They draft anyone they can get their hands on

I got a message from my mom: “Hi, your father said you’ve been sent a draft notice from the military commissariat.” This was about a week before the official announcement of the partial mobilization.

But I’m unfit for service. I have a congenital leg deformity — my legs look visibly different. I had surgery as a child, was taken off the disability register, and given a military ID with category D (unfit for military service — SP). I didn’t buy anything. And now they’ve decided to draft me into their vegetable army. They’re taking everyone they can get their hands on.

The summons was put in my mailbox. I told my parents that if anyone called, they should say they don’t know where I am.

I’ve been against the war from the very beginning. I worked at a company where my colleagues held the polar opposite views. There was no remote work option, so I decided I’d improvise and just leave the country without a job.

I left Russia in mid-May. I found work and now I’m at a company where everyone, like me, is against the war.

My parents stayed home. They more or less supported the war and Putin. Today I started trolling them a bit. I say: “Well, there’s a summons, I’ll have to go back — I’m a law-abiding citizen, after all.” They say: “Just stay where you are, abroad.” I say: “Why? You used to have different views.”

My father works a physically demanding job — they don’t hire people in poor health there. Two colonels came to his workplace. His boss said there’d been a conversation with people from the military commissariat, that first and foremost they’d be looking at the men from there, since they’re physically fit.

Then there was a call to my father’s personal number — they identified themselves as the military commissariat, I think even the regional one. They started sweet-talking him: we’ve seen your service record, we’d like to offer you a contract.

My father said he’s fifty-one, there can be no thought of any army. Said his health wouldn’t allow it. They told him: “Why are you playing poor about your health — at least go as a driver.” Because when he served in 1988, he was a driver, and it’s recorded in his military ID.

They also have this psychological trick — they say: “In two months there, you’ll earn more than at your current job in a year.” That’s when some people get worked up and go: “What, you think I can’t handle it?”

My father probably won’t be caught in the first wave [of mobilization], but my cousin will. Today I stayed home from work, looking for ways to get him out of Russia. He needs to abandon his business, sell his car, find somewhere to put his cats and parrots, and run fast.

Now that my cousin could end up there, the war has touched our family like never before. As of today, my parents' views [on the war] have changed.