Russia is rupturing into chaos after warlord Vladimir Putin ordered another 300,000 civilians to the frontline of his failing " special military operation ".
Last Wednesday Putin ordered the "partial military mobilisation" of hundreds of thousands of civilian reservists after the Kremlin's troops took a vicious beating in Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces sent Putin's boys packing from the northeastern region of Kharkiv after a lightning counteroffensive, which has been hailed a military tactics masterpiece.
Within hours, Russia's borders were gridlocked with young men desperately trying to dodge the draft. The Russo-Ukraine war, which started in February, has already claimed between 70 to 80,000 Russian lives, according to US estimates.
In some of the territories where losses have been hardest felt, like Siberia, crowds marched through the streets chanting "I'm not going to die for you."
Similar protests have touched most corners of the vast country as citizens flouted the Kremlin's draconian laws against criticism of the armed forces.
More than 1,000 people were seized as Moscow brutally cracked down on the unrest.
The reactions have grown more sinister in recent days after a number of shootings and firebombings were reported across the country.
One directly linked to the mobilisation took place in Irkutsk, Siberia, when an unemployed conscript strolled into an enlistment office and shot the top local military recruiter.
In Izhevsk, a town around 600 miles east of Moscow, another gunman wandered through a school and opened fire, killing at least 13 including young schoolchildren.
Here is how Russia is crumbling after the tyrant's announcement:
Protests
Since Wednesday, Putin's heavy-handed cops have thrown 2,353 protesters in jail for demonstrating their fury over the forced mobilisation, according to an independent protest monitoring site.
More than 1,300 of those arrests were made by the end of the first day, OVD-Info reports.
Women have been leading many of the protests and have been seen carrying banners saying: "Our husbands, fathers and brothers do not want to kill other husbands and fathers".
Others hoisted read, "No mobilisation", "No war! There is no grave.”
In Dagestan’s regional capital Makhachkala, anti-war protesters reportedly burned portraits of Putin.
In Novosibirsk, a brave male activist was hauled into detention after shouting at police and FSB officers at a rally: “I am not going to die for Putin, or for you!”
He told the armed law enforcement: “You know too well everything is f***** up!”
The man, seemingly in his 20s, was loudly clapped by other protesters at the rare anti-war rally in Siberia’s unofficial capital.
A police officer bellowed at him: “I demand you to stop this illegal activity.”
A protester’s voice is heard saying “What are you doing?” as he is detained.
Another asks: “Are you animals?”
One more voice said: “They are [protesting] so as not to be sent there [to the war in Ukraine]."
Protests have become almost impossible in Russia due to harsh punishments meted out for anyone questioning Putin’s war.
The Moscow Prosecutor's Office warned Russians about “criminal and administrative responsibility for participating in rallies and organising them without giving notice.”
Mass exodus
Tens of thousands of citizens, most of them young men, flocked to Russia's borders to Finland, Georgia and Mongolia on Wednesday as they tried to dodge the prospect of spending months in the trenches.
Sinister queues were formed at the country’s airports as officials filtered through the crowds to see who was fit to fight.
Those deemed fit enough were barred from leaving – even if they had tickets or visas for another country.
Women were allowed to depart, under the new rules of Putin’s Iron Curtain.
With just a handful of destinations on offer as a result of sanctions, flight prices from Moscow to approved countries have skyrocketed - with a one-way trip to Peru costing around £14,900.
Videos showed men in the Russian Far East beginning a journey of thousands of miles after being summoned for military training.
In Dalnegorsk, seven time zones east of Moscow, mobilised reservists were videoed on a bus as an officer took a roll call.
In regional capital Vladivostok, men were seen reporting to an enlistment office with their belongings having been summoned to be sent to Putin’s war.
In Ussuriysk, a 62-year-old trauma doctor - who in theory does not qualify for mobilisation - was summoned as his furious wife refused to take the document.
The mobilisation staff then went to the clinic where he worked, “posing as patients” and handed him the summons to the war.
He was given four hours to pack and leave, it was reported.
The same timescale was reported elsewhere in the Russian far east, with men being woken in the night and told they had fours to obey the Putin mobilisation edict.
There were reports of people cowering behind doors and refusing to accept the military summonses, while some were given the letter as they turned up for work.
Desperate women even threatened to break their husbands’ bones so they were unfit for the call-up.
A wife from Tyumen in Siberia said: “I will not let my husband go. I’ll break his both legs. His duty is to raise his children.”
The authorities issued a a special warning issued to potential recruits that they face legal sanctions if they self-harm by breaking arms or legs to avoid the call-up.
Other ploys were men seeking to wed women with multiple children.
A senior Russian lawmaker today said Russian men of fighting age shouldn't be allowed to travel abroad.
"Everyone who is of conscription age should be banned from travelling abroad in the current situation," Sergei Tsekov, a member of Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, told RIA news agency.
There are fears that the Kremlin may completely shutter its borders.
Enlistment office attacks
Earlier today a reservist walked in to an enlistment office in Siberia carrying a sawn-off shotgun before firing a number of rounds into the chief military recruiter, leaving him seriously injured.
Ruslan Zinin, 25, an unemployed local man, shouted “No-one's going to fight” before pulling the trigger and shooting the army chief from close range.
“We’re all going home now,” he added.
Chief local military recruiter Aleksandr Yeliseyev is fighting for his life in a "grave" condition in intensive care.
In chilling video footage, civilians and military officers can be seen fleeing from the facility in a state of terror.
After the incident, Zinin said: “I was very worried about the [conscription] summons that came to my best friend.”
Zinin had told his mother he was going to the draft office as a volunteer but she said he was upset over the call-up to his best friend who had no military experience.
“They said that there would be partial mobilisation, but it turns out that they are taking everyone,” said his mother Marina.
She did not know where he had obtained the weapon.
A video shows Zinin after his arrest where he gives his name and address to police.
In another clip, a different enlistment office was firebombed with Molotov cocktails at Uryupinsk in Volgograd region.
Similar devices were used in Tolyatti, St Petersburh, Gai and Nizhny Novogrod.
There have been more than a dozen of attempts to set fire to enlistment offices since the start of the war, according to Newsweek.
School shooting
In more horror, terrified schoolchildren were forced to leap from windows to escape a gunman as he mowed down at least 14 people including seven of their classmates.
Another 14 children and seven adults were injured.
In the hours after the terrifying attack, the shooter was identified as 34-year-old former pupil Artyom Kazantsev.
A message suspected to have been sent by the attacker reads: “What happened is not a terrorist attack.
"As the only reason for what happened, I ask you to cite hatred.
“I am not a member of any extremist organisations, I have no political demands.”
Branded a “neo-fascist” by the Kremlin, Kazantsev wore a black shirt with an image of the Swastika on it and holstered two pistols with 25 cartridge magazines.
Each of the magazines had the word "Hate" crudely scribbled on them.
