Mobilization in Russia for December 12–13, CIT volunteer summary
Members of local parliaments of Kostroma [city in Russia] and Komi [constituent republic of the Russian Federation] received answers from the Presidential Administration on their demand to end the mobilization by decree. Member of Komi’s parliament Viktor Vorobyov received an answer that "notifications and drafting to military service during mobilization" had been completed on October 28. But the officials didn’t refer to a specific document. Kostroma’s delegate Vladimir Mikhailov was informed that "Presidential decrees cannot be issued randomly and be based on subjective opinions of individuals and implemented” upon private requests.
More footage of mobilized soldiers from the Ministry of Defense. At the military training ground in the Primorsky region, the mobilized are practicing shooting Kalashnikov machine guns and AGS-17 Plamya automatic grenade launchers. The final exams for mobilized tankers were completed in the district training center of the Central Military District. Mobilized soldiers from Khabarovsk were solemnly sent off to training centers. Footage of the mobilized in the combat zone is also being shown: for example, artillerymen of the Western Military District units, including mobilized soldiers, use 152mm D-20 howitzers.
Roman Martynov, who was mobilized from the Bryansk region, announced that he had been beaten, buried alive and subjected to mock execution for his contacts with journalists. He was mobilized on September 24, at the shooting ground he had one exercise with an assault rifle, after which on October 1 he was sent to the front line in so-called LPR. The next day, Roman refused to participate in hostilities, after which he went through three basements for refuseniks in the so-called LPR and DPR. After the Astra Telegram channel published information about basements in Rubizhne and Kreminna, Martynov was suspected of leaking information to journalists and, according to him, was tortured. In connection with the current situation and the fact that the subject of the article was tortured, the editors of the Astra Telegram channel warn mobilized soldiers and their families about the risks of publishing such information.
Mobilized soldiers from Kuzbass, who were mentioned in one of our previous reports, changed their minds about complaining to the authorities. Only the day before yesterday they recorded an appeal to Governor Tsivilyov with a complaint about missing gear. Now a new video has appeared with soldiers "who have no complaints or appeals." Another group of mobilized Kemerovo residents did not waste time complaining and immediately recorded a video thanking Novokuznetsk Mayor Sergey Kuznetsov, which he shared on his Telegram channel.
As a result of an accident that occurred on Dec. 10 on the M4 Don highway in the Voronezh region, three people (two of them were mobilized soldiers) died. They were moving UAZ vehicles, received as assistance from Tatarstan, to their military unit. One of the dead is Nikolay Zotov, a well-known pediatrician from Naberezhnye Chelny, and Timur Dunaev, a resident of the Tukaevsky district in Russia’s constituent republic of Tatarstan, is the second one.
On Dec. 12, in the village of Totskoye, Orenburg region, the chief of the Police Department of the Totsky district, Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Pisarkov, knocked down a young man walking towards him along the roadway. The victim turned out to be a serviceman of the 21st Motorized Rifle Brigade. The victim was diagnosed with "a closed fracture of both bones in the right forearm and alcoholic intoxication."
Relatives of contract servicemen complained to Governor of the Pskov region Mikhail Vedernikov about the difference in salaries of mobilized and contracted servicemen.
The FSB [Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation] Directorate for Russia’s constituent republic of Bashkortostan has issued a formal warning to Aleksander Nikonorov, head of the Mobilization and Training Department of the Belebeyevsky district, about the inadmissibility of violating the law on the disclosure of top-secret information. According to the FSB, Nikonorov processed and stored copies of classified documents entrusted to him on an internet-connected computer, which does not exclude their disclosure.
Raids on conscripts are intensifying. The police catch young people, escort them to military commissariats [enlistment offices] and then, in one day, these young men are called into the army. It mostly happens in Moscow, but similar things also happen in Volgograd, Vladivostok, and other cities. Conscripts are usually not properly notified by military commissariats. In the event that a conscript fails to appear at a commissariat, the police are asked to bring him forcibly. Furthermore, conscripts are threatened with criminal prosecution under Article 328 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for evading military service. Pavel Chikov, a human rights attorney, answered some of the most frequently asked questions about conscription procedures.
An example of conscription within one day. The Babushkinsky draft office of Moscow forcibly sends Marat Bakhapov, 22, the only guardian of his disabled father, to the army. In the draft office, he was issued a military ID within half an hour, after which he was sent to a collecting point. Meanwhile, Marat's relatives did not have time to bring him a certificate from the social security service about his guardianship and his father's disability. Moreover, they were simply not allowed to see the young man.
In the Novosibirsk region, a man who had previously received the 3rd group of disability was mobilized. He sought to pass a military medical examination for three months, but eventually ended up on the frontline.
Erdem Galdanov, born in the village of Myla of Russia’s constituent Republic of Buryatia in 1975, was mobilized on Sept. 23 and on Nov. 30 was killed in action. In a military unit in the village of Kamenka, Leningrad region, Anatoly Cherkashin, a 21-year-old conscript soldier from the Karachay-Cherkess Republic [Russia’s constituent republic], died. Relatives of the young man told the DOXA media outlet about this referring to a notice from the military unit.
A “riot” is brewing in Donetsk: the public utilities service provider of the “DPR” is experiencing an acute shortage of staff for regular positions, and employees have to work in several positions at the same time. An employee of one of these services told the Mozhem Ob'yasnit [We can explain] Telegram channel about this. According to her, this situation has developed because most of the men had been drafted and there are already wounded and dead among them. Some employees discuss the issue of a possible strike among themselves.
There are more and more initiatives involving children in war propaganda. On December 6, the Ministry of Defense announced the Front Postcard initiative – schoolchildren in the regions should prepare New Year's letters and congratulations to support the soldiers with "warm words." Formally, the action is voluntary. But parents say that children are forced to sign postcards while teachers censor their content. Another example: the administration of the Golumetsky rural settlement organized a tour of one of the military units of the Irkutsk region for the children of mobilized soldiers. The children were told about the life of soldiers, shown the barracks, weapons, a museum, and then they had a photoshoot in bulletproof vests and with weapons. The students of school No. 12 of the village of Pavlovskaya in the Krasnodar region together with the “cossacks of the Pavlovsk District Cossack Society” implemented the New Year's Gifts for Soldiers initiative. Children sent letters and gifts to Russian soldiers in Ukraine; of course, they had a photo-op, too.
A public event in support of draftees from the Sakhalin Island took place at the Uspenovskiy training center on the island. Representatives of several diasporas and ethnicities turned out to support mobilized soldiers. The representatives from Buryatia cooked about 2000 buuz [type of Mongolian steamed dumpling filled with meat], the ones from Tajikistan cooked pilaf, the Russians made blinis and other dishes. Residents of the Agin-Buryat autonomous district sent a ton of meat to servicemen.
The Russian state-owned Russia 24 TV channel published a report from the Belgorod region about the locals who are making portable heating stoves out of gas cylinders for the soldiers. In Nizhneudinsk district of the Irkutsk region, the authorities are planning to procure firewood for the needs of the families of the draftees. Parishioners at the Church of the Sacred Spirit in the village of Mayma in the Altai Republic [Russia’s constituent republic] are sewing camouflage cloaks for the army and collecting sweet gifts to send to the soldiers. In Kursk, an ambulance for transporting the wounded was donated to the military.
In early December, UralVagonZavod [Russian state-owned machine-building company] announced to its workers a monetary donation drive to benefit the military servicemen. By preliminary calculations, the amount collected could be around 54 to 64 million rubles. Employees were distributed forms with the contribution amount prefilled with the sum equal to their day’s salary. The attitudes towards the drive among the factory workers differ: not everyone is prepared to part with their hard-earned money.