Mobilization in Russia for Jan. 8–9, 2023, CIT volunteer summary

Russian President’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented yet again on the reports of the possibility of the new wave of mobilization, “As a whole, one shouldn’t give much weight to Telegram channels. The primary source of information on mobilization is the government headed by the President of Russia.”

The Russian government chose not to support the bill that would provide free psychological aid to combat veterans. The government’s position is that this question is already addressed by the existing law and that the measures being proposed are redundant.

The authorities intend to raise service members’ monetary allowance by 10.5%. The Russian Ministry of Defense proposed the increase. As is typical for this government department, the exact wording of the proposal has not been made public.

Names of draftees killed in the strike on Makiivka continue to emerge. Known killed are: Viktor Firyulin (b. 1989) and Nikolay Mazur (b. 1990), both from Togliatti, Ivan Gorshkov (b. 1998) from the village of Grazhdanskiy, Dmitriy Utkin from Chapaevsk, Yevgeniy Meshkov (b. 1990) from the village of Novosemeykino, and Aleksey Fatuev (b. 1977) from the village of Cheturovka. In addition, it has been confirmed that the deputy regiment commander Aleksey Bachurin (b. 1980) was killed along with the draftees Maksim Chigirev, Aleksandr Radaev, Andrey Shekhovtsov, and Vasiliy Ryadinskikh. Activists and draftees’ relatives from the Samara region started to compile their own lists of those killed while no official list has emerged to date. The list of service members killed in Makiivka whose relatives were informed of their deaths currently contains 35 names. Recall that the Ministry of Defense has claimed that 89 soldiers were killed while according to various other sources, no fewer than 300 servicemen were killed. Meanwhile, funerals of those killed are being held in the region (1, 2, 3, 4).

Mobilized soldiers from other regions are also being killed in action. Fanil Fayzulin, 32, from Omsk was killed in Ukraine on Dec. 30. Aleksandr Kapanitsky, 28, a mobilized soldier from the Krasnoyarsk region, was also killed in the war. Meanwhile, children's hockey coach Alexey Chepko was buried in Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod region.

Confirmations of the HIMARS MLRS strike on Shakhtarsk on Dec. 31, 2022 have appeared. The RuAF command and "military correspondents" concealed this incident. However, social networks have already started publishing obituaries of those killed as a result of this strike. It is reported that a total of several dozen Russian soldiers were killed in Shakhtarsk.

A video appeared, allegedly showing the aftermath of a strike on Dec. 16, 2022 on a school in Lantrativka, Luhansk region, where mobilized Russian soldiers were based. The video was published by blogger Anatoly Shariy, who claims that up to 100 people were killed in the strike. There is no confirmation of the reliability of this information, and Shariy himself has repeatedly published fakes. The strike on the school in occupied Lantrativka on Dec. 16 was reported by local "authorities" and the media. They also published photos from the impact site. According to them,11 civilians were killed in the strike. It was not officially reported anything about mobilized soldiers.

A serviceman from Luhansk was found hanged in a military unit in Moscow. 33-year-old Vitaly V. arrived in the capital from the “LPR”, where he was serving. Recently, the man was on the territory of the Alexander barracks, in which the 1st Semyonovsky Separate Rifle Regiment is based. On the evening of Jan. 3, fellow soldiers found Vitaly hanged in one of the barracks. The doctors were fighting for his life for 4 days, but could not save him. The Moscow police are investigating.

Relatives of mobilized soldiers from the Samara region raised the topic of humanitarian aid. They do not understand why the state cannot provide their loved ones with everything they need, including water and food. The main thing is that humanitarian aid is constantly in short supply, and often it simply does not reach the addressees. When relatives addressed Governor Dmitry Azarov, he directed them to volunteers.

Mobilized soldiers from Irkutsk were sent to the front in the Luhansk region in freight-cars. The soldiers posted videos showing the conditions in which they have to ride. Wooden cars are freezed through, there are unsanitary conditions inside, a hole has been cut in the floor of the car instead of a toilet. The Mobilization Telegram channel published a similar video from the car. It was allegedly filmed by the Yaroslavl Infantry Regiment and subsequently removed from the regiment's Telegram channel.

Volunteer soldiers from Bashkiria [Russia’s constituent republic] complained that they could not return to Russia even after being discharged. The men riding in the back of a tractor said they had been discharged from the Army and had been trying to get home for a week, but they were not allowed to enter Russia at any of the three checkpoints. They have no money or food.

A tent camp of mobilized soldiers has burned down near Orenburg. The fire broke out in a training unit in the village of Nizhnyaya Pavlovka on the morning of Jan. 9. The local fire engine was out of order, so the soldiers had to wait for rescuers. Presumably, drunken officers are to blame for the fire, the Orenburg Ochevidets [Orenburg Eyewitness, a local group on the Vkontakte social network] reports, citing one of the mobilized men.

Irina Kim from Crimea is trying to obtain justice and get money for the treatment of her brother, Anatoly Kim. In July, her brother went to Mariupol to clean up rubble and work at a construction site, as he was promised a lot of money. However, as a result, the man was dressed in a military uniform, given a machine gun, and sent to the war.

But there is also good news. Mobilized soldier Aleksey Abramov, whose wife had held a one-person picket at the Administration building of the Krasnodar region, was returned to the city to undergo a medical examination. Let us recall that Abramov was sent to the war, despite the vertebral hernia, which prevents him from moving normally.

The Supreme Court of Tatarstan [Russia’s constituent republic] declared the decision on mobilization illegal. On Sept. 24, 2022, a resident of Chistopol was called up for military service within mobilization. His relatives went to court and asked to declare the decision illegal, pointing out that the draft board for mobilization ignored the arguments about his reserved occupation. The city court dismissed the suit. However, the Supreme Court of Tatarstan did not agree with the conclusions of the lower court and found the decision on mobilization illegal. The decision of the court has entered into force. Relatives of the mobilized soldier intend to have him returned home.

In Bratsk, there was an attempt to set fire to a military commissariat at night. Around 2 a.m. eyewitnesses reported seeing smoke coming from the windows of a wooden building of the military commissariat [enlistment office] on Ryabinovaya Street. According to the Baza Telegram channel, someone threw a Molotov cocktail through a first floor window of the building. A security guard noticed the smoke and called the fire brigade, and the fire was extinguished. However, according to Pervyi v Bratske [First in Bratsk] page on the VKontakte social network, “partial” mobilization was held in another military commissariat in the Padunsky district of the town, and the wooden building on Ryabinovaya Street was not involved.

A 16 y.o. student of the Financial and Economic College of Krasnoyarsk was detained on suspicion of a sabotage act of burning down a container at the Sorokino railway station in the Krasnoyarsk region.

A serviceman who returned from the war in Ukraine took grenades with cartridges to a store. As a result, the Saratov garrison military court sent him to a penal colony for “storage of ammunition.”

In Khabarovsk, elementary school students were shown how to disassemble assault rifles. They had a "master class on weapons from World War II and the present day."

Five Russians who left their country due to mobilization are stuck at the Seoul airport. According to The Korea Times, the country's authorities refused to grant asylum to the men. Among those living in the airport lounge are a 23-year-old student from Buryatia [Russia’s constituent republic], natives of Krasnoyarsk and Nalchik, and two other men. All five men, after the rejection of their asylum applications, filed a complaint with the Incheon court. They are asking the court to force the Ministry of Justice to reverse the refusal. The Ministry says that draft evasion is not a reason for granting refugee status in South Korea.