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Nov 11 18 tweets 4 min read
1/ Following up on yesterday's thread about the Russian army detaining dozens of its own mobilised soldiers in basement prisons for refusing to fight (see below), relatives of the detained have reportedly been trying to rescue them by themselves.
2/ The independent ASTRA news outlet reports that relatives of the imprisoned mobiks travelled to Zaitseve, just across the border from Russia's Belgorod oblast, to try to find and return their men from the basement where they are being detained.
3/ However, according to one relative, "There is a roadblock with armed men and they were not allowed in. They said they would only enter the village with military IDs." The exact location of the basement-prison in the village is not known.
4/ ASTRA reports that at least 70 mobilised Russian soldiers are being held captive by the Russian army in occupied areas of Ukraine, at least 42 of them in Zaitseve, although in 10 cases relatives are too afraid to give the prisoners' names to the media.
5/ Relatives say that most of the men are not assigned to any military unit. A text message sent by one of the detainees says they are not even legally employed by the Russian army as they have not signed any service contract – and consequently are not being paid.
6/ "We have a new problem here, we have not signed any contract and we are not assigned to any unit, in fact we are like volunteers. And we haven't received any money yet. This is the FUCKING problem. In fact, we are nobody here..."
7/ According to another independent Russian outlet, Verstka, relatives of the mobilised from Voronezh, Kursk and Belgorod oblasts have been stepping up pressure on the authorities to bring their men back.
8/ They made a video outside the prosecutor's office in Voronezh describing how the men were sent to the front line without training, provisions or equipment and calling for those responsible to be punished.
9/ The relatives have met with representatives of regional security committees and military prosecutors' offices, who in some cases appear to be sympathetic and helpful towards them.
10/ In Voronezh oblast, local authorities are reported to be helping the mobilised to contact their relatives and now "report about the fate of the mobilised to their relatives."
11/ Verstka reports that on 9 November the head of the Kursk regional security committee told relatives that their "common task now is to get the guys out and save them".
12/ A representative of the local military prosecutor's office also said that about 50 mobilised men from the region would be returned to Russia from their detention in Starobilsk in Luhansk oblast. However, the Russian army in the field clearly doesn't want this.
13/ Verstka says that the mobilised men from Kursk are being prepared to be sent to the front line in the near future. "The first company has been taken to the front line at night – there is no sign of them on the horizon", according to one of the men.
14/ The mobiks have also been punished for using phones to contact their relatives directly. "It turns out [when we need to], we are asked to wait for the authorities to find our husbands and return them to the second or third line at least," says one wife.
15/ The army evidently does not want direct contact between the mobiks and their families. The wife says that the men's phones are "quickly found," leading to them being reprimanded for passing information to loved ones.
16/ A source tells Verstka that the army has no intention of bringing mobiks back home or sending them to safer rear areas in Ukraine. "No one will take them out, they will continue to serve. Where they are now, we cannot disclose, this is a purely military issue". /end
Sorry, wrong video at post 8 - the correct one is below.

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More from @ChrisO_wiki

Nov 12
1/ Only four out of 91 mobilised Russians lasted a week under HIMARS and shell fire on the front line in eastern Ukraine. They were told by their colonel that their "equipment is worth its weight in gold, and we will recruit new ones instead of you". ⬇️ Image
2/ The independent Russian news outlet Astra reports that the men were sent to recapture the village of Nevs'ke, about 30 km south-west of Svatove. This happened on 25 October, two days after the Ukrainians took it with heavy reported Russian casualties.
3/ Astra reports:

"The mobilized men of the 35th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade from Aleysk, Altai Krai, who were drafted in late September, have been sent to the front line after two weeks of "useless" training.
Read 17 tweets
Nov 11
1/ Russia's retreat from Kherson marks another major milestone besides the Ukrainian recapture of the city: Ukraine has now retaken half of all the territory originally captured by Russia. The independent Russian Agency News outlet has been doing the sums.
2/ After the retreat of the Russian army from the right bank of the Dnipro, including from Kherson, the territory occupied by Russia since the beginning of the war will shrink by almost 4,900 square kilometers, the Agency's calculations show.
3/ Details. All in all, since the beginning of autumn, taking into account retreats from Kharkiv Region and Liman, Russia has lost 17,900 sq km of captured territory.
Read 8 tweets
Nov 11
1/ Wives and mothers of mobilised Russian soldiers have mounted a raid into the war zone to find and rescue their men from the Russian army. They found them sitting in fields without food. The army found the men at the same time and took them to be detained in a basement. ⬇️ Image
2/ As reported earlier (see below), relatives of the mobilised have been trying to get the Russian authorities to bring their men home. The men are poorly or not at all trained and lack weapons, ammunition and provisions. Many have become casualties.
3/ A group of wives and mothers from Kursk appealed to the city authorities earlier this week to help their men, complaining that their commander was throwing them into the front line "like meat". The authorities were not helpful.
Read 21 tweets
Nov 11
1/ One of the biggest mysteries of this war, at least to me, is why the Russians don't seem to have undertaken any kind of hearts and minds efforts. They undermined their own occupation with relentless looting and brutality.
2/ What makes this even crazier is that the people treated this way are - officially at least - supposed to be Russian citizens! It also completely contradicts the rhetoric of liberation rather than hostile occupation. These weren't Afghans, they were 'fellow Russians'.
3/ I think the root cause of this is likely to be that the Russians originally intended to invade, execute a quick regime change, grab the whole of the Donbas and leave, without the extra difficulty and cost of a large-scale occupation. (Parallels with Iraq?)
Read 5 tweets
Nov 10
1/ Relatives of mobilised men from Vologda have issued an appeal in a video and on VK for their men to be returned from a "bloody meat grinder" in Ukraine where they were bombed and shelled by both the Ukrainians and their own side. Thread ⬇️
2/ The relatives' statement on VK says:

"We relatives of those mobilised in Vologda are appealing to the Vologda Oblast Governor and higher authorities for help for our mobilised citizens who were drafted on or before 1 October ...
3/ and sent for military training in Mulino, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, where they were assigned to military unit 38838 [the 9th Motorised Rifle Regiment] in Gusev, Kaliningrad Oblast.
Read 9 tweets
Nov 10
1/ The shiny new "PMC Wagner Center" in St Petersburg (see thread below) has run into trouble with the local authorities. Wagner's owner Yevgeny Prigozhin isn't happy, but unfortunately for him Russian bureaucracy can't be overcome with convicts.
2/ The St Petersburg city authorities have refused to give permission for the commissioning of the PMC Wagner Center due to "discrepancies" in its paperwork. Prigozhin is taking them to court:
3/ "An unreasonable and illegal reason is given in the refusal. The State Construction Supervision Service refers to the discrepancy between the area of ​​the constructed facility and the terms of the land lease agreement.
Read 7 tweets

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