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Closing borders and falling missiles: 29 September 2022
Summary
As Russians fled mobilisation, neighbours tightened their frontiers while strikes hit civilians in Mykolaiv and Dnipro.
What did the war look like on 29 September 2022, both inside Ukraine and along the borders of Russia? The day brought two stories that unfolded side by side: attacks on civilians in Ukrainian cities, and a widening effort by Russia's neighbours to manage those fleeing the draft.
Strikes on Mykolaiv and Dnipro
In Mykolaiv, a Russian cluster munition attack on a bus stop killed three people and injured 12 others, according to the city's mayor, Oleksandr Sienkievych. Elsewhere, Russian forces struck a residential neighbourhood in Dnipro with a cruise missile. Local authorities said a family of four, including two children, was killed and 18 other civilians were injured.
Finland shuts the last direct route
On the same day, Finland announced that it would deny entry to Russian tourists from the night of Thursday, 29 September. The move cut off the last direct link between Russia and the European Union.
The decision followed days of pressure on Russia's borders. On 28 September, a mobile draft centre was built at the Torfyanovka checkpoint, the busiest crossing on the Finland–Russia border, in order to stop people fit to serve from leaving the country. As of midday that day, the centre had not yet opened.
A wider scramble at the frontier
Other states had already moved. On 27 September, Latvia declared a state of emergency over the influx of Russian citizens fleeing mobilisation, with special measures in its border regions and at all ports of entry. Kazakhstan said that day that around 98,000 Russian civilians had entered the country by land and air since President Vladimir Putin ordered a military mobilisation.
On 28 September, North Ossetia–Alania, which contains the only border crossing between Russia and Georgia-controlled territory, banned all Russian cars without the republic's licence plate, with an exception for tourists travelling to the region. The restriction came as people fleeing the draft overwhelmed the border.
Two pressures, one day
Taken together, the reports from 29 September 2022 show how the consequences of the war were spreading in different forms: missile and cluster-munition strikes on residential and public spaces in Ukraine, and tighter controls at the edges of Russia as neighbouring countries limited the routes out.
