1/ A Russian court has declared 17 missing sailors from the sunken cruiser Moskva to be dead, according to the Agency News Telegram channel. Translation follows. ⬇️
2/ A court in Sevastopol has declared 17 people from the military unit where seamen from the Moskva cruiser were serving deceased. Information about this was published in the court's files.
3/ Details. The cases for which the decisions have been published are about declaring citizens "missing or declared dead". The applicants in these cases are the commander of the military unit 42948 – part of the cruiser Moskva, as well as parents of the deceased servicemen.
4/ Sixteen cases were heard in June and August, one more in September. A ruling in 12 cases has already come into legal force.
5/ ▪️ The plaintiffs include the namesakes of the dead sailors reported in the media, including Yegor Shkrebts, Vitaly Begersky, Danila Gerka, Ivan Frantin and Leonid Savin.
6/ ▪️ Dmitry Shkrebets, Yegor Shkrebets' father, confirmed to Agency News that his son had been declared dead. "Closed courts have been held for parents' applications to declare their missing sons dead."
7/ "All other missing sailors whose parents did not write such a statement are automatically declared dead after six months," he wrote. The father of the dead sailor said that the interests of the families were represented by the military prosecutor's office and the unit command.
8/ Context. The cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, sank on 14 April. According to the Ministry of Defence, there was a fire on the cruiser, which led to the detonation of the ammunition.
9/ Kiev reported that the cruiser had been attacked by two Neptun anti-ship missiles. The same was said by the Pentagon.
▪️ The Russian Defence Ministry has said that one sailor died on the Moskva cruiser and 27 others are missing. /end
1/ Mobilised Russian soldiers have been imprisoned, starved, beaten, stripped naked and threatened with being shot and thrown into a mass grave if they do not return to the front line, according to independent media outlet ASTRA. Thread below ⬇️
2/ ASTRA previously reported that the men, who had fled the front line after a heavy defeat near Lyman, were imprisoned in a basement after they refused to return to the front. The men were subsequently transferred to a partly destroyed prison.
3/ The men were being held at Perevalsk, Luhansk region, but have now been taken to a new and so far unknown detention facility. They are reported to have been severely mistreated by their commanders.
1/ Authorities in Sterlitamak, Bashkortostan faked a well-publicised video in which mobilised Russian soldiers thanked the mayor of the city for providing them with equipment and supplies, according to a local Telegram channel. Translation ⬇️
2/ Komsomolskaya Pravda's Ufa bureau reported on 2 November that "those mobilized to participate in the Special Military Operation thanked the inhabitants of Sterlitamak and the mayor of the city."
3/ "It is reported that the men are members of a reconnaissance group, which is now undergoing combat training. The day before, Rustem Gazizov, head of the Sterlitamak administration, visited the men and brought them all the necessary things and messages from caring residents."
1/ Drunken mobilised Russians in Vasylivka, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, have been arrested for slaughtering cows, stealing a car and opening fire on their own side, according to the Baza Telegram channel. Translation ⬇️
2/ On 30 October, four mobilized people staged a debauchery in the Zaporizhzhia city of Vasylivka. First, for some reason, they slaughtered 13 cows on a farm where the Russian military was stationed, and then kicked its own owner out of the house.
3/ The situation got even worse: the mobilized men attacked and beat up the servicemen who were on duty near the farm. After that they stole a car from local workers.
1/ Authorities in Russia's Rostov oblast have responded to a video complaint from mobilised men by prosecuting a journalist and suppressing the video. The men have reportedly been given rusty equipment, no training, no food supplies, no leadership and no orders. Thread ⬇️
2/ According to Bataylian Time (BT), a newspaper in the Rostov oblast city of Bataysk, 12 mobilised men from the city published a video on social media on 14 October. In a now-deleted report, BT describes the video.
3/ The spokesman for the mobiks is a man called Nikolay M. According to BT:
"Nikolay received a summons on 23 September late in the evening, and in the morning, with the words “I won’t leave my boys,” he went with his things to the draft board.
1/ Is the new "PMC Wagner Center" in St Petersburg more a case of Potemkin than Prigozhin, with questionable financial schemes lurking in the background? The independent SOTA news website has found some curious facts about the new building. Thread ⬇️
2/ SOTA notes that the building was listed as being under construction for 9 years, from 9 July 2013 to 15 August 2022. It's not clear why it took so long to build.
3/ Google Street View images show that the building's shell was under construction in 2014 and was completed by June 2015, but it was not until July 2021 that work was visible to finish and fit out the building. It was reportedly completed in July 2022.
1/ Relatives of prisoners in a Siberian penal colony have gathered at its entrance to try to prevent their loved ones being mobilised, after contact with several colonies was cut off following the arrival of Wagner PMC recruiters. Translation follows ⬇️
2/ Taiga.info reports that the IK-14 penal colony at Toguchin near Novosibirsk is one of several that have been cut off from telephone communications, supposedly due to COVID outbreaks but more likely after Wagner Group representatives arrived to recruit prisoners.
3/ "About 20 relatives of inmates of Toguchin penal colony No. 14 gathered outside the penal colony on the morning of 3 November.