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1/ Relatives of mobilised Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine say their men call themselves slave warriors: they are exhausted, depressed, serving with serious diseases or injuries, equipped at their own expense, commanded by drunkards and sent to die in "meat assaults". ⬇️ 
2/ The relatives met on 19 November in a rare authorised rally at Novosibirsk's Palace of Culture. It was held indoors with attendance restricted only to relatives and without any media present, to avoid embarrassing the authorities.
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1726228932863680872
3/ Nonetheless, as the Mobilisation News Telegram channel reports, a video and other details of what was discussed have been leaked. The channel lists the key points raised by the relatives:
4/ 🔺 There are no rotations throughout the year – the mobilised are not given any rest from front-line operations.
🔺 They are depressed and extremely tired due to being on the front line all year without any prospect of an end to their service.
🔺 They are depressed and extremely tired due to being on the front line all year without any prospect of an end to their service.
5/🔺 They are not provided with uniforms, reliable body armor, equipment and much more – they have to buy everything themselves or with money raised by their fellow countrymen.
🔺 Most have only been allowed one period of leave, and some have not been allowed any leave at all.
🔺 Most have only been allowed one period of leave, and some have not been allowed any leave at all.
6/🔺 Some of the mobilised are serving despite having serious health conditions: diseases of the spine, a removed spleen, asthma, a previous heart attack, coronary heart disease.
7/🔺 Wounded mobiks are given unfair fitness categories that do not take into account concomitant diseases, complications from injuries, and conditions caused by spending such a long time on the front line.
8/ 🔺 Military-medical commissions are ignoring the findings of civilian health clinics.
🔺 The commanders are drinking.
🔺 The mobilized are being sent into "meat assaults."
🔺 The commanders are drinking.
🔺 The mobilized are being sent into "meat assaults."
9/ A video published by the channel features an unnamed female relative talking in more detail about these problems.
10/ She praises the Moscow city administration for seeking to help the mobilised, but complains that other cities "have decided to pretend that the problem with the mobilised and their families does not exist".
11/ The mobiks "are not dressed or equipped, not understanding anything about war, and are torn out of peaceful life. They survived in the winter trenches in the summer heat, often without food. At first, some even without commanders ..."
12/ "Sometimes without vacations, until complete exhaustion. A year without the right to choose, without deadlines, without prospects. The wounded soldiers are returned to the front line again and again." They now experience "fatigue, lack of will, complete moral exhaustion."
13/ The lack of any replacements is a key problem: the men are fighting until they are either dead or too injured to continue. "There are fewer and fewer of them, there are more and more wounded, no one is replenishing them, no one is going to somehow strengthen them further."
14/ "And so they fight and fight for themselves, and everyone is happy with it. It feels like the whole country has simply sat on our boys’ shoulders and is sitting there, forcing you to take them, well, take them, let’s see how long you can get out."
15/ The relative says that the men call themselves "gladiators" now. "It's a good comparison. As soon as the indefinite stay of those mobilised became clear, so to speak, and it became like slavery for them, this is exactly how we perceive it."
16/ The men are supposed to be given the opportunity to go on rotations to rear areas for rest, but in practice, the relative says, this is largely fictional: rather than going to the rear, they merely go to a trench a few hundred meters further back.
17/ "They have the opportunity to go on rotations to rear areas, conduct special operations, to rear areas. But you get a line 100 meters from the enemy, and here a line 800 meters from the enemy. So you sat there for a week, went here for three days, thus you had a rotation."
18/ Many men are not being treated for injuries and concussions. "Every conscript must have a legal right to treatment. And even if they are treated in hospitals after being wounded, after a shell shock, these rights are violated right and left."
19/ The men who do get leave after six months on the front line only get to spend two weeks at home, during which time "they can’t even run to hospitals to patch themselves up ... They can't even recover."
20/ "Everything that happened to them on the front line this year, as I already said, the trenches, cold, heat, shelling, wounds, returning back. Even the sickest ones, they all have sores."
21/ The relative says the treatment of the mobiks is discouraging others from joining up. "Now there are fewer and fewer people interested. A one-way ticket attracts few people and disrespect."
22/ She also complains about the attitude of the commanders, who she characterises as almost sadistically indifferent about the lives of their men. If nobody is killed during an operation, she says, the men are regarded as having failed or slacked off.
23/ "I wanted to say a favorite phrase of one of our commanders. If you don’t have 200 [fatalities] today, 300 [the wounded] worked poorly. This also speaks about the attitude of the command towards our mobilised people." /end
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