Putin's Mobilization Failures Pile Up as 10,000 Conscripts Return Home

Russian President Vladimir Putin's mobilization failures are piling up as an official announced on Friday that some 10,000 mistakenly mobilized Russians have been returned home.

Russian Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov said during a meeting in St. Petersburg that since Putin announced his partial mobilization order on September 21, about 10,000 have been returned home across the country "for various reasons."

According to Kartapolov, who is also the chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, in cases where a citizen is called up by mistake, a trial is held.

Putin's mobilization decree supposedly targets up to 300,000 reservists and ex-military personnel with "certain military specialties and relevant experience."

The Russian president claimed on October 14 that "all mobilization activities" in the country will be completed in about two weeks.

"This work is already coming to an end," Putin said at a press conference in Astana last week. "There are now 222,000 people mobilized in the troop formations, out of 300,000."

"Nothing further is being planned…within the foreseeable future," Putin said.

Putin himself has acknowledged that "mistakes" have been made in his partial mobilization.

Reports have emerged of ineligible men being called up for military service. Last week, a Moscow government official who was conscripted as part of Putin's mobilization decree, despite having no combat experience, was killed in Ukraine.

Some conscripted Russians have died before reaching the battlefield, while others have died shortly after being deployed in Ukraine.

Timur Izmailov, a 33-year-old employee of Raiffeisen Bank, who was mobilized despite reportedly being eligible for an exemption from service, has been killed in Ukraine, his lawyer Konstantin Erokhin said on Thursday.

According to Erokhin, he was one of the bank's key IT specialists and was mobilized on September 23. He was deployed to the front line on October 7 and was killed in battle on October 13.

The lawyer claims that Izmailov was entitled to a deferment from being drafted due to his high-level position, in accordance to guidelines issued by the Russian defense ministry on September 23.

Meanwhile, BBC's Russian service has cited fellow service members as saying that new recruits are being sent to fight in Ukraine without prior training.

Anger over Putin's mobilization order is also growing across the country, while officials are being dismissed for mistakes made during mobilization.

State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein announced Sunday that Russia's National Guard has been deployed in a number of cities, including Moscow, over "increased attacks" on military registration and enlistment offices.

Max Bergmann, the director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Newsweek that he believes Putin will continue to "throw Russian men into the meat grinder" as the war drags on.

Newsweek has reached out to Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment.