1/ Mobilised Russians from the 1452nd Regiment say they have been "sent for slaughter" against "Germans, Poles and Negroes", suffered heavy casualties in a Ukrainian encirclement, and that men who have lost arms or legs are being sent back to the front line to fight. ⬇️
2/ The men's wives posted an appeal on their behalf in late June, in which they spoke of the heavy losses being sustained fighting against Ukrainian tanks and artillery while armed only with rifles and grenades.
3/ One of the men, Mikhail from the Irkutsk region, has spoken to the 'People of Baikal' website about his experiences. The whole interview is worth reading in translation:
4/ "I have a wife, two children, and I went to serve voluntarily. I thought it was better to prevent it there than for them to come to your house later. After all, we haven't been at war with the Khokols [Ukrainians] for a long time, but with the Americans, with all of Europe.
5/ "My relatives were against it, but I didn't listen to anyone.
On 28 September, I was conscripted and sent to the 1452nd regiment in Novosibirsk for training. A whole trainload was brought in - 800-900 men. There was nothing there, just ruined barracks.
6/ "The first two days we slept in some cabins on a cold tiled floor. We had no normal clothes; in a single day all the buttons on our jacket tore off. We wore uniforms we bought ourselves.
7/ "I was alarmed by the fact that there was no stamp in our military cards – only an inscription in pencil with the number of regiment, battalion and company. The officers said that all the data was stored in a computer.
8/ "So, if something happened, we pressed the delete button and that was it, we were gone.
A month later we arrived in the town of Millerovo in the Rostov region, where we camped in the fields. I think there were at least three thousand of us. No provisions.
9/ "It was good that we managed to buy cooking pots, shovels, generators, quadrocopters in Novosibirsk.
For one tent, where about 45 people lived, we were given only 15 litres of hot food a day, plus some gingerbread and biscuits.
10/ "We travelled to the nearest villages, bought meat from people ourselves and then cooked normal food. The locals treated us differently, but still better than some officers who could only yell and line us up in the fields.
11/ "I asked one: "Why did you line up the whole regiment in a bare field? What if [an attack] comes at us now?" He replied, "When it comes, then we'll think about it."
12/ "Five days later we were taken away from Millerovo to go to the war zone. They said that we would stand in Svatove in the "green" area [the territory that was previously captured by Russia and had to be garrisoned].
13/ "But we were thrown to the village of Chervonopopivka [near Kreminna], where Khokols and mercenaries – Germans, Poles and Negroes – were waiting 200 metres away.
14/ "We had no sooner unloaded than mortar and tank shelling started. The guys began to scramble away. We spent the night under some wagons. When dawn broke, we went to occupy abandoned houses.
15/ "Since these used to be their [Ukrainian] positions, they knew all the points, and they were clearly shooting at us. There were drones flying everywhere: you run around and you don't know when you will get hit.
16/ "There was complete confusion, and they were shooting at us, and our own side were shooting at us by mistake.
17/ On New Year's Eve, we were hit hard. In January, I was wounded. Four of us were at the position, and then the shelling started – mortars and a tank were working. We climbed into the basement, I was closer to the exit when a shell came.
18/ "I was unconscious for about five minutes, when I woke up I had a terrible headache, as if I was electrocuted, sparks in front of my eyes like from welding. I received shrapnel wounds to my head, both arms and legs, two broken ribs, contusion of eardrums.
19/ "The guys applied tourniquets, I refused promedol [trimeperidine] as I was moving quite well myself due to the adrenaline rush. We were all injured, but, thank God, we survived.
20/ "On TV we are told about successes in the war. They exist, but at what cost? From the very first days there were heavy losses among the rank and file and officers. Now [with the beginning of the AFU counter-offensive] this has taken on global proportions.
21/ "Guys who are fighting there told me that on 20 June the Khokols enclosed a whole battalion in a ring and opened fire. During the battle, the commander asked for artillery support, but there was none, and the boys were stupidly abandoned.
22/ "Now there's not even a company of them left.
The fact that mobilised men go with machine guns against tanks is half true. You can go without a rifle at all – when ammunition runs out and they don't bring new supplies, you run with it like with a stick.
23/ "I know that after that battle the bodies of the guys have not been taken away yet – it is impossible to get to them because of the constant firefights. There's bodies that weren't picked up even earlier.
24/ "Nobody wants the truth. About the numerous losses due to the fact that the mobilised were sent to slaughter, and experienced contract soldiers guard warehouses and shops. Although we are promised the opposite.
25/ "About the fact that weapons and uniforms, which are handed over to us by volunteers, are deposited in the Luhansk region. Some individuals and officers take it for themselves and try to sell it to us at an inflated price.
26/ "About the fact that there are orders to "zero out" [kill] our own men. We are talking about those who have gone mad or just got drunk and started shooting indiscriminately, giving away their location.
27/ "Then the order comes over the radio – if a person does not calm down in 15 minutes, he must be shot. And it doesn't matter whether it's your friend or your brother.
28/ "Now I'm in a Russian hospital, and I've changed hospitals 13 times before. Ahead of the medical commission, I hope that I will be recognised as unfit for military service. But in order to get category "D" you have to be a corpse or lying down.
29/ "In our time, guys without an arm or a leg were given categories "A", "B" [fit for duty] and sent to the front line.
There are multiple pieces of shrapnel left in me. Apart from the pain, my head is a mess.
30/ "I go to bed or drive, and I see this shell flying at me. I took a picture of it somehow in my memory. I'm a man, but it brings tears to my eyes. Especially since there could be a road back [to the war] ahead. God saved me once, but there may not be a second time."
1/ Members of a Russian penal unit who say they've lost 73% of their unit fighting in Ukraine and lack food, water and ammo have now been disarmed completely and dumped in an abandoned building. Their relatives say they are defenceless and "waiting to be slaughtered." ⬇️
2/ The men, who are serving in a 'Storm Z' penal unit, recorded a video on 28 June 2023 saying that they were refusing to follow "terrible orders" after losing 110 out of 150 men on the front line. They had no ammunition, food or water.
3/ It appears the men have now been relocated to a rear location in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, in the village of Rozivka. They say in a new video dated 29 June that after their refusal, they were taken to a "broken two-storey building" and dumped there without weapons.
1/ A framed document apparently photographed in Yevgeny Prigozhin's house sets out what appears to be the Wagner Group's founding 'constitution'. It's signed by Prigozhin (who's referred to as the 'Director') and Dmitry Utkin, Wagner's founder (the 'Commander'). ⬇️
2/ The document, signed on 1 May 2014, commits the two to following an agreed set of rules "due to the difficult situation in Ukraine and the need to protect Donbass (the heart of Russia)". The rules in question are as follows:
3/ "Director's duties: 1. To provide weapons; 2. Provide funding; 3. Provide guarantees for the 200s [killed] and 300s [wounded]; 4. Provide permanent work; 5. Protection from the article for mercenarism (359 of the Criminal Code); 6. Resolving all issues collegially;
1/ Yevgeny Prigozhin's wealth and wigs got a lot of attention last week, but his medal collection is much more significant. The 30 medals on his jacket show that he is one of the most highly decorated members of the Russian elite. Here's an analysis of what they indicate. ⬇️
2/ Like the Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Prigozhin is not and never has been a soldier. This has not stopped either of them amassing an impressive collection of medals. (See below for an analysis of Shoigu's 60 decorations.)
3/ Prigozhin's medals fall into three categories: awards from the Russian state, awards from the self-declared Luhansk and Donetsk 'People's Republics' (LNR/DNR), and awards from African states where the Wagner Group has been active.
1/ Police in Chechnya are accused of abducting, torturing and robbing two Russian soldiers. According to a complaint submitted by one of the men, they were abducted from their own base in the republic. The case illustrates the Russian military's vulnerability to criminals. ⬇️
2/ The incident is reported by the Sapa Telegram channel to have taken place at the base of the 70th Motorised Rifle Regiment (70th MRR) at Borzoy in Chechnya. A five-page complaint, summarised by Sapa, describes what is alleged to have happened.
3/ The unnamed complainant is a contract (professional) soldier with the 70th MRR. According to his complaint, on 22 May 2023 one of his friends was detained by Chechen police on his way back to the base after loading military equipment at Khankala railway station, 63 km away.
1/ Many ordinary Russians reached with eagerness and excitement to the Wagner Group's mutiny – from the woman who cancelled sex to await the Wagnerites' arrival, to the many who went out on the streets to take selfies with them. It indicates a widespread desire for change. ⬇️
2/ The independent Russian media outlet Verstka has been interviewing people in Rostov, Voronezh, Lipetsk, Moscow and Simferopol who followed Yevgeny Prigozhin's "March for Justice", and in some cases saw it first-hand.
3/ Their accounts reveal a widespread impression of Prigozhin as a straight-talking 'man of the people' and of his fighters as being honourable and polite people. Many interviewees also spoke of him as an agent of long overdue change.
1/ Russian construction firms are reportedly being told to send their workers to fight in Ukraine or face losing lucractive contracts from the city of Moscow. It illustrates an ongoing 'hidden mobilisation' as Russia uses every possible option to find manpower for the war. ⬇️
2/ The independent Russian news outlet Verstka reports that the Moscow city authorities have told "at least two major construction companies to find several dozen volunteers who will agree to sign a contract for military service and go to the war zone in Ukraine."
3/ According to a source in one of the companies, the office of Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin has told them to provide at least 30 volunteers by the end of August. Most Moscow construction companies are said to have received the same instruction.