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Danish BT writes:

Uprising against Putin smoulders in Dagestan: 'Could help shift attitudes across Russia'

The burning photo of Vladimir Putin falls to the ground. Angry women attack police directly.

Shouts of 'we are not blind' and 'it was Russia that attacked Ukraine' are heard. Or "our children should not end up as fertilizer".

The above scenes are just a few of the countless videos that have spread on social media over the weekend from the Russian republic of Dagestan. From the capital Makhachkala to the small village of Endirei.

There have been even highly visible protests against President Vladimir Putin's partial mobilisation of 300,000 extra troops for Ukraine.

"There are signs that people are realising they have been taken for a ride. That it has been led astray with vertical lies," as Russia expert Mette Skak, a lecturer at Aarhus University, puts it:

"This may well be the straw that breaks the camel's back and simply leaves Putin with an escalating domestic political crisis. That, one can already sense, may come out of this."

That protests have flourished in Dagestan in particular is interesting. It is a small, poor and unattractive region with fewer inhabitants than Denmark - but according to statistics, it is still the republic that has lost the most soldiers in Ukraine so far.

More than ten times as many as Moscow, for example. Similar trends are emerging in other remote republics with large ethnic minorities.

Street protests against Putin's #mobilization are growing in the southern #Dagestan region of #Russia. In #Makhachkala city, a hundred protesters had been arrested by riot police so far. pic.twitter.com/I8hzBW5N0f

- Viktor Kovalenko
And the picture has been the same in the recent mobilization, where men in the republics in question have also apparently been drafted at random and not at all according to the declared criteria.

Old and young have been drafted, as have invalids, university students, people with no military experience and even men who have been dead for years.

"People have become angry and now the point has been reached where people are saying no. Enough is enough," says Mette Skak, who also calls the mobilisation "a domestic political self goal":

"And even if it's 'just' in Dagestan, it matters in the bigger picture, because we also know that the Russian population at large - including those in well-protected big cities like Moscow and St Petersburg - are very nervous about how the partial mobilisation is being so carelessly administered in practice. It may well help to create a mood shift throughout Russia and develop seriously for Putin."

Governors and mayors from Dagestan, but also from the equally impoverished republic of Buryatia, have been out this weekend to lament the haphazard mobilisation. Without, however, addressing the amount of soldiers drafted in from the territories.

According to the independent organisation OVD-Info, more than 2,350 protesters have been arrested in Russia since Vladimir Putin's announcement of the partial mobilisation on Wednesday.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

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