Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ More unhappy mobilised Russian soldiers deployed to Ukraine have spoken out about a chaotic mobilisation that has left them on a front line in eastern Ukraine with no training, no usable weapons, no food, no water, no orders and commanders they feel are lying to them. ⬇️

2/ This is a long video, nearly 27 minutes, so I won't upload it here – it can be viewed with automatic subtitles on YouTube (link below). But I'll post a summary and some extracts below.

3/ The mobiks say they are men of the 15th Motorised Rifle Regiment of the Taman Division (2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division), which is based in the Moscow region. They were mobilised on 28 September. By 8 October, when the video was made, they were near Lyman in eastern Ukraine.

4/ After being mobilised they were taken to a location in the Belgorod region (probably the Soloti training range) where "we were placed in a tent, where there was no training, absolutely no allocation, nothing."

5/ "The officers were just holding their hands up and saying that we were not expecting you at all."

6/ They were given weapons and ammunition indiscriminately in a chaotic place "where shells were lying around ... ammunition in general was unloaded right on the first day on a KAMAZ. And KAMAZ trucks were just crushing them in the mud."

7/ One soldier complains that the weapons were "lying [in storage boxes] in absolutely unserviceable conditions... it was all covered in mud... Meter thick layers of dirt, rains, I don't know, just complete, as if, probably, anti-storage."

8/ "In other words there were just boxes in which were lying damp, wet assault rifles [that were so rusty they looked as if they] have already burned and continue to rust. There is absolutely no seriousness and no organization." Another says: "You cannot even go into battle".

9/ There was also no training. They were "fed breakfasts" (told to come back tomorrow) on each day they they were supposed to be training. One soldier says they were "were constantly being fed the lie that we were going to have some kind of training"

10/ The men themselves were not in good shape, as they had received no physical training before deployment. Some of their group were in a poor physical condition that made them unable to deal with the physical demands of being in the field.

11/ "We have healthy guys, but there are also those who, if you will excuse me, will not be able to pull 15 kilos of equipment, excluding an assault rifle, ammunition and shells. A personal backpack with all its equipment weighs approximately 20, 25 kilograms."

12/ "I don't think everybody can run with it. Especially considering the fact that we didn't even have any physical training, we haven't even run with it once."

13/ As a result of the lack of training, one soldier says, "All sorts of specialists have not been properly trained, some have not even seen a combat vehicle, they do not even know how it functions and how it is started."

14/ Their only weapons practice session seems to have been put on for show when Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu was visiting for a day. "We had firing on the day when Shoigu came to the Naro-Fominsk firing range, we had it exactly on that day."

15/ Their existing military specialisations were ignored – this seems to have occurred for many of the mobilised. They were moved around between bases in western Russia, apparently randomly, before ending up at a mobilisation site for tank crews, despite being riflemen.

16/ At the tank base, "the commanders were selecting people. That is, if you are good at driving vehicles, either you are good at shooting in vehicles, or you are a scout, or you are a sniper ... Simply, "you are a mechanic, get out, go here and there, you are a tank man now"."

17/ They were moved on after their commanders worked out they'd been sent the wrong group of mobilised men: "They got us up at night and told us that "we had taken you to the wrong place by accident. So pack up all your stuff and go somewhere else"."

18/ A further problem was that the money promised by the government didn't turn up. The soldiers say that they were promised a salary of 250,000-300,000 rubles a month ($4,000-$4,800), but "it all turned out to be a fake."

19/ Instead of paying salaries in cash, which has been the usual Russian military practice until now, the men are being paid via electronic cards – but "we still have not even seen our cards". The cards are useless, anyway, as "here in the fields you don't run to ATMs, to banks".

20/ The lack of cash is a critical problem as the men are having to buy their own food from a local shop. "We have not been fed for two days," says one speaker. Another says, "There was no water, there was none."

21/ Meanwhile they are in debt from having to buy their own uniforms and equipment in Moscow at hugely inflated prices. They complain that "everyone continues to cheat us" and appeal to the "esteemed prosecutor's office" to "pay attention and do the math".

22/ The Moscow city government under Mayor Sergey Sobyanin was supposed to have provided the men with body armour and helmets. But, they say, "we have not seen our equipment," which suggests that they have been sent to the battlefield without any personal protective gear.

23/ The men say the senior officers provide no information and are lying to them about what's going on. "You go up to an officer to ask for specifics about where, what and how. No one says anything ..."

24/ "We have a huge suspicion of the higher reaches of government, commanders and so on" because "they say one lie, but in fact another thing happens."

Despite all of this, the men say they do not want to discredit the Russian army and completely support the war effort.

25/ "No one refuses to go, refuses to defend their homeland." However, they say, they want to call attention to their lack of preparedness and maltreatment. Since arriving at their present location, they say, "we have been fucked for two and a half days."

26/ The last 10 minutes of the video appears to be a secretly recorded conversation with the mens' superiors, likely their colonel and major, who alternately placate and berate the disgruntled soldiers. Some of the complainants appear to be junior officers.

27/ "You behaved very stupidly," one man (likely the colonel) says, and warns that the men are now in trouble for complaining. "You were behaving childishly in some kind of rebellion today." He compares the men to the mutinous groups formed in the Tsarist army during World War 1.

28/ "Guys, in 1914, the Soldiers' Soviets were set up, just like you said, and they overthrew the Tsar. I'm telling you frankly, you're not going to overthrow that tsar [Putin]".

29/ "I can't influence anyone's fate at all, because I'm just like you," the man says (in other words, he's in the same situation). The soldiers have to accept that "the combat situation sometimes just forces all sorts of even clever generals [to do this]."

30/ "I'm not talking about dumbasses throwing, as you say, meat, but this is the army, this is war."

31/ One junior officer, a platoon leader, points out that the men who assigned to operate the gun on his BMP-2s aren't trained and don't know how to avoid the seven ways in which their weapoon could fail. The disgruntled officers are reprimanded for demoralising their men.

32/ - I hate the fact that mobilised officers ended up as alarmists.
- I'm not an alarmist, I'm worried about [my men]. You see how worried I am about everyone here, and I'm worried about my zone.
- And you're panicking? That's the kind of mood you're putting them in, you know?

33/ - I have my problems, which I will talk about, I know about them.
- And there is no need to panic. Collective opinion is that you are responsible for your own.
- I am responsible for myself ...
- And now you are panicking. Fuck, grown men don't panic!

34/ Another man – likely a lieutenant – explains that he brings "all these problematic issues to the higher team, because this is my job." He says that he's spent three days in a tent with 29 people who had nowhere else to stay and he had nothing to feed them.

35/ He had also been left with only untrained people in his unit because all his specialists had been taken away from him, leaving him with only the "slag" (rejects).

"Thank you," someone (the colonel?) replies sarcastically, "this is my division, fuck!" /end

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1584164…

Addendum: according to a report by the Russian news outlet Ostorozhno Media, the men were hit by a Ukrainian attack on 12 October near Svatove which killed many of them. The wife of one says:

"They were told that tanks would now go on the offensive. If the tanks start going back, it means the battle is unsuccessful. After that, the butchery begins. The officers run from their positions, the tanks leave. Everyone starts running."

They retreated under artillery fire for 15 kilometres, all the while being hit by artillery. About 13 men made it to a Russian position. The survivors asked to contact their commanders, but were threatened: "Either you go back to the front line or you go to prison."

They have reportedly refused to return and are facing prosecution for the loss of their weapons. Senior officers have been trying to remotivate them through a mixture of threats, promises and insults.

A wife said: "[The officers] said they were brats and cowards. Commanders shirked responsibility for what happened. "Yes, there were mistakes there. We'll fix them. We'll train you now, throw you back in, just don't make a fuss."

"Such a system of swinging between "good cop and bad cop". First: "Men, we'll train you." When they are told that there is no longer any trust in them: "You are beasts, cowards"."
ostorozhno.media/mobilization/

The man seen addressing the camera in the video is said to be among the dead. An apparent friend or relative has posted a eulogy on YouTube: "No words are enough to express words of consolation to relatives, mother and wife! Children left without a father!" /end