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Mar 9 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
1/ Mobilised Russians from at least 16 regions of Russia have posted videos in the last few weeks complaining about poor training, lack of equipment, brutal commanders, mistreatment, and being used as "meat" for suicidal assaults on Ukrainian positions. ⬇️ Image
2/ Anyone who has been following @wartranslated (if you don't, you should) will have seen many of these videos. The independent Russian news outlet Verstka has been analysing them and has identified where the people appearing in them came from.
3/ As the map at the top of this thread shows, they are from places across the European and west Asian regions of Russia. Notably, though, they are fairly peripheral regions; the wealthiest parts of western Russia do not seem to be represented. Verstka summarises:
4/ 🔺 7 March: men of the 1439th Regiment from Krasnoyarsk Kra and Irkutsk and Novosibirsk oblasts complain that they are being "sent to slaughter".
5/ 🔺 Also on 7 March, mobilised men from the Kaliningrad, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions voice similar complaints – threats from commanders, being sent on deadly assaults and supply problems.
6/ 🔺 6 March: mobiks from Belgorod Oblast, who were in territorial defence units, complain about being sent to "storm villages" in Ukraine without preparation.
7/ 🔺 4 March: men from the Krasnodar region post an appeal in which they say they were sent into "senseless assaults" in the Donetsk region without preparation.
8/ 🔺 Also on 4 March, mobiks from the Orenburg region ask Putin to sort out "lawless orders" under which they were being sent into assaults without preparation or adequate equipment.
9/ 🔺 March 3: mobiks from Mordovia and Mari El appeal to Putin, saying they had been assigned to the "Luhansk military" without documentation and were then sent to carry out assaults without training.
10/ 🔺 And in February, mobilised men from Omsk, Tyva, Samara, Tatarstan, Irkutsk Region, Bashkortostan, Mari El, Kaliningrad and Orenburg Regions made appeals.
11/
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13/
14/ Verskta notes that this is the second big wave of mobik appeal videos to have appeared. The first was after mobilisation began in late September – early October 2022, when many mobiks were rushed to the front lines with little or no training after Ukraine's offensive.
15/ From November 2022 through to the end of January 2023, there were few such appeal videos. This likely reflects who was taking the brunt of the fighting: principally Wagner soldiers and contract soldiers, who were mostly not incentivised or able to make appeals.
16/ The launch of Russia's new offensive at the start of February 2023 has prompted a new wave of mobik appeal videos. There are a number of common themes and some interesting new developments, which I'll cover tomorrow in a second thread.

Source:
🔹 t.me/svobodnieslova…
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1633920…
More detailed analysis as mentioned above:

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More from @ChrisO_wiki

ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 10
1/ Many videos have been posted by mobilised Russians in the past month, complaining about the conditions they face in Russia's current offensive. Here's a deeper look at their complaints and a major new factor – the role of the Donetsk and Luhansk 'People's Republics'. ⬇️ Image
2/ For a summary of the videos and the timeframe of their posting, see the thread below. The videos all follow the same general format of an appeal to Russian president Vladimir Putin to resolve problems at the front line in Ukraine.
3/ The 'appeal to the Tsar' is a deep tradition in Russian history, going back centuries. Petitions used to be called 'chelobitnye', literally 'forehead-beating documents', reflecting petitioners' ritual bowing of their foreheads to the ground before the Tsar. Image
Read 33 tweets
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 10
1/ Anna Colin Lebedev (@colinlebedev) has written an important thread in French on the social and political implications of the latest wave of videos from unhappy mobilised Russians. Here's an English translation. (See below for the videos.) ⬇️
2/ "Videos of complaints from mobilised Russians, most often addressed to regional governors and Putin, are proliferating on social media. They are systematically recorded by investigative journalists and volunteers, for example from
@CITeam_en.
3/ The media outlet Verstka notes a sudden rise in the number of such videos. The content is always the same: 5 to 10 (hooded) men identify their military unit and their region of origin, and make complaints, while affirming their patriotism.
verstka.media/%D0%BC%D0%BE%D…
Read 11 tweets
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 9
1/ Mobilised Russians who recorded an appeal to Vladimir Putin are reported to have been "blown to pieces" during failed assaults on Ukrainian positions in the Kreminna region. A new video and information from relatives has revealed their apparent fate.
2/ In the original video, recorded around 3 March, mobilised men from the Russian republics of Mordovia and Mari El said that they left Russia on 17 January 2023 and were attached to the 'Luhansk People's Republic' (LNR) military, likely the 2nd Army Corps.
3/ They complained that they had been reassigned to assault roles, despite having no training in assault tactics and being armed only with automatic rifles. They were sent to the front lines and recorded an appeal to Putin to resolve their situation.
Read 9 tweets
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 9
1/ Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is complaining that the Russian Ministry of Defence is ghosting him – it's not picking up his phone calls and his representatives' passes have been deactivated, to stop him nagging them for ammunition. ⬇️
2/ In response to a question from a Russian news outlet about whether Wagner's ammunition shortages have been resolved, he has posted an audio reply on his official Telegram channel. Translation:
3/ "No, it didn't get any better with ammunition. Basically, nothing has changed at all. But there are indeed changes.
Read 6 tweets
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 9
1/ Russian convicts are being recruited directly by the Russian Ministry of Defence to fight in the war in Ukraine, but are being sent directly into assaults with little training or equipment. After 75 convicts went into one assault, only 11 reportedly survived. ⬇️ Image
2/ In a series of posts and videos, the Russian Telegram channel 'Caution, News' (ON) reports on the experiences of prisoners recruited from penal colony no. 4 (IK-4) in the Stavropol Territory. Russian MOD representatives came to the colony on 9 February to recruit prisoners.
3/ The MOD had previously left prisoner recruitment to the Wagner mercenary group, which is reported to have recruited as many as 50,000 convicts. However, Wagner's huge losses and its quarrels with the MOD leadership have ended its recruitment activities inside jails.
Read 17 tweets
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
Mar 7
1/ The Russian authorities have responded quickly to the complaints of mobilised soldiers in the video below, denying that the men were subject to mobilisation and saying that they are working to "calm" their relatives. ⬇️
2/ Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov and the military prosecutor have met with the relatives of the mobiks. He is also sending a representative to meet the men. Gladkov writes on his official Telegram channel:
3/ "Yesterday, a video message from Belgorod residents who are serving in the DNR appeared on social networks. There was a big wave of questions from wives and mothers.
Read 15 tweets

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