Since the speech of Vladimir Putin announcing a “partial mobilization” on Wednesday, men arrive by the thousands at Turkey airports. But they are not at the end of their sorrows.
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escape the “partial mobilization” decreed by Vladimir Putin is the urgency of the moment for many Russian men, who, alone or with the family, with luggage or without, arrive by thousands these days at the airports of Turkey, one of the rare foreign destinations, with Serbia, Georgia and Armenia, which remained open to Russian travelers, without visa requirement.
Friday, September 23, at Istanbul Airport, on the European Bosphorus bank, passengers from the Turkish Airlines 414 flight from Moscow are tung. The faces are closed, the languages do not easily delight. “Tourizm”, laconically replies a young man with a cap when he was asked if his arrival in Turkey is linked to the announcement of the mobilization. “I had taken my ticket before the announcement, I suspected it was going to come,” concedes another passenger. Behind him, a man and his teenage son refuse to exchange the slightest word. “We have nothing to do with your questions …”
In the file of taxis, a man and a woman, in his thirties, feverishly focus on their laptop. “My brother must jump on an airplane, how many times must be alerted! Going out will soon be possible, they will close the borders,” exclaims man in a Russian tinged with emotion. Since Putin’s speech announcing the mobilization on Wednesday, Istanbul has become the privileged exit door of thousands of Russians, especially men, caught up in a war they did not want to see.
flights taken from ‘Assault
Compared to those of their compatriots who arrived in February or March, either at the very beginning of the Russian invasion, who were mostly the opponents declared to the Putin regime, the new arrivals are more timid, much less politicized. Materially, they are easier. At the time it is, you have to pay a small fortune, the equivalent in rubles from 4,000 to 9,000 dollars to buy a single moscow-isanbul. The flights are taken by storm, the planes are full; Finding a seat before the end of September seems to be an impossible bet.
According to its press service, the national company Turkish Airlines does not plan to add new flights to its table, already well stocked, Ankara not applying Western sanctions against Moscow. Only to serve the Russian Federation, the Turkish Airlines, Pegasus and Anadoli Jet companies provide between 85 and 120 flights per day. The Moscow-isanbul line is the best served, with 53 daily flights offered by all companies.
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