Mobilization in Russia for Feb. 3–4, 2023, CIT volunteer summary
Military servicemen intending to enter a military university will be able to apply for participation in the Unified State Exam in the region they serve. The corresponding draft order of the Ministry of Education and Rosobrnadzor [the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science] was published on the federal portal of draft regulatory legal acts on Friday.
Elena Perminova, a senator from the Kurgan region, supported the idea of psychological assistance for the families of combatants. “There has already been a response — the Ministry of Defense has made a decision, so far, for officers only,” she said. State Duma member Boris Chernyshov came up with a similar initiative earlier on, suggesting to create a resource center for psychological assistance for the Ukraine war participants from the Russian side, as well as for their families.
The government of the Stavropol region refuses to recognize the directive of the General Staff of the Armed Forces on draft deferrals for fathers of three or more children, stating it became invalid on Dec. 21 of last year. The military prosecutor's office of the region, responding to the collective appeal of the families of the mobilized, admits that the directive is valid, however, they are being guided by the fact that the law on mobilization is of higher importance, and therefore there are no grounds for deferrals for those fathers.
Governor of the Belgorod region Vyacheslav Gladkov announced the “yellow” terror-alert level in the region as indefinite after a fire at a factory, which occurred as the result of shelling. Previously, Russian president Vladimir Putin had signed a decree abolishing the time limit for the introduction of terror-alert levels in the regions.
"Council of mothers and wives" of the Republic of Altai [Russia’s constituent republic] addressed the government of the region, the deputies, and the local enlistment office with the following questions, “Are there any children of state officials who fight in the war? Or are they sending to the war the children of ordinary people while their [state officials’] own children are staying in the countries of the hostile West?” The appeal concerns, first of all, the officials who call on others to take an active part in mobilization.
Meanwhile, State Duma [lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia] member from the ruling United Russia party Dmitry Saveliev, Novosibirsk, who promised to leave for “the special military operation” as a volunteer fighter, got off the train transporting the Vega Volunteer Battalion to the war zone. Then Saveliev headed to Omsk and, allegedly, flew from there to Moscow. He has not yet commented on the matter.
Since the announcement of mobilization in Sept. 2022, state-owned outpatient clinics in Moscow have been registering the receipt of draft notices in the patients’ medical records. Thus, human rights activist Vladimir Zhilkin found an entry that said “denies having received a draft notice” in his electronic medical record.
Conscripts from Perm stationed in the Rostov region are being coaxed into signing a contract that offers excellent conditions of service, compensation and personal gear. Those who agreed to sign have been “taken away from the unit and deployed somewhere else,” a family member of one of the soldiers said. He also added that a few conscripts who refused to sign a contract were put under extreme duress.
Russian mobilized men continue to be killed in large numbers in the war against Ukraine. In particular, 28-year-old Vyacheslav Kuzakov from the Krasnoyarsk region was blown up by a landmine, and Vladimir Kovalenko from Cherepovets received a fatal injury on Jan. 6. It was also revealed that two residents of Bashkiria [Russia’s constituent republic] had been killed — Ruslan Abdullin and Ramil Tulebayev. Among soldiers who lost their lives at the front are also Vladimir Markelov from the Ulyanovsk region, Nikolay Gorbatov from the Rostov region, Yuri Makarov from Volgograd, Roman Tomilov from Novosibirsk, Ivan Novikov from Cherepovets, Roman Bakunovich from the Bryansk region, Yevgeny Kostin from the Chelyabinsk region, Yuri Vasilyev from the Kursk region, as well as Alexander Nefedyev and Pavel Markov from the Perm area.
Sergey Nikiforov became 103rd killed in the strike on Makiivka, whose name the CIT team and volunteers were able to establish.
The authorities have blocked the website with a list of killed soldiers from Chuvashia [Russia’s constituent republic]. Semyon Kochkin, its creator, reports, “An unknown state agency (usually it appears to be the Prosecutor General’s Office) entered my portal semyon-kochkin.ru into the register of banned websites.”
Meanwhile, the authorities of the Uvelsky district in the Chelyabinsk region have been unsuccessfully trying for the second time in recent days to arrange a huge commemoration for those killed in the war. In total, 31,000 people live in the district, while the commemoration is expected to be held for 2,702 people, which is 9% of the total population of the district. In total, the commemoration should cost a million rubles (370 rubles per person).
26-year-old Arthur Libatov, a mobilized senior warrant officer from the town of Melenki in the Vladimir region, was among the servicemen released today in a prisoner exchange.
Andrey Martynov, a mobilized man from Omsk, described how he trained side by side with Wagner Group mercenaries in an interview to the NGS55 local news portal. Martynov was wounded in the shoulder and will return to the frontline at the end of his treatment.
A 42-year-old mobilized man, who was detained yesterday at the border between the Rostov region and the “DPR”, claims to be suffering from concussion and memory lapses. According to him, he does not remember how he got to the Rostov region.
Bashkortostan resident Denis Garaev received an 18-month suspended sentence on Nov. 23 for attempting to set fire to the recruiting center in the village of Isyangulovo. According to the OVD-Info independent human rights project, the decision was published on the website of the Kugarchinsky Inter-District Court.
A resident of Karachay-Cherkessia [Russia's constituent republic] will pay a fine of one hundred thousand rubles for evading military service without a justifiable excuse. The young man refused to accept a draft notice and did not report to the enlistment office during the autumn draft in 2022. The court sentenced him under the article "evasion of the draft for military service in the absence of legal grounds for exemption."
The authorities of Yevpatoria [a Crimean city] refused to purchase thermal imaging scopes for the front since the municipality did not provide the budget for their acquisition.
In the Kuban village of Novomyshastovskaya, volunteers from the "Chistie Serdca" ["Pure Hearts"] movement conducted classes with young school children on making trench candles and writing letters to military personnel. In the village of Krasnoznamenskoye, Vladimir region, at the Church of the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God, a collection box was installed to gather donations "for the war." At a hallway entrance of a residential building in Perm, someone placed a large cardboard box for collecting tin cans to make trench candles [for the front].
Wives and mothers of servicemen from the Arkhangelsk region are invited to participate in two photography projects — "Wives of Heroes" and "Mothers of Heroes". This is done by dressing the women in military tunics and asking them to write a few words about their loved ones. Earlier, Yekaterina Kolotovkina, the wife of the 2nd Combined Arms Army commander, launched a similar initiative in the Samara region.
A Russian citizen tried to get off a train heading to Kaliningrad to ask for political asylum in Lithuania. A man tried to approach Lithuanian customs officers at Kybartai station, but was turned away. He was detained as soon as he was on Russian territory. Currently, he is the subject of an investigation.
A record number of Russian citizens left for Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Mongolia, and Armenia in 2022, according to the Russian Border Service. The number of Russians who crossed the border with Mongolia increased by 989 percent. At least 20,000 people left Buryatia [Russia's constituent republic] after the start of mobilization. About half of them are ethnic Buryats.