Russians Are Attacking Enlistment Offices

A Russian man opened fire on a commander at a military recruitment office in Ust-Ilimsk on Monday, leaving him in grave condition, in the latest sign of frustration over partial military mobilization. "No one will go fight. We will all go home now," said the alleged shooter, 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin, who was upset that his best friend, who lacked combat experience, had received a call-up notice, per Al Jazeera. After Zinin's arrest, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said some notices had been sent out in error. Regardless, men of fighting age have been fleeing the country by foot, car, and plane. Private jet operators in particular are seeing huge spikes in flight requests.

"The situation is absolutely crazy at the moment," Yevgeny Bikov, director of broker jet company Your Charter, tells the Guardian. "We would get 50 requests a day; now it is around 5,000." "The demand has increased by 50 times … and the prices are through the roof compared with six months ago," adds Eduard Simonov, head of private jet operator FlightWay. The cost of a seat on private flights to Armenia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan, which allow Russians to enter without a visa, has risen to between $21,500 to $27,000 while the cost to rent an eight-seater private jet has risen to between $86,500 and $151,500, the Guardian reports. According to AFAR, the cost of a six-hour private flight for up to nine passengers in the US costs between $24,000 and $48,000.

Prices of commercial plane tickets have also climbed dramatically in Russia. Bikov puts the price of a seat on a chartered commercial plane to Yerevan at $3,250 minimum. Despite chartering large commercial planes in response to demand, "we simply cannot find enough spots for everyone," he says. Cars have lined up for miles at Russia's border crossings, but human rights groups say some are being turned away with border guards citing new legislation threatening those who do not submit to mobilization orders with jail, per the Guardian. Apart from the shooting, there have been "scattered arson attacks on enlistment offices," including one in Uryupinsk on Monday, per the AP. The outlet adds protests in dozens of cities have resulted in at least 2,000 arrests. (Some other private flights in and out of Russia have a most devoted follower.)