1/ Mobilised Russians from Novosibirsk say they have been sent to the front line without food, winter clothing or enough boots, have to buy their own provisions and have been told that if they want weapons they must take them from the Ukrainians. ⬇️
2/ A few days ago, @wartranslated published the video below showing the men complaining about their conditions. Now the independent Russian media outlet Important Stories (iStories) has interviewed one of them.
3/ The unnamed soldier says that he and his comrades are living "like homeless people", barely surviving in terrible conditions on the front line under constant bombardment. Despite this, they are falsely listed as being stationed in the safer 'green zone' in a rear area.
4/ Like many other mobiks, they received only basic training – how to throw a grenade or fire a rifle – before being deployed. They were "raked in" indiscriminately by military recruiters and were not given mandatory medical examinations to verify their fitness.
5/ The men were given old and completely inadequate clothing. It included "hats on which the helmet does not tighten. With the jacket that was given out, if I put on a bulletproof vest, then I couldn't reach the automatic rifle."
6/ Their regional governor, Andrey Travnikov, stepped in to give them additional equipment. It included "blue rubber boots, like for girls – some kind of half-boots, a sleeping bag, a sleeping mat, a thermos and a set of underwear that two people like me could fit into."
7/ Despite the manner in which they were mobilised, the men went along with it. iStories' interviewee says: "That's all. I'm not used to complaining, if I have to go, let's go. If it's necessary."
8/ Now, he says, they "sleep in pits, dug a hole in the ground, made ourselves wooden ceilings from trees and live in them with mice. Mice steal food from us." He feels that Travnikov deceived them and is lying publicly about the conditions in which they are living.
9/ The men were given summer uniforms to wear and 10 pairs of boots between 30 men. Their clothes quickly wore out and became filthy and gnawed by mice. They have not been able to wash themselves or their clothes for weeks.
10/ One of their snipers had his rifle destroyed by shelling. "He says to the deputy commander: 'I need a rifle' ... They say to him: 'You want a rifle? Go to the zero [Ukrainian] line, take it – get a trophy, you will be a sniper.
11/ 'And if you become a submachine gunner, we won't give you anything.' In short, if you want [a weapon], go earn a trophy."
The men have to buy all their supplies with their own money, including food and plastic tarpaulins to keep the rain off them.
12/ "They brought us food three or four times. They said that our food was lost somewhere. And it was just another regiment that shared it with us. That is to say, the commander of their regiment sort of took it away from their soldiers and gave us a little extra."
13/ At one point, he says, the men were given a can of stew to share between four people – each person got two spoonfuls. "While we were waiting to be distributed among our positions, we bought meat and potatoes in neighboring villages in order to have at least something to eat.
14/ "But when the money ran out, I had to exchange personal civilian things for food."
Many of the mobilised haven't received any pay and don't have money with them, so they are having to rely on those with money to cover their food costs.
15/ "If they want to eat, they chip in with the boys, someone goes on leave [i.e. travels to the rear] and buys everyone something to eat."
16/ Their commanders are almost completely absent from the scene. "I haven't seen the unit commander in person. We have a company commander, a platoon commander. If they come to us, they stand on the corner, throw a can of water out of the car, slam the door.
17/ "You yell: 'Come over here so we can talk.' And he stops half a kilometre away on purpose, so that they do not ask him any questions, because he does not have any answers."
18/ The interviewee says that morale is failing in the miserable conditions and constant shelling, which has killed and wounded many. "Some people here are adequate, some are inadequate. Soon we will be shooting at each other, because we are sick of it all." /end
1/ Recent reports have suggested that the Wagner Group has suffered huge casualties among the convicts it has mobilised from penal colonies across Russia. One small illustration of this, according to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel:
2/ "A source of VChK-OGPU said that out of 270 convicts of one of the Bashkir colonies recruited by the Wagner PMC, 30 people are still alive. "This figure quite accurately reflects the number of losses of convicts – just over 10 per cent survive," the source said."
3/ Meanwhile, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin has published a video showing him congratulating surviving convicts for enduring "blood, earth, shit and sugar" and completing their contracts and getting pardons. In the video, Prigozhin says:
1/ The Russian army is planning to deal more harshly with dissent and indiscipline from mobilised soldiers by establishing military prisons at bases where the mobilised are being trained and accommodated. ⬇️
2/ Russia's Central Military District has instructed training units to establish detention facilities for personnel who are being disciplined. The move is in response to a request from State Duma deputy Maksim Ivanov, an ex-GRU member, who has taken a hard line on discipline.
3/ As the 7x7 Horizontal Russia Telegram channel reports, in December Ivanov wrote to the Central Military District demanding that it lock up "those mobilized military personnel who "sow discord or behave in an impertinent manner".
1/ The identity of the Wagner commander at Soledar has been uncovered: he has been identified as a former soldier named Anton Olegovich Elizarov, who was convicted of fraud in 2014. Meanwhile, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin is reported to now be in a difficult position. ⬇️
2/ The Dossier Centre, an organisation founded by Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky to expose high-level Russian corruption, says it has identified the man who appeared with Prigozhin in a 14 January video (see thread below).
1/ There are increasing signs of an imminent second wave of mobilisation in Russia, according to independent Russian media. The independent outlet Verstka says there are "numerous indications that mobilisation may start at any moment". ⬇️
2/ According to Verstka, "military registration and enlistment offices continue to send out summonses, and in Moscow, a group of specialists who helped the Moscow mayor's office to handle cases of illegal drafts is on 'combat readiness'".
3/ Utility workers are reported to be preparing to deliver mobilisation notices and, according to a source, have been banned from taking holidays in January and February.
1/ Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin has posted a video, apparently filmed in or near Soledar, in which he praises the capabilities and skills of Wagner fighters, implicitly casting them as superior to the regular Russian military. Translation below. ⬇️
2/ "I came here to present medals to the guys who took Soledar. This is the man who commanded the capture of Soledar. He liberated it in two weeks. Soledar was clamped in a pincer, then divided into parts.
3/ "The enemy units were surrounded, those who refused to surrender were destroyed. All the bodies of Ukrainian servicemen will be handed over and sent to their homeland.
1/ Over the past few months, Russia's local governments have been renovating old bomb shelters – even as far away as the border with north-east China – apparently to boost war fever. An entrepreneur has gone a step further by advertising a luxury "bunker hotel" outside Moscow. ⬇️
2/ Cold War-era bomb shelters have been reopened in localities from Belgorod on the Ukrainian border to Blagoveshchensk in the Russian Far East. In Moscow, shops and malls are being adapted to provide shelters with electricity and water for up to 15 million people.
3/ While some of this may be sensible – Ukraine has repeatedly attacked Belgorod and Moscow may theoretically be in range of new Ukrainian long-range missiles – it's likely that the Russian authorities want to instill in their population fear and a sense of being under attack.