Alima's phone rang non-stop after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced mobilization in Russia, writes Politico contributor Lily Hyde.

As a human rights activist in illegally occupied Crimea, Alime has been inundated with calls since September 21. The callers were men in their late 60s, women, young medical workers, teachers, students, and people who had never served in the military..

Basically, like Alime, they were representatives of the indigenous minority of the peninsula - the Crimean Tatars. They all asked the same question: how to avoid being drafted into the Russian army to fight against Ukraine?

“For the first two days, I literally consulted people around the clock, with short breaks for sleep,” said Alime, who asked to use a pseudonym due to the need to remain anonymous while working in Russian-occupied Crimea. “This conscription into the Russian army is considered by most Crimean Tatars to be completely unacceptable.”.

Since the so-called “partial mobilization” announced by Russia after Russian troops suffered a heavy defeat in northeastern Ukraine, Ukrainian monitoring groups have claimed that Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia occupied and annexed from Ukraine in 2014,. At least 1,500 draft notices were handed out in settlements where the majority of Crimean Tatars live.

The new conscripts will join the thousands of Ukrainians already called up from Russian-occupied Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine..

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called on all Ukrainians in the occupied territories to evade the draft or, if they find themselves on the front line, save their lives and not fight the Ukrainians by surrendering.

Zelenskiy emphasizes Putin's conscription of Crimean Tatars and warns of a genocidal specter looming over much of the mobilization, which in Russia has disproportionately affected ethnic minority areas such as Dagestan in the Caucasus, where poverty is high and jobs other than the army are virtually non-existent..

“This is a deliberate attempt by Russia to destroy the Crimean Tatar people, this is a deliberate attempt by the aggressor state to take the lives of as many residents of the territory invaded by Russian troops as possible,” Zelensky said on September 23.

However, it is not so easy to cross the front line and break into the free Ukrainian territories..

At the same time, Russia passed laws providing for lengthy prison terms for desertion and voluntary surrender.. Calculations for drafted Crimeans and Ukrainians are complex and fraught with dangers.

“Now there is a choice: to flee or refuse to serve, with all the ensuing consequences, or the risk of being on the battlefield and surrendering, only to end up in a Ukrainian prison later,” says Alena Lunova, director of human rights activities at the Ukrainian human rights center Zmina.. All options are bad.

According to Refat Chubarov, head of the Crimean Tatar ruling body, the Mejlis, who is now in exile in Kyiv, Russian mobilization in occupied territories such as Crimea is an international war crime..

His legal arguments are solid. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from compelling an occupied population to serve in its armed forces. Since the annexation, Russia has already conducted 15 illegal conscription campaigns and drafted more than 30,000 people into the army in Crimea. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, at least 139 Crimeans who fought on the side of Russia have died in Ukraine since February, and 22 people are currently prisoners of war..

If this is not enough, then the ethnic orientation is deeply rooted. The Ukrainian authorities say the Crimean Tatar mobilization looks like a deliberate attempt to destroy a group that has long been a thorn in Moscow's side..

" “It has signs of genocide.”.

Crimean Tatars have a long history of confrontation with Russia, under whose rule they were gradually dispossessed until the entire population was deported from Crimea in 1944.. They returned in the 1990s, but after 2014 they were again under de facto Russian rule..

After speaking out against Russian annexation, about a hundred Crimean Tatars were imprisoned on politicized charges of \; On September 21, Nariman Dzhelal, one of the last Mejlis representatives still in Crimea, was sentenced to 17 years in prison..

After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, all freedoms in Crimea were further curtailed, according to a report by the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.. At least 89 people were prosecuted for "

Forced mobilization is directed not only at Crimean Tatars, but also at ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea and other occupied territories, by Russian leaders who have repeatedly questioned the right of Ukrainians to exist..

" “Once they get weapons and are at the front, their chances of survival are almost zero.”.

As in all of Russia, mobilization in Crimea was carried out indiscriminately, without any exceptions provided for by official Russian statements, says Alime. Some of those she consulted were tricked into opening the doors of their homes or given a phone call asking them to come to the local council for another matter and then taken right outside the council building..

Of the several people she knows who have already been taken to military training centers, one has health problems that should exempt him from the draft, and the other has a disabled child.

"

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people fled Russia and Crimea to avoid mobilization.. Alime talked about how the roads are clogged with traffic, and shops and market stalls are either closed or elderly people or women work in them..

" I think it's even bigger than in 2014,"

Telegram channels on how to escape Crimea are chock-full of messages with prices ranging from 400 to 1,000 euros or more for transportation to Georgia, Kazakhstan or Belarus, comparisons of queues and border crossing experiences, and discussions of what documents are needed.

As many countries are still deciding whether to let in thousands of Russians who are now fleeing the draft, Ukrainians from Crimea with expired or only internal Ukrainian documents are stuck at the borders, especially with Georgia (the closest checkpoint to Crimea), Chubarov said..

He wants neighboring countries to open a "

But the withdrawal from Crimea can also be seen as an opportunity for Russia to get rid of its unwanted. " “I can only tell them about the legal methods of draft evasion.”.

Those who are hiding from or fleeing the mobilization hope they will soon be able to return to their homeland, which is once again under Ukrainian rule..

“I know that of those who left Crimea, almost everyone left their families here because they plan to return as soon as possible,” Alime says..

Ukrainian authorities, starting with President Zelenskiy, have publicly called on those who cannot avoid being drafted to lay down their arms and surrender at the first opportunity as soon as they are sent to Ukraine, and publish instructions on how to do so..

However, in reality it is extremely difficult to do this.. More than 50 Ukrainians from Russian-occupied Donetsk and Lugansk, captured by Ukraine, fighting on the side of Russia since March, were tried for high treason.

Despite ample evidence of forced mobilization, including kidnapping men on the streets or raiding workplaces, courts are handing down sentences of up to 15 years, says Lunova.

With Russian mobilization in Crimea and "

“The number of people who could potentially end up at the front against their will will grow catastrophically,” says Lunova.. “When we tell them to turn themselves in, we have to be honest and tell them that they will most likely be prosecuted.”.

Despite public condemnation of Russia's forced mobilization, the discovery of war crimes in territories liberated from Russian occupation has focused Ukrainian public discourse on cooperation, making it difficult to raise the question of the treatment of those who fought, albeit reluctantly, on the side of the occupying forces, says Lunova. This topic is vital for the future of Ukraine.

" - Opportunities for resocialization [of those who are condemned as] traitors and collaborators are not very high. We must make sure that those who did not want to fight and wanted to survive are treated differently from those who volunteered to fight.. We must treat them like victims."

Tamila Tasheva, representative of the President of Ukraine in Crimea, said that every person must prove in court that he was forcibly mobilized and did not commit any war crimes.. " Our advice to surrender is not a way to avoid responsibility.. But if you were forced to go to war, it will be taken into account,"