Putin has escaped to his secret palace in a forest amid anti-draft protests in Russian cities, report says

MailOnline says that when Russians protested against the drought, President Vladimir Putin ran away to his private palace near Lake Valdai. Independent journalist Farida Rusamova said that three people who knew Putin’s schedule said that he went to his vacation home on Wednesday. Rusamova wrote in a Telegram message that he has been getting “body and soul” rest at the luxurious property in the middle of a forest.

MailOnline says that it has a three-story spa with a float pool, mud bath, and private beauty salon. The Anti-Corruption Foundation, which was started by the Russian activist Alexei Navalny while he was in jail, says that not much is known about the secret property other than the fact that it is Putin’s favourite place to live. Navalny’s group says that Yuri Kovalchuk, a millionaire who is said to be Putin’s personal banker, owns part of the property. Rusamova says that Putin plans to stay at the compound until at least Thursday. So that the public wouldn’t know he wasn’t there, the journalist said that the president had pre-recorded many films of meetings, which the official Russian media planned to show at different times during the week. Rusamova says that Putin went home the day after a video of him announcing the partial mobilisation of the military on Wednesday went public. When Putin said that 300,000 reservists would be sent to fight in Russia’s war with Ukraine, there were protests all over the country.

Reports say that hundreds of Russians, including girls as young as 14 years old, have been arrested for taking part in illegal gatherings, which are against the law in Russia. BBC News says that 724 people were arrested in 32 cities on Saturday, according to OVD-Info. Sky News says that protests have happened in cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tomsk, and Omsk. Russians took to the streets early Wednesday morning to protest President Vladimir V. Putin’s plan for “partial mobilisation,” which would force 300,000 people to join the military. Human rights group OVD-Info, which keeps track of police actions, says that at least 1,252 people from 38 different municipalities were arrested.

On the Old Arbat, a popular pedestrian area in the centre of Moscow, there were hundreds of protesters. They shouted, “Send Putin to the trenches!” and “Let our children live!” On the video, you can see people being taken away by riot police. In Tomsk, three police officers dragged a woman who was smiling and holding a sign that said, “Hug me if you’re scared too.” A man with a ponytail told police in Novosibirsk, “I don’t want to die for Putin and you.” He was then arrested. OVD-Info says that protesting is pretty much against the law in Russia. Up until this week, about 16,500 people had been jailed for anti war activities. This number includes people who just held up a piece of paper to protest in public. Since March, it is against the law to “spread false information” about the war or “put down the Russian Army.