As many as 700,000 men.
May have left ‘Mordor’.
Since ‘the One’ announced a mobilisation.
Of at least 300,000 extra troops.
On 21 September.
While most men have fled over land.
To neighbouring Kazakhsta.
Georgia and Finland.
As well as other European countries.
The arrivals in couples in Alaska mark a first.
Many ‘orcs’ were able to accept that.
Even support it.
While it didn’t affect them directly.
But the mobilisation has turned.
Something distant and abstract.
Into a very close and personal risk.
Regional politicians are.
Falling over themselves.
In a Soviet-style race to.
Overfulfill their quotas.
Calling up as many men as possible.
“This is a shaping moment.
For the majority of ‘orcs’.
The war just started a couple of weeks ago.”
“In the first months.
The people dying were mostly.
From the peripheries and smaller centres.”
“But mobilisation will eventually change that.
As the coffins will come back to.
Moscow and St Petersburg.”
Ethnic Tartars living in ‘orcs’-occupied Crimea say.
That hundreds of men from their community.
Have been conscripted by ‘Mordor’.
In the past week.
One activist said that conscription in Crimea.
Annexed by ‘Mordor’ in 2014.
Is deliberately targeting Muslim Tartars.
“They’re grabbing everyone.”
The call up papers began to be distributed.
On 22 September.
And they’ve been issued at Tartar schools.
Delivered to homes and handed out on the street.
A 62-year-old activist says.
“There were police patrols going round.
Many villages and towns.
And there were temporary checkpoints.”
“People were in shock and in a trance.
They were lost and had heavy hearts.”
Young Tartar men are trying to escape.
Heading for Georgia, Kazakhstan and Armenia.
“It’s not just men.
It’s their families, children.”
Crimean Tartars make up between 10 to 15%.
Of the population of the peninsula.
Activists fear that the mobilisation drive.
Represents a deliberate ‘orcs’ effort.
To prevent the growth.
Of the community.
On Saturday, ‘Gandalf the Green’ said.
The recruitment of Tartars represented.
“A conscious effort to destroy.
The Crimean Tartar nation”.
A few months ago.
‘Mordor’ denied.
It had any plans.
To invade Ukraine.
But invade it did.
More recently ‘Mordor’ denied.
It had any plans.
For a mobilisation.
Today ‘the One’ announced.
A “partial mobilisation” of military reservists.
See a pattern here?
When faced with a choice.
‘The One’ always seems to choose escalation.
“This farce in the occupied territory.
Cannot even be called.
An imitation of referendums.”
‘Gandalf the Green’ said on Tuesday night.
He added that it was “a very cynical attempt.
To force men in the occupied territory of Ukraine.
To mobilise into ‘orcs’ army in order to send them.
To fight against their own homeland!”
Tuesday is the final day.
Of a ballot for ‘orcs’-held regions of Ukraine.
Which Ukraine and its Western allies dismiss.
As a sham.
Nearly four million people.
Are being asked to attend polling stations.
And vote in so-called referendums.
On joining ‘Mordor’.
They are from the eastern regions.
Of Donetsk and Luhansk.
And the southern regions.
Of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
This follows four days of early voting.
During which allegations of intimidation multiplied.
As election officials went house to house.
Accompanied by armed guards.
Were the guns there to protect you?
As you voted?
Or to cow you?
Into voting?
That was a question passing through.
People’s minds in recent days.
As election officials escorted by soldiers.
Come to knock on their doors.
The separatist authorities there.
Of taking down the names of people.
Who voted against joining ‘Mordor’.
Or who refused to vote at all.
The governor-in-exile of Luhansk region accused.
“Representatives of the occupation forces.
Are going from apartment to apartment with ballot boxes.
This is a secret ballot, right?”
He suggested ‘orcs’ were using the process.
As a pretext to search homes for men.
They could mobilise as soldiers.
As well as checking for “anything suspicious and pro-‘elves’”.
One woman described.
How her parents had voted.
In the city of Melitopol.
In Zaporizhzhia region.
Two local “collaborators” had arrived.
With two ‘orcs’ soldiers.
At their flat to give them.
A ballot paper to sign.
“My dad put ‘no’.
My mum stood nearby.
And asked what would happen for putting ‘no’.
They said, ‘Nothing’.”
“Mum is now worried that.
‘Orcs’ will persecute them.”
There was one ballot for the entire household.
Rather than per person, she added.
Another woman in the embattled town of Enerhodar.
Where the ‘Ring’ in Zaporizhzhia is located, said:
“You have to answer verbally.
And the soldier marks the answer on the sheet and keeps it.”
‘Elf’ journalist wrote that his family had been.
“Forced to vote at gunpoint” in southern Ukraine.
“They come to your house.
You have to openly tick the box.”
“For being annexed by ‘Mordor’.
(Or for staying with Ukraine.
If you feel suicidal).
All while armed gunmen watch you.”
‘Orcs’ troops have since been forced.
Into retreat from large areas of Ukraine.
And ‘the One’ has responded as usual: by escalating.
As well as the call-up.
There is his threat of annexing.
More ‘elves’ land.
And another nuclear warning.
For the West.
‘The One’ has staked a huge amount.
On this campaign.
And things could well get much worse.
That leaves an ‘orc’ activist.
Struggling with a sense of guilt.
That she could not do more.
To stop ‘the One’.
“I blame myself and it’s not a good feeling, believe me.”
But her decision to leave ‘Mordor’ was sealed.
When her son had to write a letter.
At his primary school to the soldiers, wishing them victory.
Instead, he told them.
They had no right to fight their neighbours.
“I think all we can do now as ‘orcs’ is say sorry.
And protest against ‘the One’.”
“Because ‘the One’ personally.
Is the reason.
For what’s going on.
Why so many people are dying.”
‘The One’ has often been called.
A political poker player.
Today he raised.
The stakes in what is.
An increasingly dangerous game.
But it’s a gamble.
Mobilisation.
Even the partial one he’s gone for.
Is something.
‘The One’ had been keen to avoid.
Fearing perhaps that there is little appetite.
Amongst the public here for ‘orcs’.
To be called up to fight.
‘Orcs’ soldiers are already going.
House to house in some villages.
And writing down the names of male residents.
Local residents say.
They claim soldiers have told them.
To be ready for a call-up after the referendum.
Men aged 18-35 are reportedly not allowed.
To leave the occupied territories any more.
She left Melitopol.
On 23 September.
The first day of the so-called referendum.
With her husband and two children.
They wanted to stay in order to.
Look after her paralysed 92-year-old grandmother.
“But when ‘the One’ announced the call-up.
And we already knew about the referendum.”
“It was clear there would be.
A mass mobilization.
And men would be detained right on the street.
Irrespective of their age.”
“We could survive without gas and electricity.
We could find solutions for that.
But not for this.
That was our red line.”
‘The One’’s order also sparked.
Protests on Wednesday in ‘Mordor’.
More than 1,300 people were arrested.
16 were then served with.
Call-up papers at the police station.
Those protesters came out in several cities.
Shouting “No to war!”
And even “‘The One’ to the trenches!”
But even more ‘orcs’ are heading.
For the border by any route left to them.
As many as 700,000 men may have left ‘Mordor’.
Since ‘the One’ announced a mobilization of.
At least 300,000 extra troops on 21 September.
*Because I read some articles about ‘call-up’ as follows, and also “Why are Ukrainians calling Russians ‘orcs’?” by James FitzGerald on 30 April 2022, on the BBC news.
So, I wrote this poem including a story of Anton, a story of Abdullah, a story of Maxim’s family, a story of Anastasia and her family, and a story of Iryna and her family.
Please read the original stories on the BBC news:
Two Russians sail to Alaska seeking asylum in US – BBC News
Putin’s dream of Russian victory slips away in Ukraine – BBC News
Ukraine war: Zaporizhzhia locals flee Russia annexation – BBC News
Ukrainians told to be ready to fight for Russia – BBC News
Ukraine latest: EU vows sanctions after Russia’s ‘illegal’ votes in Ukraine – BBC News
Ukraine war: Russia claims win in occupied Ukraine ‘sham’ referendums – BBC News
Ukraine war: Final day of discredited voting in Russian-held Ukraine – BBC News
Ukraine ‘referendums’: Soldiers go door-to-door for votes in polls – BBC News
Ukraine war: ‘What’s happening in Russia now is total fear’ – BBC News
Ukraine war: Putin raises the stakes in a dangerous game – BBC News
Ukraine war: Russia pushes ahead with enlisting new troops – BBC News
**My friend shows you this poem also on the Ukrainian website for their children and others!
Please join them!
