The Insider journalist Vasily Krestyaninov was signed up as a volunteer for the war in Ukraine through the State Services portal without his consent, while entering his account was carried out first from a Russian IP address (the journalist left the country in 2021 ), and then from Yerevan. Vasily claims that during the second login to his account, it was already publicly known that he was in Armenia.
Krestyaninov did military conscription in 2015-2016, he is in the reserve and has category “A” on his military ID.
“Government services are tied to Russian mail, which I almost never use. I received a notification in the mail that I was enrolled in the Russian terrorist army, which I can’t name otherwise. I was shocked, I thought it was some kind of joke, mailing, as I periodically receive threats to life and health in personal messages on social networks and Telegram.
“I decided to check: I went to the website of the State Service, which I also practically do not use, and found that an appeal was officially registered on my behalf, which, of course, I consider as political persecution for my journalistic and activist activities. The Russian regime is trying to put pressure on me like that. Obviously, now the mobilized people are in critical danger.”
In November 2021, Krestyaninov emigrated from Russia to Georgia after FSB officers tried to persuade him to cooperate and denunciation through threats. At the beginning of September of this year, he was not allowed into the territory of Georgia, the border service officer “defiantly photographed” his passport and sent the photo to his superiors. An hour later, a police officer approached the journalist and said that he needed to get back on the plane to Yerevan.
On September 21, Putin announced a "partial" mobilization, after which Shoigu promised to mobilize "about 300,000 reservists." However, subpoenas are handed out de facto to everyone. On October 3, it became known that now Russians can sign up as volunteers for the war in Ukraine through the State Service website. The very next day, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko claimed that more than 2,000 people signed up to volunteer through a new feature on the portal.