1/ In another indication that a fresh wave of mobilisation may be coming, companies in Moscow are seeking to recruit an unprecedented number of specialists in managing military and mobilisation records – twice the peak number recorded during the last mobilisation. ⬇️
3/ The Moscow-based news website MSK1 reports that there has been a record surge in adverts from employers to fill these roles. Before the war in Ukraine, the number of such vacancies on job search websites was only 10-16 per month.
3/ The Moscow-based news website MSK1 reports that there has been a record surge in adverts from employers to fill these roles. Before the war in Ukraine, the number of such vacancies on job search websites was only 10-16 per month.
4/ The start of mobilisation in September 2022 led to the number of advertised mobilisation specialist vacancies rising to 174 in October 2022, before dropping to 80-90 a month. However, in September 2023 a record 362 vacancies are being advertised.
5/ MSK1 provides several examples of such vacancies, paying between 40,000 rubles ($414) to 130,000 rubles ($1,348) per month. The following examples are from the website.hh.ru
6/ For instance, Moscow's state labour inspectorate is looking to pay 45-50,000 rubles for someone to carry out military registration and engage directly in mobilisation training. They will have to work with "secret paperwork" and organise anti-terrorism security measures.
7/ You don't need prior experience to work in this capacity at Moscow's Transport University but you'll only be paid 48,000 rubles to keep military records of employees and students, apply for deferments and interact with military registration and enlistment offices.
8/ Moscow's city government wants someone to lead its military registration bureau. It's offering 130,000 rubles for someone with three years of experience, a higher education and knowledge of the relevant legislation.
9/ The job holder's role will include registration and deregistration of employees, communication with commissariats, reporting, management of deferments and notification of employees about mobilisation orders.
10/ Another relatively highly-paid role in a similar capacity is being offered by Moscow's oil and gas production company. They will pay 100,000 rubles a month for someone to deal with everything related to mobilisation: events, documents, military records, deferments.
11/ The applicant is required to have at least three years of similar work experience and at least two years of experience in setting up military records in a large company. In addition, the CV should contain successful cases of “interaction with military commissariats.”
12/ These recruitments are likely motivated by recent amendments to the law, taking effect from 1 October 2023, that have greatly increased the level of fines that employers and citizens can face in relation to mobilisation.
13/ The first mobilisation was marred by numerous organisational difficulties, but since then the Russian government has put in place new measures and heavy fines for failing to comply, to ensure that future mobilisations are much more efficient.
14/ The new fines regime includes:
– failing to come to the military enlistment centre without a valid reason after being summoned - 10,000-30,000 ruble fine;
– evading medical examination or medical commission - 15,000-25,000 ruble fine;
15/ – loss or deliberately damage to a military card or other documents of military registration - 3,000-5,000 ruble fine;
– failing to send information about yourself to the military enlistment office if it has changed - 1,000-5,000 ruble fine;
16/ – failing to send information about your departure from Russia for more than six months to the military registration centre – 5,000-15,000 ruble fine;
17/ – failing to send information to the military enlistment office about travelling for more than three months - 10,000-20,000 ruble fine (applicable to people of conscription age and in case of active conscription)
1/ Mobilised Russians say that their commanders ordered them into an assault despite their injuries and then abandoned them under heavy Ukrainian fire. After refusing, they were imprisoned by their own side in a notorious torture facility in north-eastern Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ ASTRA reports the account of Evgeny P., as told to his wife Evgeniya on 18 September. He says that while fighting with the 27th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade near Bakhmut in May, he suffered a shrapnel wound and was sent to hospital. However, he was not treated.
3/ Instead, he was sent with other injured men to Naro-Fominsk in the Moscow region and confined to a barracks for a week. He says that a military doctor declared them all fit to fight, despite their unhealed wounds. The men were sent back to Ukraine under a new commander.
1/ A Russian colonel arrested earlier this year for stealing seven T-90 tank engines appears to have been even more industrious than first realised: investigators have now reportedly linked him to the theft of 21 tank engines, worth tens of millions of rubles. ⬇️
2/ In April 2023, the Russian media reported on the case of Colonel Alexander Denisov, then the head of the Southern Military District's technical support department for the armoured vehicle service.
3/ He was accused of having stolen seven V-92C2 engines intended for installation on T-90 tanks, valued at 20.5 million rubles (worth £212,000 at today's prices), between November 2021 and April 2022. Now he's been linked to the theft of four V-84 AMS and ten UTD-20 tank engines.
1/ A former convict and ex-Wagnerite has started his own "Taxi Wagner" service in Russia's Novosibirsk region. Valery Bogdanov says that he is doing "a noble cause for the local residents". ⬇️
2/ Bogdanov has started a Wagner-themed taxi service in the town of Bolotnoye, about 128 km north-east of the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. So far it only has one car, but he says business is good and plans to expand.
3/ Bogdanov has five criminal convictions for theft and robbery and was serving a sentence for possessing drugs when he was recruited by Wagner. He completed his six-month contract in May 2023 and was awarded the medals “For Courage” and the Wagner “Black Cross”.
1/ The Russian government has ordered 230,000 certificates for family members of deceased soldiers – a vast increase from the 23,716 it ordered in May 2023 and 5,777 in 2022. It likely illustrates the scale of the casualties it anticipates as the Ukraine war continues. ⬇️
2/ Russia's Ministry of Labour and Social Protection (Mintrud) has listed an order for nearly a million certificates on the Russian government's procurement portal. As well as 230,000 for family members of the deceased, the order includes 757,305 combat veterans' certificates.
3/ According to the accompanying documentation, the certificates will be distributed as follows:
– 600,000 to the Ministry of Defence
– 86,805 to the Ministry of Social Protection
– 60,000 to the Ministry of Internal Affairs
– 10,000 to the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia)
1/ Russian soldiers say hundreds of their number are being killed trying to retake newly liberated Andriivka. Even artillerymen are being sent in as infantry in 'meat assaults', "literally [armed] with shovels" and without artillery support. ⬇️
2/ The Russian Army's 94th regiment is said to be taking the brunt of the fighting as Ukrainian forces advance south of Bakhmut. The wife of one soldier serving with the regiment, a man called Denis, says they are suffering huge casualties.
3/ "He called on Thursday and said that the Ukrainian armed forces were taking Andriiivka and breaking through to Bakhmut," his wife Vera says.
1/ A pregnant woman has sentenced to six years in jail in Russia for evading mobilisation, in the first case of its kind. Despite her pregnancy, she was convicted for failing to appear when she was summoned to her unit. ⬇️
2/ The Russian newspaper Kommersant reports that Corporal Madina Kabaleva, from the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, was convicted by a court in the Russian Army's Southern Military District for "failure to appear for service without good reason during the period of mobilisation".
3/ Kabaleva is reported to have "applied to the medical company of her military unit, where she received a recommendation for temporary release from military service due to pregnancy, as well as the presence of a child born in 2018."