What the pressures of 24 September 2022 revealed

What did Russia's war look like on 24 September 2022, once the shock of the mobilisation announcement had settled in? The picture was of a state asking more of its citizens while many tried to leave, and of Kyiv pressing its case abroad.

Leaving rather than fighting

Thousands of fighting-age men continued to leave Russia on 24 September 2022. Massive lines were reported at the borders with Georgia and Finland. Two days earlier, on 22 September 2022, large numbers of men had already left after the mobilisation was announced, with long traffic jams at international crossings and a sharp rise in the price of tickets for international flights.

At least 700 people were detained during anti-war protests across Russia on 24 September 2022. Taken together, the border queues and the detentions showed a public response to the mobilisation that took the form of both flight and open protest.

Votes under occupation

On 23 September 2022, referendums began in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and in the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, on whether to join Russia. Ukraine and other countries considered them to be sham referendums. Later assessments reinforced that view: they were widely described as sham by commentators and denounced by various countries, and, according to later accounts, only North Korea accepted the validity of the results.

The timing mattered for the analysis of the day. The votes in the occupied areas ran alongside a mobilisation that was driving men out of Russia, so Moscow was pursuing territorial claims and a larger call-up at the same moment.

Kyiv's diplomatic response

On 24 September 2022, Ukraine announced a reduction in the staff of the Iranian diplomatic mission. Kyiv framed it as a response to the delivery of drones to Russia for use in the war. It was a concrete step against a third country's role in the conflict, taken as the fighting continued.

A prisoner exchange in the background

Two days before, on 22 September 2022, Ukraine and Russia had released 55 Russian prisoners of war and 215 fighters from the Siege of Mariupol in an exchange mediated by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Those freed included the pro-Russian Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, Azov Regiment commander Denys Prokopenko, British volunteers Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, and the Moroccan volunteer Saadun Brahim. The exchange showed that channels between the two sides, and third-party mediators, remained open even as the war escalated.

The same day, authorities of the Donetsk People's Republic accused Ukraine of shelling a market in Donetsk, killing six civilians.

What it adds up to

The events of 24 September 2022 and the days around it show several pressures at once: a mobilisation prompting departures and protests, staged votes in occupied territory, a Ukrainian diplomatic move aimed at Iran, and a mediated exchange of prisoners. Each was a separate development, but together they marked a moment when the war reached deeper into Russian society and into international diplomacy.