The Ulan-Ude draft office and the defence ministry in Moscow did not reply to a request for comment on the situation. PROVINCIAL MOBILISATION"There’s nothing partial about the mobilisation in Buryatia," said Alexandra Garmazhapova, president of the Free Buryatia Foundation, an organisation that provides legal help to those mobilised. Her foundation collected hundreds of appeals for help from residents whose relatives had received mobilisation papers. One resident of the Buryatia village of Orongoi, whose population in 2010 was 1,700, told Reuters that 106 men from the village had been mobilised. "The federal centre is trying not to touch St Petersburg and Moscow, because in Moscow you can have protests against the Kremlin," she said.

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