![\"Ukraine](\"https:\/\/c.ndtvimg.com\/2022-09\/cj3eokm4_russia-ukraine-war_625x300_13_September_22.jpg\"\/ "\\"Ukraine")
<\/div>\nAnalysts say Russia is short of manpower on the Ukraine battlefield due to heavy losses. (File)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Ukraine’s Defence Ministry has tweeted a suggestion for the Russian people, many of whom are leaving their country after President Vladimir Putin announced “partial mobilisation”, which means calling on thousands of military reserves for active duty in the ongoing war, and raised the spectre of a nuclear attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Russians are now actively Googling how to avoid mobilization and stay alive,” read the tweet by Defense of Ukraine on Thursday, “They would have been better off Googling instructions for making Molotov cocktails when there was still time.” Molotov cocktails \u2014 homemade ‘petrol bombs’ \u2014 were a motif of the common Ukrainians’ resistance against Russian forces when the invasion began seven months ago.<\/p>\n
\nrussians are now actively Googling how to avoid mobilization and stay alive.
They would have been better off Googling instructions for making Molotov cocktails when there was still time.<\/p>\n\u2014 Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The tweet referenced reports that Google searches for the phrase “How to leave Russia” spiked in the country ahead of President Putin’s speech.\u00a0One-way air tickets out of Russia, too,\u00a0swiftly sold out<\/a> as the President’s address raised fears that martial law could be imposed and men of fighting age would not be allowed to leave. There were long traffic jams on Russia’s border with Finland as those with visas sought to cross over.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The mobilisation \u2014 Russia’s first such move since the Nazi onslaught in World War 2 \u2014 is the biggest escalation of the Ukraine war since the invasion began in February. It comes after Ukraine’s recent pushback reclaimed several areas from the Russian forces and the militias it backs.<\/p>\n
For now, it is being officially described as “partial”<\/a>, hence will draw in over 3 lakh reservists over months. Russia claims to have a reserve force of 2.5 crore people.<\/p>\n
\nFlights departing Moscow and St. Petersburg today. The @AP<\/a> is reporting international flights departing Russia have either sold out or skyrocketed in price after Putin announced a mobilization of reservists.<\/p>\n
Search SVO, VKO, DME for Moscow airports and LED for St. Petersburg. pic.twitter.com\/LV2PrkwPD9<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) September 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
President Putin was supposed to make his address Tuesday night, but moved it to Wednesday morning, and in between the country’s legislators passed laws for “martial law” and “mobilisation” \u2014 a likely prompt for the search spike on Google, the second most-visited search engine in Russia behind Yandex.<\/p>\n
Ukraine’s Defence Ministry took a swipe at this, too,\u00a0in a tweet: “The Russians were given 12 hours of rest, so Google could answer all the questions, including the question of what is the average life expectancy of a Russian soldier in Ukraine.”<\/p>\n
Western military analysts have been saying that Russia is short of manpower on the Ukraine battlefield due to heavy losses. Even Russian nationalists seem to give this credence, as they have for months been calling for some kind of mobilisation to boost what they see as a stuttering campaign.<\/p>\n
Amid all this, Defense of Ukraine has been tweeting regularly.\u00a0“We are liberating not only Ukrainian territory. We are also returning our people home,” it wrote with a video on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\nWe are liberating not only Ukrainian territory. We are also returning our people home. Heroes whose courage inspired the whole world are free. Even on a day like this we remember those who are still held in captivity by the occupiers. We wait. We believe. They too will be freed. pic.twitter.com\/MSUGOxMcmw<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In another tweet, it quoted the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukraine Army, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, as saying, “We will destroy everyone who comes to our land with weapons, whether voluntarily or due to mobilization.”<\/p>\n