Thread by @kromark

🧵/ link in the last tweet. More than 100 Russian conscripts from Bryansk allegedly refused to go to Ukraine from their base in Soloti, Belgorod region. Photos and even live video streams by soldiers from there allow to suggest why: no training, old equipment, total mess.

One of the soldiers reached out to journalists with his complaints (t.me/sotaproject/47…). He says commanders told them they will be sent in a few days "to retake Lyman", while only one man from the previous group of 100 mobilized soldiers sent to Ukraine returned.

This claim was corroborated today by the relative of one of the soldiers from the same group. He was sent to Lyman on October 1st and is missing since then.

Soloti is well known Russian base, built in 2017 and used during Russian military buildup before the invasion, as well as before major Russian offencive in Donbass in April. @planet satellite imagery (Sep 8/Oct8) shows yet another increase in the number of mil. equipment there.

Let’s go for a tour. There are dozens of photos taken and posted recently by Russian soldiers (not only conscripts) from Soloti. This guy took a photo just near the entrance to the grounds. Less than a month ago he posted the photos from Izyum, which is now retaken by Ukraine.

His name is Roman Dorokhov. I messaged him on VK to ask about the "rebellion" of the Bryansk mobiks in Soloti. "Nothing like this happened, it’s a bullshit", he answered.

Whether Dorokhov is lying or not, his pics show how mobilized Russian men look in comparison to "professionals". This 36 y.o. guy from St. Pete posts AK47 he was given and some photos taken in the forest near Soloti on a picnic with his friends, where they enjoy some booze too.

Who said "booze"? This guy is a 34 y.o. truck driver who recently was mobilized and signed 3 months long contract. He’s pissed off with the fact he can’t get some vodka with him when he drives to Ukraine: military road police is watching carefully, he says.

He is the first Russian soldier I come across who live streams (!) from his unit (saved video drive.google.com/file/d/1eyBAn_…). He left no geo tags, but it was easy to geolocate him in Soloti.

Here’s some quotes from his live stream. "Ukrainians don’t let us sleep, last night they shelled us all the time. Now we’re heading there to hit back! It’s better to go in the morning, but our convoy is standing still for 2+ hours and our commander is gone. It’s so boring".

"Guys from Dagestan got their own flag. I should get one with "Tambov" on it and install it in Lyman".

"Internet connection is bad. If they will see that I smoke in the refueler I’ll be f****d up. It’s 20 km to the border. I still prefer to go on mornings instead of jumping across the fields at night".

At some point some random Ukrainian guy jumps into the live stream: "You’ll be back as KIA" – "Care of yourself, we’re coming, did you prepare a black plastic bag? We will put all of you Ukrainians in them". archive.ph/kVg7X

Some other photos from Soloti base: more equipment in the muddy field, 19 y.o. conscript taking selfie, recon-assault company members from Omsk, some delicious food soldiers can enjoy.

Now let’s say bye to Soloti. On October 8th popular Russian actress published a complaint of the soldier’s mother, whose son was mobilized and sent to Belgorod region too. Original post included the name of the village – "Nikitino", but later she edited her post and removed it.

The problem is that there’s no "Nikitino" in Belgorod region, so I started to search on VKontakte for the photos taken in vicinity of other villages with similar names.

Near the village called "Khutor Nikitin" I found previously unreported camp of Russian mobiks (49.9946, 39.1030). It’s 80 kilometers from the border. Thank you for posting, Valery, nice shoes!

Valery is smart enough to always keep geo turned on while taking photos, so we can track all his route there, from Ruzayevka (Penza region) to Samara (15 motor rifle brigade grounds) and then to Belgorod by plane.

On Sep. 22 Valery’s relative or friend wrote that she finally lost any connection with him. "Probably he went [to Ukraine] now", she wrote. She didn’t answer my message.

But what about "Nikitino"? I found another village called "Nikitovka" and… a photo of a soldier with Wagner-associated patch taken there by his father. "Went to see my son, saw some brave guys", he wrote in his post.

Don’t want to dive into "conspiracy" any more further, but this photo was taken just 12 kilometers away from Livenki, where this story happened last week:

So I found no "camp" in "Nikitino", but noticed a photo of a military truck on the road which leads from there to Alekseevka, also Belgorod region. And then I found Russian logistics hub there, near the railway station and local sugar refinery (50.6154, 38.6618).

Looks like Russia uses this place intensively. There are dozens of photos from there, like photos of Bars-13 volunteers unit together with "Akhmat" soldiers (Bars-13 struggled heavy defeat in Izyum, though as @bbcrussian learned there were some SOF too bbc.com/russian/news-6…).

Some more photos from that hub, taken in the mid-September and the beginning of October.

Russian mobilization is a mess and would be a mess, with or without anyone's help. Russian logistics struggle to handle even 300K conscripts at a time. They’re already being taken POW’s – after 12 days after receiving their subpoenas on average t.me/rf200_nooow/11….

At least 17 reservists already died even before going to Ukraine (incl. several suicides). Today the first case of a conscript who died in Ukraine emerged. The mother of Evgeny Bizyaev learned about his death from social media. archive.ph/ohfdH

A military registration office though provides controversial info. When journalists reached out to them, they’ve said they know nothing about his death. When yet another journalist did it, they’ve answered he is wounded. rferl.link/qBDB

This woman commented the post about Bizyaev’s death: "Three more KIAs are on their way home" (though all this is still unconfirmed).

All links to the saved copies of various VK posts used in this thread can be found here (and even more, this is already the longest thread I ever posted). Google translate to read in your language please! /END rferl.link/9oMG

Today, just 4 days after I posted this thread, 11 soldiers were killed and 15 wounded in Soloti training camp, after 2 conscripts opened live fire at others on the shooting range.