When Ilya returned from work on Wednesday, his wife was waiting for him with his military draft papers. Ilya said he quickly packed his bags and departed the next morning for his local recruitment centre in Irkutsk, a city on Lake Baikal in Siberia.
“When the motherland comes calling, you have to answer,” the 27-year-old bus driver said in a brief phone interview from a training ground near the southern city of Rostov. “I decided that I am not going to dodge the draft and will defend the country.”
Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation order has triggered a run for the borders by tens of thousands of men of fighting age who are unwilling to participate in Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
But standing in stark contrast to the mile-long lines to get out are videos of men across the country, to the applause of their wives and mothers, boarding buses that will take them to training centres, in what is likely to be a one-way journey for many.
The men are evidence of some public backing for the war in Ukraine and of the growing polarisation in the country, said Denis Volkov of the Levada Centre, an independent polling agency.
“The nation has split, and mobilisation has further exacerbated existing divisions,” Volkov said. “The western-oriented, more modern, urban segment of the population wants to leave and is against the draft. But there is still a large core of men that will not avoid the draft. They are often less educated, poorer and more reliant on the state.”
The Kremlin, seemingly aware of those divisions, has been eager to tap into more rural areas for its mobilisation drive, with authorities reportedly looking to keep recruitment “to a minimum” in regional capitals.
A poll published by Volkov’s Levada Centre on Thursday found that the proportion of Russians who “fully” or “somewhat” support what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” has dropped since Putin ordered the mobilisation, but still stands at 72%. “Society consolidated when the war started, that will not change overnight,” Volkov said.
While some observers have questioned the logic of polling public opinion in a country where information about the war is carefully curated by state television and opposition is punishable with prison time, Volkov said he believed the results were credible.
He said a key source of support for the Russian military was the notion – hammered home daily on state television and held by many in the country – that Russia is engaged in a broader war with Nato and the United States.
Interviews and polls show that some Russians have also accepted the Kremlin’s unfounded claim that Russia is under siege from the west and had no choice but to invade Ukraine.
“My husband is fighting not only against Ukraine but also Nato. We don’t have many allies,” said Lyudmila, whose husband, Sergei, was mobilised this week.
Since the start of the mobilisation, Telegram groups have sprung up in which women share tips on how to stay in touch with their partners or sons. Lyudmila, who runs one of the groups, said: “I am proud of my husband. Russia is pinned against the wall and we have to fight back.”
For some men, a perceived inability to dodge the draft – an offence punishable by as much as 10 years in prison – has led them to reluctantly turn up at recruitment centres. “I don’t want to fight, but I can’t hide for ever, it is better to just face what is coming,” said Igor, from St Petersburg, who received his draft papers on Wednesday.
But despite many Russians’ continued support for Putin’s invasion, Levada’s poll found that 70% of respondents had reacted with “fear” “terror” and “shock” to the mobilisation orders. It also found that Putin’s approval ratings had dropped by six points, the biggest decrease since the start of the war, with only a quarter of men under the age of 24 in favour of continuing the fighting in Ukraine.
According to Andrei Kolesnikov, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US thinktank, Levada’s latest numbers hint at growing anger over the war among many in Russia. “It’s just the beginning, discontent is slowly maturing,” he said.
The public’s anxiety over mobilisation is only likely to grow after the first videos emerged from training centres this week showing scores of men subjected to poor conditions as they wait to be sent to Ukraine.
In one video, a group of men are seen sleeping on the floor in overcrowded army barracks. In other footage, a recently mobilised unit appears to have been dropped off in an isolated field with no shelter or food rations. “There is fucking nothing here. Like a flock of sheep, we have to self-mobilise,” one of the men grumbles.
There are also growing reports that newly mobilised men are tasked with buying their own equipment, ranging from bulletproof vests to sleeping mats and thermal underwear.
“We spent over 30,000 rubles [£460], my monthly salary, to prepare him for the army,” said Tatyana, a school teacher from the Ural city of Chelyabinsk, whose husband has been mobilised.
She said the lack of basic supplies in the army had shocked her, denting some of her previously held beliefs about the state of the country’s military and about the war. “How can they ask him to fight there when everything is such a mess?” she said. “The war should stop.”