During his speech, Putin announced that 300,000 reservists would be required to serve in a “special military operation”, raising concerns that men of combat age might not be permission to leave Russia.
Sergey Bobylev | Sputnik | via Reuters
The cost of flights departing from Moscow has skyrocketed when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced “partial military mobilization” in a televised speech on Wednesday.
Prices have been steadily increasing even before Putin’s comments, and are up to nine times more expensive than they would normally be in some cases after his speech, according to Google’s price tracker.
Putin announced in his speech that 300,000 reservists will be required to serve in what Moscow calls “special military operations”, raising fears that combat-age men may not be allowed to leave Russia. .
The country’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, said only those with professional military experience would be called up, and that students and former conscripts would not be needed.
Many countries have banned planes from landing directly from Russia, including the US, UK and much of mainland Europe. But there are countries seen as sympathetic to Russia that will allow people to travel back and forth – and flights to those countries are disproportionate and quickly sell out.
Direct flights from Moscow to the Turkish city of Istanbul and Yerevan in Armenia sold out on Wednesday, according to Aviasales data, reported by Reuters.
Prices are not available for flights to Armenia on Wednesday at the time of writing, but a single economy class flight to the capital, Yerevan, on Thursday costs £1,117 ($1,267). According to Google data, the ride typically costs between £120 and £185, making the price around nine times more expensive than a normal fare.
Flights to Istanbul typically cost between £240 and £320 but the cheapest flight is the 13 hour 35 minute journey for £1,008 with Azerbaijan Airlines. The most expensive is £7,904 with Emirates via Dubai.
There are no flights to Belgrade on Wednesday or Thursday, but the cheapest flight to the Serbian capital on Friday is £2,529. Similar flights typically cost between £730 and £1,700.
A flight to Tel-Aviv, Israel, from Moscow typically costs between £350 and £570, but Wednesday’s cheapest flight costs £1,398 at the time of writing.
According to information from Google Trends, there was also an increase in the number of people searching for Aviasales, Russia’s most popular flight booking site, after Putin’s announcement.
