A familiar mass exodus is once again being observed on Russia's southern border with Georgia, writes "Politico".
Over 113,000 Russians left their country last week through the so-called "Upper Lars" border checkpoint — a sharp spike in traffic that reflects growing concerns that the Kremlin is preparing to announce a new mobilization.
In recent months, Russian authorities have introduced increasingly aggressive measures to recruit military personnel, stepped up data collection on reservists and expanded the powers of the National Guard, further fueling talk of a new mobilization campaign.
Alexei Tabalov — founder of the human rights organization — — — — — working to protect conscripts and servicemen — said that his NGO had registered a recent increase in requests for legal assistance from men of military age, — — — primarily from those in the reserves.— In early August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the country's intelligence services expect Russia to begin "rapid mobilization" to several hundred thousand people by the end of the year.
Moreover, Georgia has already seen similar cross-border traffic. In September 2022, when President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization, which called up about 300,000 people after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Georgia was one of the main destinations for Russians trying to escape. As one of the few Eastern European countries that allows visa-free entry to Russian citizens, it took in over 100,000 Russians in just one week.
However, the Kremlin has been denying rumors of mobilization for months. Last week, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzia, said: "We do not need a mass mobilization right now; as far as I know, it is neither planned nor expected". Meanwhile, government spokesman Dmitry Peskov this week said that any talk of mobilization was "planted by the Ukrainian authorities".
But the changing situation on the battlefield is hard to ignore. While Russia does not publish official figures on its losses, former commander-in-chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrsky said Moscow's losses exceeded the number of volunteers ready to join the army for the first time. And while Russia has largely succeeded in using generous financial rewards to recruit volunteers and prisoners of war, "it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to recruit new people," said a lawyer with the organization "Peace Plea", which helps men avoid military service.
"The Social Contract" between the Kremlin and the Russian people is visibly breaking down," he said.
Preparatory measures
Russia's military reserve consists mainly of men under the age of 55 who have completed their compulsory military service. One-year military service is mandatory for every Russian man between the ages of 18 and 30, with some exceptions for health reasons or to continue their education.
"These are the people who are usually among the most likely to be called up for mobilization," Tabalov said. In 2022, then-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu estimated their number at around 25 million.
According to Tabalov, in recent months the Russian government has been actively collecting personal data on reservists through their employers. "They even ask for the addresses of their relatives," he said, since this information can be used to track down people who would try to hide during active mobilization. These men are then called to military commissariats and given assignments, which indicate which unit they should report to if mobilization is announced.
"Since the spring, the government's interest in reservists has increased sharply," the lawyer from "Peaceful Plea" confirmed.
Tabalov believes that this lays the foundation for a faster and more discreet mobilization. "You simply send, for example, 10 buses to a specific metallurgical plant and pick up a predetermined number of workers directly from their workplaces, calling them by name: Petrov, Ivanov, Sidorov — get on the bus, which then takes them to the military base," he explained.
A series of laws passed in recent months also point to possible preparation.
In March, the Kremlin made electronic military drafts mandatory as part of the conscription process. The 2022 mobilization used paper drafts, which typically only took effect after the recipient signed them. This created a bureaucratic loophole that led to up to 1 million Russians quickly leaving the country, expecting to receive a draft and a subsequent travel ban.
Introduced in 2023 and rolled out nationwide on an optional basis in 2025, the digital drafts, now in effect, take effect immediately upon being issued online, immediately notifying border services and prohibiting the recipient from leaving the country. "The authorities have learned their lesson from the previous mobilization," Tabalov noted.
Then, in July, Russian media reported that the National Guard — The National Guard, a force created by Putin in 2016 primarily to protect the regime from internal threats and protests in the country and in the occupied territories, is taking steps to prepare its servicemen, personnel and facilities in the event of a possible mobilization through training and evacuations.
To this end, the director of the National Guard, Vladimir Zolotov, has signed a decree explicitly stating that the structure must additionally guard "against dangers arising during the mobilization period, under martial law and in wartime."
These changes show that the government is preparing for a tougher and "more repressive" type of mobilization that would also include the security forces, said Ukrainian military expert Oleksandr Kovalenko.
Postponing the inevitable
Even with all signs of a growing likelihood of a new mobilization, Putin seems determined to avoid it. A formal mobilization "would mean that things are going badly at the front and that Putin is a bad commander," Tabalov said. The Kremlin is trying to use a number of aggressive recruitment strategies to avoid an official mobilization announcement.
In March 2026, Russian media reported that the Defense Ministry planned to recruit about 80,000 people, mostly students, into the newly created "Unmanned Systems Troops." The initiative was accompanied by a massive propaganda campaign and pressure on universities. School leaders regularly ordered students to attend mass meetings with military recruiters, where they were encouraged to sign contracts in exchange for financial rewards. In August, Novaya Gazeta Evropa estimated that almost all of Russia's top 50 universities had begun pressuring their students to join the "drone troops." By July, however, only 8,000 had been recruited — roughly 10 percent of the target.
According to Tabalov, this attempt to address the shortage of personnel by attracting students was doomed to failure. "Historically, men enter universities to avoid the army, not to join it," he stressed. The investigative organization Conflict Intelligence Team also reported in July on the failure of the "student drone troops" program, which it linked to the decline in interest in joining the army and the general "reluctance of students to sign a contract with the army despite active propaganda and pressure."
Another strategy emerged later - in June, after videos of mass checks in Penza - one of the poorest cities in the European part of Russia - spread on social networks. They showed police and military personnel, sometimes accompanied by men in balaclavas, stopping civilian men at checkpoints, on the streets and on public transport, putting them in minibuses and taking them to military commissariats, where some of them were subsequently forced to sign contracts to participate in the war.
The authorities in Penza have repeatedly denied involvement in the alleged abductions and forced recruitment.
The Penza campaign is believed to be part of a larger government effort to get regions to recruit more men and meet their quotas without officially declaring mobilization. According to media reports, the Russian Defense Ministry has set an official goal of recruiting 409,000 contract servicemen by the end of 2026.
But "this initiative could backfire on the authorities", Tabalov reiterated. "Citizens in Penza have already begun to organize themselves — form self-defense units — and this, frankly, is a challenge to state power".
In August, Penza blogger Stanislav Morozov created a group that has gathered about 1,500 members and is helping men facing detention and coercion. "We are doing this out of desperation. Because we simply have no other choice. We are people who stand up for our basic rights and freedoms — the right not to be turned into a commodity or have our will taken away at the threat of a baton," he wrote. Residents of Bashmakovo have also formed a self-defense unit that patrols the area, filming "recruiters", recording their license plates and trying to identify those who cover their faces.
Despite the shortage of recruits, no official announcement of a possible mobilization is expected before September, when Russia will hold parliamentary elections. Although no anti-war party was allowed to run, both Putin himself and the ruling United Russia party are facing a decline in support, and a formal announcement of military mobilization will not help the Russian leader's political standing.
Yet it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to avoid mobilization.
"I think the destruction of Ukraine is Putin's obsession, and this obsession requires manpower," Tabalov said. "The only resource left" given the failure of other attempts "is mobilization."