The Russian authorities are planning to close the borders for men of mobilisation age, a source close to the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation has said.
The Kremlin source told Meduza, an independent Russian news site, that the ban will likely come into force on Wednesday, September 28.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an extraordinary speech and announced an immediate "partial mobilisation" in a bid to replenish the ranks on the frontline in Ukraine.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu outlined more details about the decree, saying the mobilisation would only affect Russians with previous military experience and around 300,000 people would be called up.
But in actual fact the decree itself gives much broader terms, igniting fears among Russians that a wider draft may happen in the future.
This led to a mass exodus of military-age Russian men fleeing the country the avoid being conscripted.
Men who have avoided the war so far felt like they had been "thrown into the meat grinder."
Airfares skyrocketed and tickets to countries that don't require a visa, such as Turkey and Azerbaijan, sold out.
More than 8,500 Russians travelled into neighbouring Finland on Saturday by land, according to Finnish Border Guard official Matti Pitkäniitty.
The mass fleeing has angered people in Kremlin, hence the potential new order closing all borders.
The source told Meduza that there would be a semblance of "exit visas", but in reality, Russian men would have to obtain permission from the military registration and enlistment office to get a "visa."
A second source, also close to the Presidential Administration, said that this will happen "after the referendums" being held in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Luhansk People's Republic and in the occupied territories of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine.
Experts say the self-styled referendums, which are illegal under international law, are taking place across five days and will allow Russia to illegally claim four occupied or partially-occupied regions of Ukraine as their own.
This will likely lead to Russia claiming that its (self-declared and not internationally recognised) territory is under attack from Western weapons supplied to Ukraine, giving the Kremlin impetus to go nuclear.
British Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, said the UK had evidence that Russian officials had already set targets for "invented voter turnouts and approval rates for these sham referenda".
He continued: "We know what Vladimir Putin is doing. He is planning to fabricate the outcome of those referenda, he is planning to use that to annexe sovereign Ukrainian territory, and he is planning to use it as a further pretext to escalate his aggression."
The shadiness of mobilisation has already shown its face as residents in Russia's Far East Sakha Republic have already been conscripted "by mistake" despite not being eligible for mobilisation, according to a local leader.
"All who were mobilized by mistake must be returned back. This work has already begun," the republic's head Aisen Nikolaev said in a Telegram post.
The Free Buryatia Foundation, an activist group that has reported on the draft in the region, has said ethnic minorities in Russia are being disproportionately mobilised.
