Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Russian conscripts captured by Ukraine in the Kursk region and subsequently freed in prisoner exchanges are being forced to sign military contracts under threat of beatings and prosecutions of themselves and their families, according to relatives. ⬇️

2/ Members of the Russian 488th Mobilised Rifle Regiment were captured en masse by Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region in August 2024. It was reported that they were shot at by Chechen 'barrier troops' trying to prevent their surrender.

https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1824791710238470258

3/ Around 100 men from the regiment were captured in a single location, marking one of the biggest surrenders of Russians in the Ukraine war. It seems likely that this has marked them out for punitive treatment when they were returned to Russia.

https://x.com/DrCryptos/status/1824375882477097149

4/ Relatives of conscripts serving with the regiment (which is largely comprised of conscripts and has been used for border defence duties) say that FSB officers have forced almost the entire regiment to sign contracts to convert them from conscripts into professional soldiers.

5/ This means that, unlike conscripts who serve in Russia for one year, they can be sent to fight in Ukraine and have to serve for an unlimited period. This means they have to fight for the rest of the war or until they are dead or too badly wounded to continue fighting.

6/ Siberia.Realities (part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) reports on the case of conscript Grigory Savinkov, who is serving with the 488th. He was captured by the Ukrainians, but was soon returned to Russia.

7/ His relatives say that Grigory and two other conscripts are "holding out" against pressure from FSB officers, who are "threatening criminal prosecution and literally physical violence for refusing to sign a military contract."

8/ Grigory's brother says: "They threaten him with criminal prosecution, of course, they don’t name the article, but they say that by refusing he “discredits the army”. They literally threaten physical violence, we know that they use pits and chained soldiers.

9/ "They threaten the family with “problems”, as I understand it, both with work and with the same discrediting. We are very afraid of this, because we understand that being sent to war will be a one-way trip.

10/ "We are ready to run anywhere, knock on any door, so that he can serve out this year of military service until November and go home peacefully. It’s just not clear where to run to. The guy is only 25 years old. Well, it’s not his thing [to fight]. He shouldn’t be there!"

11/ Grigory is said to now be allowed fewer opportunities to call home than he received while in captivity. "Grisha is now in a unit near Moscow, they are waiting for redistribution, and some checks are going on. In general, they are waiting for their future fate.

12/ "Someone needs medical care. That is, as far as I understand, there is no special service as such. It is a transit point. They are surrounded by these FSB officers, and that is scary. Only my brother and a couple of other guys were able to refuse.

13/ "His mother retold the conversation (he was only allowed to talk to her a couple of times): "they are putting so much pressure on him" that not every man can withstand it, and they are green conscripts. They are threatening not only him, but even his family.

14/ "Some terrible consequences. Although you come to your senses and think: what consequences could there be? He is a conscript. According to the law, he should not be threatened with anything like that for not wanting to sign a contract."

15/ His parents do not want to discuss the matter publicly, after receiving veiled threats from the military authorities seeking to deter them from publicising his captivity in Ukraine. However, another one of Grigory's relatives says, nobody understands why Russia is fighting.

16/ "What can we say about the war? We don’t understand at all what it’s for, why all these people are dying. What kind of madness is this? When the war started, Grisha’s mother took it all to heart.

17/ "And then there was the mobilisation, and they all went crazy then – they were worried that their other son would be taken away, and especially their father. He has a military speciality, he served in the missile forces.

18/ "They constantly read posts and messages from relatives whose soldiers died or were wounded. It’s hard to imagine what they went through, the relatives of those who are fighting, who died, who were wounded.

19/ "When I see someone wounded from the “Special Military Operation”, I get a terrible feeling. And all this news about people returning from the war and committing terrible crimes [in Russia]!

20/ "It’s all very painful. I think this will be a shame for us in the future. But I want to hope that all this will end soon." /end

Source:
sibreal.org/a/srochnika-ve…