Rostov and Kursk governors announce ‘second wave’ of mobilization

Vasily Golubev, the governor of Russia’s Rostov Region, wrote on his Telegram channel that his regional government had received “a new mobilization assignment.” Regional draft offices, he added, have already begun work on this new task.

Only two weeks ago, on September 28, Golubev had announced that the region had “practically completed the task of partial mobilization.”

Update: The government of Kursk Region has also announced that it’s entering a “second wave” of mobilization. No official number of people conscripted in the “first wave” has been announced.

On September 21, Russia began a campaign of “partial mobilization,” widely criticized for its lack of transparency. The President’s mobilization decree contained a classified Seventh paragraph. It has been speculated that the secret paragraph specifies the target number of conscripts to be drafted. While the Russian Defense Ministry stated that 300,000 new servicemen were sought, other sources claimed that the real target was in excess of a million.

On October 4, the Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that 200,000 people had been conscripted under the mobilization order. But a study conducted by the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) and Vazhnye Istorii reveals that the 213,200 conscripts mentioned in the official data represent, in fact, only two-thirds of Russia’s regions, and the real number of people drafted across Russia must be much greater.

Russia has a total of 85 administrative regions. This number includes the Crimea — for the reason that the annexed peninsula also participated in Russia’s mobilization. Meanwhile, official draft data only covers 53 regions. CIT experts think it possible that the target of 300,000 voiced by Shoigu might only account for the first phase of the current mobilization.

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