First of all, there is no sign that any general mobilization is imminent any time soon in Russia. They had to cut down on the incentives for voluntary recruits because more were signing up than the system can process (training, equipment, etc. are the bottlenecks, not manpower). I don’t foresee this changing so long as the current trajectory stays the same.

Secondly, Russia has always had a “draft” in the sense of a mandatory period of one year of service for young men, but this is not connected to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and there is no chance of these temporary draftees being sent anywhere near the fighting. You can also do other things instead of military service, for example if you are a student you get an exemption.

About internet restrictions, again this is a lot of paranoia and hysteria. Russia doesn’t have the capability or the political capital to implement anything like China’s system, and even if it did, it would not be the end of the world (arguably it would benefit them). The Russian government has handled the situation around Telegram somewhat badly going in without a proper plan and there was public outrage so they pulled back.

Lastly, about the economy, over the last four years Russia has seen higher economic growth than basically any country in Europe. It’s not all sunshine and roses because they still have a lot of people with liberal brainworms in charge of economic policies, and of course rural areas have been slowly declining for a long time, but the general trajectory has been positive. Recently there has been some slow down because of the obsession of the Central Bank with high interest rates, but this is also necessary to some degree to keep inflation from rising too high.

A lot of the issues are of course caused by the sanctions, but the sanctions are beginning to have less and less impact as Russia builds domestic alternatives and re-orients to Asia. Oil and gas prices rising right now are also a boon to the budget, but this is also something that will matter less and less as time goes on because Russia is diversifying quickly and fossil fuel revenues are already not as important to the economy as they used to be.

A lot of Russian liberals who hate Putin and consume a lot of Western propaganda will of course present everything in the most negative light possible, and they will fearmonger and doom, and that’s fine. Let them emigrate if they want. They will quickly find out that the grass is not so green as they thought on the other side. Especially if they move to Europe or South America. Many who panicked and fled in 2022 have already returned.

And with the impending fuel crisis caused by the US war in the Middle East, Russia will certainly be more stable than most other places in the world right now. Incomes are definitely not high outside the big cities, but you will always have cheap energy in Russia, housing (outside of Moscow and St Petersburg) is affordable, infrastructure is decent unless you’re out in the boondocks, and unless you’re trying to actively harm Russia or supporting Ukronazi terrorists the government will generally leave you alone.