FILE PHOTO: A man smokes while walking past a mural, which was painted on a multi-storey building in support of the Russian army, in Moscow, Russia September 21, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina
TBILISI/VAALIMAA, Finland (Reuters) -Some Russian men headed swiftly to the borders on Thursday after President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilisation, with traffic at frontier crossings with Finland and Georgia surging and prices for air tickets from Moscow rocketing.
Putin on Wednesday ordered Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two and backed a plan to annex swathes of Ukraine, warning the West he was not bluffing when he said he'd be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.
