Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Reports suggest that Russian commanders are demanding a standard bribe of a month's salary – 100,000 rubles ($1,100) – to allow their men go on leave. Those without money or connections are spending months fighting on the front line without being rotated or rested. ⬇️

2/ The practice of commanders demanding bribes for leave has been reported on previously. Interviews by Siberia.Reality (an offshoot of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty) suggest that it's a widespread scam, and that Putin's promise of periodic leave is mostly being ignored.

3/ Relatives of mobilised Russians have been complaining for some time that their men have not been allowed their promised leave. In February 2023, Putin promised that soldiers would get 14 days' leave every 6 months. In reality, men have gone as long as 10 months without leave.

4/ It's well established that this has a very bad impact on combat effectiveness. Sustained fighting led to 98 percent of Western Allied soldiers in WW2 becoming 'psychiatric casualties' within 60 days. The Russian Army seems to be ignoring this lesson.

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1671581010482405378

5/ Relatives of mobilised soldiers from the 1439th regiment complained recently that their men were being forced to pay bribes of 100,000 rubles to be allowed to go on leave.

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1671486483792789505

6/ The mother of one of the men says that her son has been fighting "for eight months now, without rest, without a rotation. He was taken away at the end of September and we have not seen each other since."

7/ "In December, after training, he was already in Ukraine, and, as he says, their regiment never leaves the front line."

She says that "last time I didn't recognise him from the video [call], he's aged, he looks older than me, his mother! He could barely move his tongue."

8/ "He came back from the hospital after being wounded near Avdiivka, he hadn't even served ten days there. What is this? Is there no one left to fight? According to him, the same people go on holiday - some of them have already been twice, but my son has never been."

9/ "Why is it so? Corruption even in the army?"

A wife, Irina from Vladivostok, says that commanders demand 100,000 ruble bribes for leave. "Those who are close to the commanders and look to them in one place now go on leave. Connections and money decide. We have neither."

10/ Another wife, Anastasia from Irkutsk, says that in her husband's unit the demanded bribe is even bigger. Commanders take bribes not just for leave but to place soldiers in safer rear positions, away from the dangers of the front line.

11/ "We don't get [to pay] 100,000, but 200,000 [for the opportunity to take leave]. My husband paid two of his [monthly] salaries and was home for a fortnight in May."

12/ "Although he left in September and was in training until December, logically, he should have been given leave in May. But they don't give [leave] just like that." Anastasia says.

13/ She says that her husband "also paid to be given a place as a "head of logistics" [managing the receipt and distribution of supplies in the Donetsk region] away from the front line. He did not say how much, but simply explained that he had "managed to reach an agreement"."

14/ Anastasia guessed the amount to be a further 200,000 rubles, because "for two months he had not transferred a single ruble to my son and me. Thank God I work, we can afford it."

15/ "Some girls on maternity leave in the village – where will they get the money from if he spends half of it on the war? Where to buy petrol, where to buy a generator – 100,000 at best was left."

16/ In some cases, she says, commanders rip off their troops by taking bribes and then not letting their men have leave.

17/ "I heard from other wives that they took money and did not let their husbands go ... One says that commanders also demand 100,000 rubles from soldiers for not sending them to the front."

18/ Tatyana from Irkutsk says that her son Vasily has not been allowed to take leave for 10 months since he was mobilised in September 2022. "I keep in touch with him, he says he is very tired morally," she says.

19/ She has complained to the military prosecutor, without any response. "I recently found out: to go on holiday, the commanders take money – 100,000 rubles." According to Tatyana, commanders also ask for 100,000 rubles to not send men to the front line.

20/ While all of this is in clear violation of Putin's February 2023 promise, as a military lawyer notes, his words have no legal effect because they have never been made into law.

21/ "His words have no legal force," says lawyer Alexander Semyonov. "This decision must be approved by a normative act. When and how it will be adopted is still unknown." /end

Source:
sibreal.org/a/s-voyny-otpu…