Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Hundreds of Russian soldiers may have mutinied in recent weeks as the Russian army accumulates huge losses in offensives in several regions of Ukraine. At least 173 men are reported to have been detained for refusing orders, and this may be just the tip of the iceberg. ⬇️

2/ ASTRA reports that it has received almost daily messages from the relatives of men who have been detained in occupied regions of Ukraine after refusing to join assaults. They have told similar stories of drunken commanders and a lack of ammunition, artillery, food and water.

3/ The ongoing heavy fighting around Kupiansk and Avdiivka is said to have been the cause of a number of revolts (see below for one example). Ex-convicts are also reported to have been detained to pressure them into signing new contracts.

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1713482981321461867

4/ ASTRA has so far recorded the existence of at least 16 places in the occupied regions of Ukraine where Russian soldiers have been illegally detained – the largest and most notorious being at Zaitseve in the Luhansk region (see below).

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1671253659668344832

5/ According to ASTRA, it's likely that "the 173 military personnel that ASTRA knows about are just the tip of the iceberg." It notes that because the detainees' phones are confiscated, they often cannot contact the outside world.

6/ The suggestion of much larger numbers is given credence by the comment of a relative of one of the detainees that men being transferred to Zaitseve were turned away because the facility - which can accommodate at least 230 men – was already full.

7/ The Russian army is reportedly taking men from Zaitseve and other detention facilities in Ukraine to training grounds in Russia, where they are re-formed into units and sent, via Rostov, to front-line hotspots to carry out assaults.

8/ ASTRA reports that around 50 men from the 15th Motorized Rifle Regiment were taken from a detention facility in Rozsypne, Donetsk region, to a training ground in Russia's Kursk region.

9/ The men were told that they would be sent to Rostov and from there to join the ongoing assault on Avdiivka. According to the lawyer of one of the men, who went to Ukraine to challenge the men's illegal detention:

10/ "At first I went to Zaitseve, but there was no one in Zaitseve, and I found out that they were being held in Rozsypne. I drove up to the building, it looked like a school building. I went straight to the fence. A military man peeked out from behind the fence.

11/ "I went over, knocked, showed him my lawyer's ID. I told him: I know for a fact that my clients are here, I want to talk to them, but he did not even look at me. He said: "Wait" and left. When he came back, he said: "There is no one here".

12/ "I asked him: what are you doing here with weapons then? He repeated again: "there is no one here, leave here"."

The men later told relatives they had been sent to the Postoyalye Dvory training range in the Kursk region.

13/ A relative says: "According to my son, they will be formed into assault troops. The guys are dirty, not dressed, morally depressed. They don’t know what to do."

The wife of another man says: “My husband is a mobilised man, he refused to go on the offensive on Makiivka."

14/ "They were placed in Zaitseve. Then, apparently, there was an inspection and they were driven around for 9 hours and returned back to the “LPR”. Today he managed to call from someone else's number. They are near Kursk, waiting for a car to Rostov.

15/ "As I understand it, from there the plane will be heading towards Avdiivka. He said that they called the prosecutor's office, but they were told: an order is an order.

16/ The local military police are threatening to bring in the riot police: they will still go to the front, but already beaten."

The men's commanders said openly to them that they were merely "a means to an end", according to another relative.

17/ "The guys understood that they wouldn’t take the position and would end up lying there [dead] themselves."

The detainees from Rozsypne joined dozens of other men who had been transported from Zaitseve.

18/ After the men's whereabouts became known to their relatives and their lawyers, they were reportedly taken to Voronezh to be "hidden from their relatives and lawyers."

19/ According to an ASTRA source, the men have been taken either to the Pogonovo training base in the Voronezh region or the Baltimor (Voronezh Malshevo) airbase in a convoy of trucks.

20/ Some of the men have attempted to stand firm. Relatives say that men who have already gone to Baltimor told their captors: "call anyone you want, we are not going anywhere from here". They are said to have been denied medical care and access to lawyers.

21/ Others agreed under pressure to return to Ukraine, but around 30 are said to have then revolted again when they were about to board aircraft to take them to Rostov and from there back to Ukraine. One of them says:

22/ "We are standing here, they offer us some weapons to take, not ours at all, old, used. We refuse, we will not get on the plane. We are waiting for the military prosecutor's office."

23/ The wife of one of the refuseniks says: "They are given the wrong weapons, no one knows why, they take everything, half of them have already been sent on the plane. They were intimidated to such an extent that people stopped standing their ground."

24/ "They sent them without documents. My husband is still waiting for the prosecutor, but it is unknown how this will end."

The men who have already been sent to Rostov have arrived in a dismal condition, according to relatives.

25/ The relative of a man from the 59th Tank Regiment says: "His phone, belongings and expensive equipment, which was bought with personal funds, were taken away from him."

26/ "An hour ago he called and said that they are in Rostov, waiting for a flight to an unknown destination, stripped, hungry, dirty – the guys have not bathed for more than three weeks. He said there were about 100 people with him."

27/ "The system is the same: from the storming of Makiivka [to] Zaitsevo – Kursk – Voronezh and Rostov airport."

One of the men has told relatives that if they refuse to follow their orders, they will be "reset" (shot).

28/ While the number of men who have apparently mutinied is small in relation to the overall size of the Russian army in Ukraine, the recent large increase in the number of refuseniks highlights the stresses that the Russian forces are currently experiencing. /end

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