1/ A group of relatives of mobilised men from Fokino in Bryansk oblast have published a video appealing to Vladimir Putin to bring their men back from Ukraine. They say the men have been sent to war with no training and have been robbed of their uniforms by NCOs. 🧵 follows.
2/ The relatives say that "our guys are being thrown onto the front line unprepared ... without military training". The men were robbed by their NCOs, who "take everything away from them, [even] their uniforms, everything".
3/ They say that the men signed up to defend Bryansk, not go to the front. They complain there was no medical commission (=examination) prior to deployment and no proper training. The mothers have been getting calls for help from their sons.
4/ One wounded man has already returned to Bryansk after only 3 weeks of mobilisation. Bryansk's deputy governor has brushed off appeals for help, telling the relatives that she's only interested in electricity and gas. The relatives call it a betrayal.
5/ Officers at Belgorod's Soloti training base have threatened the mobiks with criminal charges for refusing to deploy to Ukraine. The mobiks say that they are merely "cannon fodder for them". The mothers ask Putin to "return our children to us." /end
1/ Recent news that ferries across the Kerch Strait couldn't run because of high winds highlights a major problem for Russia: the disabling of the Kerch Bridge to Crimea has happened at a very bad meteorological moment. 🧵 follows.
2/ Prior to the construction of the Kerch Bridge, ferries used to run across the narrowest point of the strait, where it's less than 5km wide, between Port Krym (west) and Port Kavkaz (east). This is about 12km northeast of the bridge. Ferries also ran to Novorossiysk.
3/ From 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea to 2018, the peninsula's landward side was effectively blockaded by Ukraine, which closed the crossings linking it to the Ukrainian mainland. This left it almost entirely dependent on the ferries, which were overwhelmed by demand.
1/ The Russian Baza Telegram channel has identified two of the alleged shooters from Saturday's mass shooting at Soloti, along with a list of 11 people said to have been killed. The details are, however, inconsistent with what's been reported independently. Translation ⬇️
2/ The nationals of Tajikistan who opened fire at a shooting range in the Belgorod region have been identified. They were 23-year-old Rakhmonov Mehrob and 24-year-old Eskhon Aminzod (pictured). They enlisted as volunteers and arrived at the firing range on 11 October.
3/ Four days later, on the morning of 15 October, they opened fire with submachine guns on other participants in the firing range. Retaliatory fire destroyed the attackers.
1/ A 57-year-old baker with no military experience has been recruited by the Russian military to work as an army doctor, according to the "Watch out for the news" (ON) Telegram channel. Translation follows. ⬇️
2/ ON reports: "A 57-year-old father of three children, who works as a baker, is being mobilised as a doctor in the Sverdlovsk Region.
Sergey Karelin, a resident of Verkhnyaya Sinyachih, was served a summons on 13 September.
3/ According to his niece, the military enlistment office was interested in the education of a hygienist-epidemiologist. The man was told that all doctors have the right to mobilize before the age of 60.
1/ The independent Russian media outlet ASTRA has published an interview with a claimed eyewitness of the mass shooting yesterday at a Russian army training facility. He says that the shooting arose from a dispute between Muslim and Christian soldiers. Translation below. ⬇️
2/ "ASTRA journalists were able to speak to a serviceman who claims to have been wounded during a shooting at the Soloti training range in the Belgorod region and saw the incident with his own eyes. The soldier is currently in hospital in the town of Valuyki.
3/ ASTRA is not publishing the soldier's name, for the sake of his safety.
IMPORTANT: At the time of publication, we were unable to independently confirm the identity of either the narrator himself or the identities of others who appear in the story.
R: So, the boys called your damn committee. They said, we're not in Ukraine, can you believe this? We're 'on exercises'.
W: Damn, yes, we know. But we wrote to all departments, no one cares!
@wartranslated 2/ R: They didn't send you the corpses either, and unlikely to send in the nearest future.
W: Didn't send what?
R: The dead. And there's loads of them, both from Lebedyansky [district] and from Lipetsk [oblast].
W: Damn. Igoryok phoned, he said you have nothing to eat.
@wartranslated 3/ R: There isn't, I agree, there's no food at all. Those who have no money eat the fucking sprouted grain from fields. And they brought us convicts from prisons...
W: And?
R: They were taken somewhere far in front. And we're sat here like barrier troops.
1/ Why did two Tajiks apparently shoot at least 27 newly mobilised Russian troops at the Soloti training centre in Belgorod region, causing at least 11 deaths? Much is still unclear about the incident, but I'll make some testable predictions.
2/ I predict that in the next few days we'll learn:
🔺 The Tajiks were recruited within the last 2 weeks (possibly sooner)
🔺 They were mobilised from a big city like Moscow or St Petersburg
🔺 They were previously in low-income manual jobs
🔺 They were detained from a hostel
3/ Here's why I think this may be the case.
The Russian authorities have been increasingly indiscriminate in recruiting men in the big cities, including Moscow and St Petersburg. I posted only a few days ago that hostels were being raided.