Over 100,000 Russians flee to Georgia amid conscription fears

Rumors of a new conscription wave tied to Russia's September State Duma elections have driven more than 100,000 Russians across the border into Georgia over the past week, according to Politico and Russia's own Federal Customs Service data cited by The Moscow Times.

Unlike 2022, when Russians waited for Putin's formal mobilization announcement before fleeing, many are now leaving preemptively, with daily crossings at the Verkhny Lars checkpoint topping 20,000. The human rights group School of the Conscript reports rising requests for help, mostly from reservists, as authorities quietly collect personal data on conscription-age men through employers.

Reservists are reportedly being handed orders specifying which unit to report to if called up, even absent an official declaration — a setup one advocate described as allowing authorities to simply send buses to a workplace and collect a predetermined number of men. Russia's Supreme Court, meanwhile, has already disqualified the only anti-war party from the ballot.

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