The news that a new wave of mobilization is underway in the country and that subpoenas have begun to be distributed en masse again in the regions has come out on top in terms of the influx of bots. This is reported by the Bot Blocker project, which created a system that recognizes fake accounts. According to the project, for several months now, bots have been massively appearing in the comments to media materials that talk about mobilization. Another informational occasion was the materials about the fact that in 35 regions summonses are sent to reservists. The authorities of the regions claim that the subpoenas are handed over "exclusively to update the data of military records."
At the same time, not only bots deny the mobilization, but also the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov. “The second wave of mobilization is not discussed in the Kremlin,” he said. Peskov has been saying this since January 2023, and Valentina Matvienko said the same thing in December 2022.
Before the announcement of "partial" mobilization in September 2022, the authorities similarly stated that the topic was "not discussed". On March 8, 2022, Putin stated that soldiers on military service are not and will not participate in hostilities. “There will be no additional call-up of reservists from the reserve. The assigned tasks are solved only by professional military men, ”he said.
Also in the same March, Senator Andrey Klishas said that “mobilization is not envisaged, a travel ban, a complete travel ban for all Russians or groups of the population is also not.” On May 4, 2022, Peskov said that one should not believe in mobilization for Victory Day, this is "nonsense and not true." Here he almost did not lie – the mobilization was announced in five months.
