Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Three years ago, in September 2022, Russia began mobilising 300,000 men to fight in Ukraine. Most are now dead or disabled, but two survivors have been discussing their experiences of mobilisation, enduring Ukrainian attacks, surviving "meat waves," and murdering POWs. ⬇️

2/ The author of the 'Vault No. 8' Telegram channel is a serving frontline Russian soldier and one of the original September 2022 'mobiks'. He says that he is the only one of his cohort to have lasted this long without being killed or taken out of the war through disablement.

3/ He has been interviewing another surviving September 2022 mobik, a man with the callsign 'Ukol' who is serving as a medical instructor in what he calls the 'Separate Rifle Death Brigade', which he says is "a complete asshole. A bloody asshole."

4/ Ukol says that he had only recently completed his conscript service when he was mobilised at the age of 20 in September 2022.

5/ "They lined us up on the parade ground, a couple of the mobilised battalions that were assembled at that time, and announced: "You have two weeks in which you can become whoever you want." I was eager to become a medical orderly, without having the appropriate education.

6/ "And while the rest were drinking until they squealed like pigs, I was studying in a group of medical orderlies under the guidance of competent comrades from the Special Operations Forces. This training helped me a lot later."

7/ The mobilisation followed Russia's recent massive defeat and huge losses in the Kharkiv region, leaving the mobiks with mixed feelings of terror and euphoria. They consoled themselves with large quantities of alcohol as they waited to be sent to Ukraine.

8/ "On the one hand, there was the wildest drinking, to the point of being outrageous ... On the other hand, the guys were yelling that the end was coming for the Ukrainians, that this war was like a new Chechen war, and we would cut off the ears of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

9/ "I immediately began acting as a medic. On one of the very first days, I was called to resuscitate a drunken asshole who had drunk himself into delirium tremens.

10/ "His drinking buddies from the mobiks and a couple of regular soldiers simply pulled him out like a spare part and piled him near the door of the supply room. Through the half-open door I heard the drunken words of one of the regulars who had fought since 24 February:

11/ "– Guys, most of you are already corpses, you are being taken to the slaughter. Your task is to die heroically now, so that others can prepare.

The sad, naked truth crashed into my head at that moment.

12/ "And I only began to study harder, which cannot be said about my fellow soldiers. They were wonderful in their alcoholic fatalism: "We were ordered to die – then we will die." And they missed what little training they were provided for the sake of an extra bottle of beer."

13/ Like many of the mobiks, Ukol was given a random assortment of Soviet-era equipment, some of it nearly 80 years old. He received "a duffel bag from 1944. And a small infantry shovel from 1946", old Soviet weapons, and Chinese and Iranian body armour.

14/ His unit had lost almost all of its armoured fighting vehicles in Ukraine and had to be equipped with old, poorly-maintained equipment taken from storage.

15/ "We participated in receiving BMPs, as we were told, "from the Second Chechen War" [of 1999]. When I asked where all the pre-war military equipment was, I was told that it had run out.

16/ "Some was abandoned to the delight of the Ukrainians during the breakthrough through the Sumy region towards Kyiv in February-March 2022, but most were lost in battle.

17/ "The entire set of equipment of the tank battalion and most of the BMPs [were lost]. So we were told, "don't be afraid, you will be given everything." And they gave me an infantry fighting vehicle and an MT-LB from the Second Chechen War..."

18/ The mobiks were transferred to Ukraine by train, drinking heavily throughout the journey. According to Ukol, the 'Separate Rifle Death Brigade' by this time consisted almost entirely of mobiks, the regulars having been wiped out in the Russian defeat.

19/ "On the way, the impossible booze-fest continued. At one of the stops [in Russia], they robbed a small liquor store. One unique individual even took away the door – you never know what might come in handy in the Special Military Operation?

20/ "Then I saw how vodka was brought into the officers' carriage in boxes. We, the soldiers, also had everything – vodka, tequila, whiskey. I didn't drink and watched what was happening sober.

21/ "Someone was fighting with someone else and sorting things out. One of them was about to be thrown under a moving train for a negative review of a whole group of alcoholics.

22/ "[The train] would have arrived with pieces of minced meat and bones on their wheels if the fighters hadn't been separated. The song "Burning Arrow" by the group "Aria" is about our train. Moreover, at each station, several people ran away from the train and disappeared."

23/ The soldiers were taken to the border and dropped off there. "We chilled for a couple of days waiting for more combat equipment. We received another piece of junk and crossed the border with our beloved Luhansk People's Republic."

24/ "Specifically, in our column, on the march, an MT-LB caught fire on its own and was abandoned along the way. There was simply no way to fix it – nothing to fix it with. And there was no reason to."

TO BE CONTINUED