begun by the Kremlin is unpopular.

US Would Welcome Russians Fleeing Putin's Mobilization Draft

Protests, rioting, and a rush for Russia's borders have resulted from the military call-up, in which the Kremlin intends to draft over 300,000 men for the battle in Ukraine. The few nations that still allow direct flights from Russia have sold out of airline tickets for days.

Over the weekend, anti-war demonstrators in the Russian province of Dagestan ran after police officers while chanting no to war and calling for the release of other anti-war protesters who had been detained. A man set himself on fire on Monday in Ryazan, 100 miles southeast of Moscow, while yelling that he opposed going to war.

Approximately 98,000 Russians reside in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic with a significant southern border with Russia, according to the Kazakh authorities on Tuesday. Russians who had been doctors, according to Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, would not be sent.

Russian military morale has been low since the beginning of the conflict, and pushing its population, many of whom lack military training, to fight won't likely improve matters, according to Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder on Tuesday, as per New York Post.

After several recordings of assaults on military recruitment centers and the announcement of recruits' deployment to the front were released from Russia, where US and British officials claimed that tens of thousands of Russian military personnel had been killed or injured, Jean-Pierre spoke. There have even been stories of Russians searching online for information on how to break their arm at home, which has been construed as a strategy to avoid serving in the military.

Since Putin's declaration, more than 194,000 Russian citizens have escaped to Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Finland by vehicle, bicycle, or foot. That followed days of news of rising airfares to nations that still accept Russians amid restrictions since the decision on September 21.

More than 9 miles of traffic congestion stretch from North Ossetia in Russia to the Georgian border. The Interior Ministry of Georgia reported that 53,000 Russian citizens have entered the nation in the past week, with 98,000 of them heading to Kazakhstan and 43,000 to Finland. Some are traveling to Mongolia, according to Daily Mail.

Attacks on Russia's Military Enlisment Centers Spike

Meanwhile, recent sources state that since President Vladimir Putin announced new partial recruitment of Russian nationals to fight in Ukraine, attacks on military recruiting facilities have increased. In the past week, there have been more allegations of arson against enrollment centers and local government structures, possibly in response to Putin's announcement on Wednesday of Russia's first partial mobilization since World War II.

Within the first six months following Ukraine's invasion, at least 20 occurrences of arson against military commissariats in Russia were reported; however, the frequency of these attacks has now dramatically increased, according to a report published on Monday by the Kyiv Post.

The first incidents after the partial mobilization were reportedly recorded on Wednesday when allegedly arsonists set fire to recruitment centers in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod in western Russia. The newspaper said that Molotov cocktails were hurled through the windows of the latter city's offices to ignite the fire.

The country's Orenburg and Zabaikal regions reported more attempted arson the next day, though information on these instances is scant. The same day, a portion of a municipal government building in Tolyatti, a city around 1,000 kilometers to the east of Moscow, caught fire, News Week reported.