Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Men over 50, many with serious illnesses, are being forced to serve in the 'Donetsk People's Republic' armed forces despite this being illegal and in defiance of legal rulings and orders. "We turned out to be third-class people without rights", says one relative. ⬇️

2/ ASTRA reports on the stories of a number of mobilised DNR residents who have been made to serve continuously, in some cases for 18 months, without any breaks. Under local and Russian law, men over 50 are not supposed to serve in the army. This has systematically been ignored.

3/ Thousands of relatives have travelled thousands of kilometers between Donetsk, Rostov, where the headquarters of the Russian Southern Military District is located, and Moscow, to petition military officials and politicians – so far without much success.

4/ Elvira, the wife of a 51-year-old man from Debaltseve who voluntarily complied with mobilisation in February 2022, complains that he is not being discharged according to the law. "I just want the law to be followed ... I don't know where to look for justice," she says.

5/ "At the enterprise where he works, they were told that they would go to a two-week military training camp. He has no military speciality, he served as a conscript back in the Soviet Union. He is a miner – a mining labourer, with occupational diseases.

6/ "My husband has two vertebral hernias, displaced vertebrae. He can't wear a bulletproof vest for a long time. But none of the mobilised men passed a medical examination. So he's been at the front for a year and a half. No holidays, no leave of absence.

7/ "Only on the 31st of December was he allowed to go home. He still has no military card, no personal file, no dog tag. And he has not been discharged from the army, despite the two reports he wrote in the spring about his dismissal on reaching the age limit."

8/ The husband of another woman, Elena from Ilovaisk, was mobilised when he was already over the age limit; he is now 53 years old. Formerly a miner, the man suffers from hernias. He was told he would get military training but was sent instead to an abandoned factory in Makiivka.

9/ Elena recalls: "They slept on bare slabs, on the ground. For five days they were given no food or water. Their wives were brought to them. Twelve people died just there, because they mobilised everyone with all kinds of diseases.

10/ "Then my husband called me and said: "Come to the railway station tomorrow, they are taking us somewhere." It was a chaotic scene with hundreds of women looking for their husbands to say goodbye.

11/ "I didn't recognise my husband," Elena says, "he was in military uniform. They had been given helmets and rifles from the 1950s. He took my hand and said: "Bye, maybe we won't see each other again." They are being loaded onto wagons to be taken to an unknown destination.

12/ "There is a huge crowd of women with children, all weeping. They were taken away and communication with them was lost."

Her husband later told her what had happened next. "They were brought to a bare field and told to dig trenches. They were given no shovels."

13/ "They got a terrible commander – maybe it was better in other units. He abused them. Most of the food they received was later seen in the shops [presumably sold by the commander]. The men were left hungry like dogs.

14/ "Each day they were given one thin slice of bread and a bowl of porridge. My husband used to say, "I just didn't realise it could be like that in the 21st century." He had a piece of lard, he cut off a little bit at a time and sucked it at night to satisfy his hunger.

15/ "This went on for two months. All this time they did not wash. It was terribly cold and they sat in the trenches. He tried to stay awake at night to keep warm. A lot of guys froze their hands and feet, fingers and toes. That's how they lived there – cold, hunger and dirt.

16/ "At one petrol station there were shower cabins. A lad went in and washed himself, so the commander almost shot him for it. For taking a shower. Then the commander was changed and there was food.

17/ "But the new command of the unit collects 15,000 rubles [$156] a month from servicemen. If you refuse, they call and demand it. I don't know what this money is used for. But now it's a vicious circle, we don't know who to turn to.

18/ "It turns out that the commanders of the units have more power than the entire Ministry of Defence, if they do not follow their instructions so freely. My husband is a miner, he has a hernia. He has been coming home only for 7 days during this year and a half.

19/ "He has turned grey, his back hurts, his legs hurt – he says, "I don't know how much longer I can stand it there"."

Another wife, Irina, says that the men often do not even know the names of their commanders and are afraid to complain.

20/ Her husband, who is also 53, says that he's "seen people go missing here without a fight." According to Irina, "He saw too much. They have a position there, where commanders, battalion commanders are located. They call it the "gate".

21/ "They bring all the objectionable, all the guilty ones there – and they press the guys there – they beat them and [do] anything.

Irina says that commanders "communicate with the rank and file only through obscenities."

22/ "In her husband's unit, the commander "often came [and] brought his lady with him, who was often drunk. She would fire a pistol at the trailers where the soldiers were. She would break the windows.

23/ "My husband says: "we just pressed ourselves against the wall, behaved quietly, because we understood that people are unable to resist." The commander told them: "yes, you will all die here.""

24/ Another wife says that commanders are forcing over-50s to sign new contracts despite this being completely illegal. "In our unit 42038 we have men who are 57 and 64. They are not going to be discharged. They forced everyone to sign a contract by threats."

25/ Elena says: "Now there's massive pressure to sign a contract. The guys were promised that if you don't sign the contract, you will go to frontline positions with the convicts [of the Storm Z assault units] and from there you will not escape without being wounded or killed."

26/ Another wife says that the men "have not been home for a year and a half. Many men who are 50+ have already had a bouquet of diseases, most of them worked 30 years in the mines, and they are still without treatment. Mine got tuberculosis.

27/ "Four months of treatment for pneumonia, now tuberculosis. Rotation is done by transferring them from one regiment to another and that's it. It's like "renewal has happened". People are just swapped, not let go for a rest.

28/ "And it is impossible to find these new military units – there are no phones, nothing."

29/ "Now thousands of elderly miners are sitting in the trenches," Elvira says. "They all have occupational diseases – bad knees and backs. Our men can't carry armour, helmets, weapons. And they meet their old age in a trench."

30/ The wives have been going in circles petitioning the Russian and DNR bureaucracy and recording video appeals to Vladimir Putin asking for his intervention. Elvira says that she's "travelled many thousands of kilometres to come across a vicious circle."

31/ "The presidential administration told us that this is not their competence – it is the competence of the military prosecutor's office, the military prosecutor's office said that this is the competence of the joint grouping of troops.... Where in this ring is the way out?"

32/ Their efforts have also been met with purposeful obstruction from DNR commanders. Some units have 'lost' the paperwork of men's appeals to be discharged, while others have overtly ignored orders to release men under their command or have used procedural loopholes.

33/ Elena managed to get the Southern Military District to order the discharge of her husband, but local commanders refused to comply when she went to the People's Militia personnel office with the order.

34/ "They tell me directly: "Whatever you want to bring [out], he will not be discharged. If you discharge one person, all of them will follow. 50% of our men are from this age group. If we let them go, who will serve?"

35/ The DNR's military prosecutor's office also adopted a position that as the DNR is going through a 'transitional period' lasting until 1 January 2026, the People's Militia isn't required to follow Russian law on age limits. But as the wives point out, this contradicts the law.

36/ In January 2023, the People's Militia was officially incorporated into the Russian Army, which sets the age limit at 50. Elena comments: "They serve in the army of the Russian Federation, but for some reason under the laws that apply to the DNR People's Militia."

37/ "And this People's Militia no longer exists. Our husbands are like third-class people. They were transferred to Russian units, but they were never given military tickets. Because it would be illegal.

38/ "According to Russian laws, it is impossible to give a person over 50 years old a military ticket. They only have old, Soviet military tickets. Military officials twist the laws any way they want to keep our husbands.

39/ "Our men are old, sick, exhausted like slaves, sitting in the trenches for a year and a half without leave.

40/ "In fact, this is discrimination against our place of residence, we have passports of the Russian Federation, we are citizens of the Russian Federation, but the Constitution of the Russian Federation, …

41/ …according to which all citizens have equal rights and obligations does not apply to us for some reason.

42/ "There is no transitional period for elections, for raising the retirement age on our territory, but they have a transitional period for letting our men go after 17 months of hell."

43/ Many of the wives now despair of their husbands ever being discharged. They say it is destroying their faith in Russia. "The worst thing is that patriotism, a sense of belonging to Russia, faith in the truth are being killed in us. Nobody needs our problems. Neither do we!"

44/ Elena says that "we are in another dimension. We have no rights, none at all. Our husbands are not considered human beings."

45/ Another wife says that "there is no hope at all. I really want justice, so that at least someone would answer for this lawlessness and be punished for [how they have treated] our relatives."

46/ "We are not asking for any unimaginable benefits, we are just asking to abide by the law. The law that the president signed. Everything in us has been killed! There is nothing but pain and hopelessness!" /end

Source:
telegra.ph/My-okazalis-ly…