1/ Mobilised Russians on the front line in Ukraine report that they are being sent no food and undrinkable water, have no medical supplies, their commanders are absent, and they are having to make 30 km journeys, likely on foot, to resupply themselves using their own money. ⬇️
2/ I've previously highlighted the problems that the Russians are having in providing food and water to their men on the front line. Two reports from the Novosibersk-based regional newspaper NRG Novosti show what this means in practice.
3/ Men who were mobilised from Novosibersk in late September were sent to a training base for a month before being taken by rail to Rostov a month later. They appear to have received only minimal training, being "allowed to shoot a couple of times" according to the wife of one.
4/ One man says that his month of 'training' consisted only of three practice sessions in which his group "fired 60 rounds of ammunition, practiced throwing grenades, participated in formations."
5/ They were also poorly equipped. "They gave us uniforms without caring whether they fit or not. You said one size and the reply was: "It'll fit, you'll grow into it." And they gave me a peacoat that was knee-high. My boots are for summer and they're already wet in 10 minutes."
6/ Some time likely in late October or early November, they were sent to positions near the front line. This came as a shock, as they had been told they would be serving on checkpoints in the rear or in the 'liberated territories' of Ukraine.
7/ The wives say that "no special training has been given to the fighters, and their only combat mission was very simple: dig trenches and wait." Their "only job was to sit under shelling in waterlogged trenches for twenty-four hours."
8/ "They threw us into the field, threw shovels at us and said: dig, otherwise [they will beat you]," says a soldier. "And we were digging trenches under [the fire of] mortars and under tanks… The tank fired at us!"
9/ According to one wife, "They have no idea what they are doing and why they are there. [My husband] Andrei is a former contract serviceman. He says: if you compare it all [with his past army experience], it's total crap.
10/ On the 19th [of November] he called me and said: "It's raining there. All the trenches we dug are washed away, so we sleep on the wet ground. All the stuff, all the sleeping bags - everything is wet." No tents, no dry clothes... there is nowhere even to dry them!"
11/ The men cannot even light fires to warm themselves because of the danger of attracting Ukrainian drones and artillery strikes. They say that there is no sign of their commanders, whom they have not seen since they took up their positions.
12/ As a result, says one soldier, "We are freezing, we are sick. We were sleeping on the ground and on the concrete, under the open sky... Our feet get cold, our teeth start to ache, our backs start to ache."
13/ The soldiers also lack any medicines or first-aid kits. One soldier says: "They didn’t even give me anything medical. They [only] gave me an automatic rifle. Well, they should give first-aid kits, some kind of painkillers, right? No!
14/ They just brought us and kicked us out in the field ... [to hell with it], that's all. It's just crazy."
The men brought their own medicines from home but have used them up, and instead "have no choice but to rely on their own immunity."
15/ This has inevitably led to casualties: "Someone there has already caught pneumonia", according to the wife of a soldier. "Before the guy started choking, they took him away."
16/ The men have each received 100,000 rubles ($1,542) from the governor of their region to spend on equipment, but are having to spend it on buying food instead, just to keep themselves alive. Getting their food is a difficult, gruelling and dangerous task.
17/ One soldier says: "If [we eat] once a day, that's good. Nothing [of food] comes to us, it's all sold out at some local markets. If something does come, it is still impossible to eat it. You can't drink water [brought to the soldiers] either, it's rusty."
18/ (Note that as I've pointed out in the thread below, soldiers in winter conditions need at least 4,500-6,000 calories and up to 5 litres of water per day. These soldiers almost certainly aren't getting anywhere close to that.)
19/ The men say that they have to go to the nearest village, 15 km away, to buy food. (This distance suggests that they are serving in the sparsely populated region around Svatove in eastern Ukraine.) They most likely have to make the journey on foot.
20/ They don't have long to do it, as it gets dark by 17:00. In the short days of winter, the mobiks say that they "spend most of their time sitting in damp trenches in pitch darkness." "They sit like rats in the trenches and wait to see if [a shell] comes or not", says a wife.
21/ The men also say they lack ammunition for their weapons. They appear to be manning reserve trenches in case of a Ukrainian breakthrough, but they lack the ammunition to do much. "How are they supposed to fight, in fact, if someone breaks through? [With only] Ten rounds?"
22/ The men are under the command of mobilised officers, rather than regular military, but "there's no command here, we're on our own." To judge from accounts from elsewhere, the officers are likely living in relative comfort in a dugout or bunker somewhere in the rear.
23/ Some of the wives are writing complaints to military prosecutors, but they complain that other wives are too passive and won't help. "I wrote to the wives of my husband’s colleagues to complain together, but they are afraid that they will be worse off."
24/ Adding to their problems, the men say they are being paid only a fraction of their promised salaries, if they are being paid at all. "I have 4 children, 4 girls at home, and I received 9 thousand [rubles, $138]," says Yevgeny, one of the men. "This is my entire salary.
25/ My wife went to get electricity, paid for the garden, and the money ran out. […] Everywhere it's just… [cynical deception]."
26/ Even when the men – both contract soldiers and mobiks – have specialised qualifications, they are being used as basic infantry instead. One of them served in the navy, another was a driver and qualified mechanic, another was a cook.
27/ Not surprisingly, some of the mobilised men are now refusing to fight. They have been disarmed and stripped of their equipment and are now living in a "tattered tent" at an unspecified "zero point", presumably where their local military HQ is located.
28/ The refuseniks are coming under intense pressure to return to the front line. "There is moral pressure every day. The officers argue with us and ask, "What should we do with you?""
29/ The men are threatened with the withholding of salaries being sent to wives and children. "We said straight away: "If you want it, take it, we don't want anything". Two months of this bullshit.
30/ They say they are taking us to the third line, to the second, but they are again throwing us forward. Now they are again trying to scatter [our group] so that we don't have cohesion.
31/ Every morning the officers come and say: "Are you ready to go back to the trenches? Go and defend your motherland". They do not succeed – they forget about us, and the next day everything starts all over again. That's what these pure officers say ...
32/ Every day they poke us with this money, with salaries. I myself am very much depressed by all this. And I am terrified of what is to come." /end
Sources:
🔹ngs.ru/text/world/202…
🔹ngs.ru/text/world/202…
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