Mobilization in Russia for June 10-11, 2024 CIT Volunteer Summary
Army Recruitment and Military Service Advertising
In the Moscow region, police and draft officers conducted another raid against migrants. In Lyubertsy, law enforcement officers detained eight individuals who had obtained citizenship but had not registered for military service; they were sent to the draft office. According to "Ostorozhno, Moscow," roundups also took place in Krasnogorsk while a raid was also planned in Podolsk. Journalists claim that such raids will become a regular occurance. In addition to the Moscow region, roundups of migrants look place in several localities in the Rostov region, resulting in the registration of 44 naturalized citizens for military service. More than 1,700 people were checked during the raids in the region. According to authorities, over 300 naturalized citizens have been registered for military service in the Rostov region since the beginning of the year, 23 of whom have signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense. Additionally, 12 foreign citizens have signed contracts.
Roundups of conscripts are taking place in Russia's constituent Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). According to the Idite Lesom! [Flee through the woods/Get lost you all] Telegram channel, young men are being picked up on the streets and taken to the draft office, where the medical evaluation board assigns each of them either the service fitness categories "A" (fully fit for military service) or "B" (fit for military service with minor restrictions). Out of several dozen individuals, only five with serious diagnoses and one person whose relatives had consulted a lawyer were released.
The Idite Lesom! project also published appeals from the relatives of conscripts in Moscow, who claim that young men are being detained on the streets or summoned to draft offices. Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian newspaper, released a film titled "Roundup," which uses the stories of three young men to illustrate the Spring 2024 draft: police are mass-detaining conscription-age men, often using facial recognition cameras, and taking them to draft offices, from where they are often sent to service the same day. The Insider, an independent Russian investigative media outlet, spoke with human rights activists about numerous violations during the current draft campaign and changes in Moscow following the establishment of the Unified Military Recruitment Center.
The Russian army has begun sending women recruited in prisons to fight in the war in Ukraine. According to the New York Times, the first group of several women was released in late May from a penal colony near Saint Petersburg. Of the 400 women held at the colony, 40 wanted to go to the frontline. Olga Romanova, Executive Director of the Rus’ Sidyashchaya (Russia Behind Bars) civil rights movement, first reported the recruitment of women in colonies in August last year. Later, the independent Russian investigative media outlets Vazhnyye Istorii (IStories) (1, 2) and Bumaga (Paper) confirmed the recruitment of women in several regions. At the time, women were offered a one-year contract that included roles as medics, snipers or assault troops. They were promised two months of training before being sent to the frontline and a pardon upon contract completion. However, there have been no confirmed cases of women being sent to the frontline. In May, Romanova reported that the Ministry of Defense had suspended the recruitment of women from the colonies for the war effort. At the same time as the NYT article was published, Tatyana Moskalkova, Russia's Commissioner for Human Rights, said she had received requests from convicted women asking to be sent to the war. However, according to Moskalkova, no female convicts have yet been sent to the front.
RBC [Russian media group] has reported that at least 22 Sri Lankan citizens, who were involved in the war against Ukraine, have deserted and managed to return home. Sri Lanka’s foreign minister stated that many of them had been deceitfully recruited for the war. For example, one of the returnees, who worked as a driver in his home country, was offered a similar job in Russia, but was soon sent to the frontline. He was wounded there and ended up in a hospital, from where he escaped to the Sri Lankan embassy in Moscow, which helped him return home. According to unofficial data, between 600 and 800 Sri Lankan citizens are currently fighting for the Russian military, and at least 16 have been killed. Previously, Sri Lanka sent a delegation to Russia to ascertain the fate of its citizens, while in Sri Lanka, seven individuals were arrested for recruiting people for the ongoing war.
Mobilized Soldiers, Volunteer Fighters and Contract Soldiers
The list of mobilized soldiers killed in the war has been updated to include Vladislav Sklyar from the Volgograd region and Ivan Bibik from the Kamchatka region.
Additionally, Aleksey Levin, the former head of the penal colony No.6 in the Bryansk region, was killed in the war. In 2021, Levin was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for the deaths of two convicts: one was beaten to death by a colony employee in 2019, and the other suffocated during torture in 2018. In the summer of 2023, Levin was convicted of bribery and sentenced to nine years in prison combined with the previous charges. It is likely that Levin, who served in an assault unit, went to the war from the penal colony.
The mobilized commander of an anti-aircraft missile battery, Andrey Eliseenko from Saint Petersburg, claims that he was tied to a tree during a shelling because of his conflict with his superiors. Eliseenko reported the lack of equipment and supplies in his regiment during an inspection, despite his superiors' request that he remain silent. In response, his commander tied him to a tree and left him there for four hours amid shelling. Eliseenko's wife provided a video recording of him being tied to the tree.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
In the city of Orenburg, a Wagner Group mercenary, Kirill Smirnov, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for murder, attempted murder of two people, and theft. Smirnov returned home from the war in April 2023 to his wife and young child. On May 8, 2023, "in a state of intoxication during an argument," he attacked a neighbor and stabbed him in the neck. The injured neighbor managed to reach his home and was taken to a hospital. Smirnov then went to the house of his childhood friend's parents, intending to "take" his friend's girlfriend. Instead, he found only his friend's mother, whom he brutally killed. Smirnov tried to escape the police by jumping from the fourth floor, breaking his legs in the process. During the sentencing, the court considered Smirnov's participation in the war and his "For Courage" medal as mitigating factors. The court noted that Smirnov had no previous convictions, but according to the victim and witnesses, he went to the war in 2022 from a colony where he was serving a sentence for murder. The Vyorstka media outlet discovered that in 2015, Smirnov was sentenced to 12 years in a maximum security colony for the murder of a 29-year-old woman.
In the village of Chekmagush in Bashkortostan [Russia's constituent republic], a 33-year-old mobilized soldier who returned from the war killed his 25-year-old ex-wife, the mother of two children. The man was detained and charged with causing grievous bodily harm resulting in death. He has confessed to the crime.
In the Primorsky region [Russia's federal subject], two female residents of the village of Kraskino, aged 18 and 16, have accused 43-year-old military serviceman Stanislav Tsabiyev of rape. Tsabiyev was mobilized in November 2022 but returned to Kraskino because of health problems. TV Rain [independent Russian television channel], citing sources, reported that Tsabiyev is allegedly being protected by the local Federal Security Service (FSB). The two girls are not the only ones who have suffered from Tsabiyev's actions, according to a neighbor of one of the victims interviewed by the Sibir.Realii [part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty] online media outlet. She mentioned that the man was known as a rapist even before he went to the war in Ukraine.
In the town of Kropotkin in the Krasnodar region, a serviceman under the influence of drugs brutally assaulted a woman. The victim fears that the incident might be "hushed up" as the attacker is a participant in the war in Ukraine. According to the Gazeta.Ru media outlet, his name is Andrey Badma-Goryaev. He was not immediately detained after the incident and went to the front. He had previously been convicted of attempted murder and was recruited from prison to fight in the war.
The Southern District Military Court has upheld the verdict against Viktor Lisitsyn, a mobilized soldier from the Krasnodar region. He was sentenced to two years and two months in a penal settlement for failing to execute orders. The verdict stated that in September 2023, Lisitsyn refused to go into combat. In court, Lisitsyn and his defense argued that he had not abandoned his combat positions but had refused to go into fighting because he had not been granted leave for a long time.
The Southern District Military Court has returned the case of the mobilized Bigali Mamaev for a new hearing. Mamaev was accused of offering a bribe to avoid being sent to war against Ukraine. According to the case files, in early November 2022, Mamaev arranged through an intermediary with his commander to give up his entire salary for the opportunity to remain in the Volgograd region. From November to March 2023, he paid a total of 750,000 rubles [$8,440]. However, his commanders deceived him and did not fulfill their part of the agreement. The sentence was overturned on appeal because the judge who issued it had previously considered the case of the bribe-taker and therefore could not convict Mamaev.
According to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, a court in Khabarovsk sentenced officer Maksim Gul to five years in a penal colony and a fine of 300,000 rubles [$3,370] for large- scale fraud. Gul demanded 1.8 million rubles [$20,200] from a former war participant who did not want to return to Ukraine after being wounded, for a transfer to another military unit. The former war participant turned to the FSB, where he was offered to take part in an operational experiment. The officer was detained during the money transfer. Gul partially pleaded guilty, stating that he really wanted to help the soldier. The bribery case against the wounded serviceman was dropped after he turned to the FSB.
In Saint Petersburg, a man accused of setting fire to a draft office in the city center last summer has died. 54-year-old Aleksandr Perov was brought from the pre-trial detention center to Mariinsky Hospital in a state of clinical death on June 10, but could not be saved. The cause of his death is unknown. Perov is accused of arson at the draft office —on the evening of July 31, 2023, he attempted to ram the gates with his car and also threw Molotov cocktails onto the porch, causing minor damage to the building. During interrogation, Perov reported that an interlocutor in a messenger, who identified himself as "an FSB officer," had asked him to set fire to the draft office. In August 2023, the court sent Perov to the pre-trial detention center, and on June 13, the defense of the accused was supposed to appeal the detention order.
The FSB reported the detention of a Kamchatka resident who allegedly transmitted information about Russian military facilities to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine. A criminal case has been initiated on charges of cooperation on a confidential basis with a foreign state. According to the intelligence services, the man provided information about a high-ranking police officer and expressed his intention to disclose information about the locations of military units.
The FSB also reported the detention of a resident of the occupied part of the Luhansk region, allegedly for donating to the Azov Brigade and the Right Sector. The name of the detainee was not disclosed. A criminal case has been initiated against the Ukrainian citizen on charges of financing terrorism and financing extremist activities.
The Supreme Court of Crimea sentenced a 44-year-old Yalta resident to five years in a penal colony on charges of cooperation on a confidential basis with a foreign state. Previously, an accomplice of the defendant, also a Yalta resident, was sentenced to six years in a penal colony.
Vitaly Barinov, an English language teacher from Kansk, was released from the colony after serving a two-year sentence for shooting at a pro-military banner.
Assistance
Governor of the Perm region Dmitry Makhonin has proposed to grant free admission to theaters to participants in the war in Ukraine. A court in the Zabaykalsky region [Russia's federal subject] announced the purchase of equipment for the Victory Workshop production unit organized by the commanders of the 36th Separate Disciplinary Battalion of the Military Police at the very beginning of the full-scale invasion. Additionally, a fourth-grader from Buryatia [Russia's constituent republic] spent his year’s savings to buy a collimator sight for the military. In return, he received a military cap and a balaclava.
In Kazan, civilian doctors have been sent to treat the war participants. The 300-bed Republican Clinical Hospital [civilian facility] has already provided medical care to 3,000 military personnel. This is despite the availability of a modern 150-bed Ministry of Defense hospital, which was opened in 2022, and a 319-bed veterans' hospital.
Miscellaneous
According to the data of the Pension and Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation analyzed by Vazhnyye Istorii, 93 people who visited the occupied territories of Ukraine as volunteers or on business could have been killed or injured in 2023.
More than 400 residents of the Belgorod region, including 93 children, have been affected by shelling in the last month and a half—almost half of the total number of injured since the beginning of the war (1,087 people). This was stated by the Minister of Health of the region Andrey Ikonnikov. The official also provided data on the deceased: 169 people, including 15 children, were killed by shelling. According to the 7x7—Gorizontalnaya Rossiya [Horizontal Russia] news outlet, 186 people have died in the Belgorod region since the start of the war. Additionally, residents of Belgorod recorded an appeal to the region's governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, requesting the installation of shelters at a children's playground.
Longreads
The Vot Tak [Like This] media outlet reports on how Russia Day is planned to be celebrated this year. On June 12, workshops on camouflage net weaving, military collections, and exhibitions of military equipment are planned.
Novaya Gazeta Europe [European edition of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta] discusses the evolution of the Russian movement of the wives of mobilized soldiers and why it eventually split into "pro-Kremlin" and "foreign agent" factions.
The Idel.Realii [part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty] online media outlet details what is happening with the "Baymak case," with trials soon to begin in regions neighboring Bashkortostan.