Conscript protesters arrested & flights fleeing Russia sell out as thousands are called up in Putin’s ‘meatgrinder’ war

MORE than 1,300 protesters have been arrested as anger mounts over Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation of civilians to fight in Ukraine.

Flights out of the country have sold out for eye-watering prices in the wake of the announcement as Russians insist they do not want to be sent into the tyrant’s “meatgrinder”.

Putin ordered the mobilisation - calling up 300,000 reservists - in a speech on TV in which he also made a thinly veiled threat to nuke the West.

Russia has a reserve of around two million people, most of whom have served in the military in recent years but doubts remain about their fitness and motivation.

Demonstrators took to the streets in 38 cities chanting “no mobilisation” but were met with baton-wielding riot police.

In one video shot inside a restaurant, diners watched in horror as cops shoved a man against the window and battered him.

In Ulan-Ude, several dozen people came out to protest with posters against mobilisation. 

Some carried posters saying "our husbands, fathers and brothers do not want to kill other husbands and fathers".

One St Petersburg protester, Vasily Fedorov, said: “Everyone is scared. I am for peace and I don't want to have to shoot.”

In response to the mobilisation, the Vesna opposition movement said: “Thousands of Russian men - our fathers, brothers and husbands - will be thrown into the meat grinder of the war.

“What will they be dying for? What will mothers and children be crying for?”

Jailed opposition leader Navalny said in a video message said Putin’s “criminal war is getting worse” so "he wants to smear hundreds of thousands of people in this blood”.

Panic spread among Russians soon flooded social networks, which surged with advice on how to avoid the mobilisation or leave the country and avoid being sent to fight in the Ukraine war.

Google searches for "how to break a hand" soared within moments of Putin's speech.