1/ Russia's deployment system is so dysfunctional that many soldiers are reportedly spending weeks "wandering around in search of their units" in border and rear areas, with some being listed as deserters because they have not reported to the units they cannot find. ⬇️
2/ The Russian pro-war Telegram channel Rybar has highlighted the Kafkaesque situation that many mobilised Russian soldiers are facing due to organisational chaos behind the front line:
3/ "Because of the confusion in the border areas and even deep in the rear, there are whole groups of fighters wandering around in search of their units. Some are even forced to travel to their permanent deployment points just to find out where their unit is now.
4/ "The most unpleasant thing is that people who find themselves in such situations are often mistakenly considered deserters.
5/ "It reaches the point of absurdity: a person can travel along the front lines for weeks in order to find his unit, but at the same time he is listed as a fugitive in his own military registration and enlistment office.
6/ Rybar blames the problems on "a general confusion with management and organisation, as well as a lack of communication between the structures." A large part of the problem is that many mobiks have been assigned to newly created formations:
7/ "Due to the confusion in the process of forming the new units, the commander might not even understand to whom exactly he was subordinated, and the soldiers might only know the number of their battalion."
8/ Ukraine's successful offensives last autumn exacerbated the problem, when "the hastily assembled units fell apart". Rybar comments: "After leaving the battle, soldiers did not know whom to report to.
9/ "Some got as far as the Urals, the Volga Region and even the Far East, but even there could not find information: some units were at the front line in full strength, and there was simply no one there to answer questions about their whereabouts."
10/ Disorganisation also hinders the return of soldiers from hospitals after recovering from injuries: "Soldiers are sometimes released from medical facilities without orders, forcing them to look for their units themselves."
11/ "Many Russian mobiks have been assigned to the army corps of the Donetsk and Luhansk 'People's Republics', presumably to reconstitute them after their own mobilised men were decimated in the earlier stages of the war.
12/ Rybar attributes this "most acute issue" to the republics' army corps' "unresolved status" and reports:
13/ "Soldiers facing such problems are forced to pound the doorsteps of state institutions in search of at least some information, but most often they receive the answer “Go to Donetsk / Luhansk and figure it out there.”"
14/ Exacerbating the problem, Rybar says, the Russian General Staff has ordered the millitary hospitals of the republics to prioritise treatment for wounded soldiers from private military companies, which in practice is likely to largely mean Wagner men.
15/ It's not clear what this means for the treatment of wounded Russian soldiers. Russians serving with DNR units have reported that DNR evacuation teams will only evacuate their own men and lightly wounded Russians, leaving the severely wounded on the battlefield.
16/ Rybar reports that the Russian army is creating special reservoir units to "collect" lost soldiers and either send them to frontline units for further service or be discharged to the reserve. This will give them an official status and ensure they are not treated as deserters.
17/ However, Rybar cautions, "for a complete solution to the problem it is necessary to get rid of the organisational mess when newly formed battalions "hang in the air" and it is unclear to whom they report, …
18/ and the discharged wounded are put outside the hospital gates and sent out to fend for themselves." /end
Source:
t.me/rybar/44346
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