Mobilization in Russia for June 20-21, 2024 CIT Volunteer Summary
Authorities and Legislation
Minister of Defense Andrey Belousov and Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Maksut Shadayev have agreed to make confirmations of benefits available digitally to participants of the war against Ukraine, including through the Gosuslugi public services portal and in Multifunctional Public Services Centers. According to the meeting minutes, such a service will be launched in the third quarter of this year.
Authorities and Relatives of Mobilized Soldiers
Adult children of military personnel killed in the war are demanding a change to the compensation legislation. In April, Putin had signed a decree to give them priority in distributing death gratuities, amounting to 5 million rubles [$57,900],among beneficiaries. However, they are still excluded from other compensation payments, totaling 8.2 million rubles [$94,900]. A group of fifty activists recorded a collective address demanding that adult children be included among the beneficiaries of these payments.
Mobilized Soldiers, Volunteer Fighters and Contract Soldiers
The list of mobilized soldiers killed in the war has been updated to include Andrey Gorbatenko from the Volgograd region, Roman Koshpaev, Aleksandr Kotelnikov, and Ilya Buldakov from the Kirov region, as well as Konstantin Stanchenko from the Volgograd region and Dmitry Protopopov from Buryatia [Russia's constituent republic].
Based on open sources, Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] and BBC News Russian, together with volunteers, have verified the names of 56,858 Russian fighters killed in Ukraine, including 6,816 mobilized soldiers. Over the past week, the list has been updated with the names of 406 military personnel, including 62 draftees. Additionally, Mediazona journalists reported on Russian soldiers who died in the first weeks of the war near Kyiv, which, according to Putin, Russian troops did not intend to storm. In total, during the first five weeks of the war, that is, before the retreat from Kyiv, Russian troops lost about 4,000 men.
Soldiers of the 169th Brigade complained that they were not being discharged after their contracts expired. They stated that they were not informed about the open-ended nature of their contracts due to the mobilization decree when they signed. Furthermore, the soldiers are not receiving uniforms or combat pay, and those who refuse to go on combat missions are being threatened with transfer to assault troops.
In the Kaliningrad region, Lev N., a 19-year-old conscript from Saint Petersburg, died at the 81st Radio Technical Regiment stationed in the village of Barsukovka, Mediazona reports, citing his sister. The young man's body with a gunshot wound to the jaw was discovered on June 19. According to the investigator, Lev was sexually assaulted and then shot himself. However, the soldier's family does not believe this version and suspects he may have been murdered. His mother visited him a few days earlier and reported that Lev was very happy and making plans, though he complained about "psychos and fanatics" among his fellow soldiers. The Ostorozhno, Novosti [Beware the News] Telegram channel claims that a day before his death, Lev asked to call his mother, then sent an SMS expressing a desire to end his life. On the morning of his death, he admitted to being in a very bad emotional state and wrote "Goodbye" to his mother. The Investigative Committee has not yet opened a case into Lev's death, and his relatives have not yet seen his body.
Russian soldiers stationed on the Belgorod-Kharkiv border have complained about being deceived about their salaries. The soldiers said that they "do not want to risk their lives for 40,000 rubles [$460]" instead of the promised 200,000 rubles [$2,320]. They also complained about the lack of food, equipment, and spare parts. There is also no officer presence with them. According to the soldiers, during combat missions reconnaissance is not conducted, the enemy is not softened up by artillery fire, and their unit lacks drones and electronic warfare equipment. Furthermore, wounded soldiers are unable to obtain the injury certificates necessary to qualify for corresponding benefits.
The 44-year-old mobilized Moscow resident, Aleksandr Kotov, who was being sent back to the frontline despite being on crutches after an injury, has been discharged from the army.
A contract soldier from the Zabaykalsky region [Russia's federal subject] is being held in a basement in the village of Zaitseve, his sister Natalia told the Astra Telegram channel. She believes he was sent there for misconduct, possibly drunkenness. The man told his sister that several other people were being taken to Zaitseve with him, but the exact number is unknown.
Residents of Karelia [Russia’s constituent republic] have demanded that the head of the republic, Artur Parfenchikov, return the mobilized soldiers to defend the new NATO border. They expressed their demand in response to Parfenchikov's statement about the formation of an army corps to ensure the security of the "northwestern frontier of the country."
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
The Southern District Military Court has begun hearing the case against Russian soldiers Aleksey Bulelin and Muntyan Tarasenko. They are accused of murdering two or more people to conceal another crime. They face sentences ranging from eight years in prison to life imprisonment. In March 2024, the Astra Telegram channel reported that Bulelin and Tarasenko had shot and killed three civilians in the occupied village of Kokhany in the Kherson region. Both soldiers have previous criminal records.
A court in Izhevsk has sentenced Artyom Yegorov, a mercenary of the Wagner Group, to 15 years in a penal colony for the murder of a friend and the attempted murder of his girlfriend, according to the Vyorstka media outlet. In 2020, Yegorov was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment for the murder of an acquaintance. In the fall of 2022, Yegorov was recruited by the Wagner Group from the penal colony. He spent no more than six months on the frontline, was pardoned in the spring of 2023, returned home with an injury and committed another murder. The court considered his alcohol intoxication an aggravating circumstance and his participation in the war a mitigating one.
Ruslan Magdiev, a mercenary of the Wagner Group who returned from the war, has been sentenced to seven years in a maximum security penal colony for causing grievous bodily harm resulting in the victim's death by negligence. Magdiev had prior convictions for murder, robbery and theft. In November 2022, he was recruited from a penal colony by the Wagner Group. Six months later, in June 2023, after receiving a pardon and a "For Courage" medal, he returned home. In November 2023, while intoxicated, Magdiev had a disagreement with another man, then attacked and brutally assaulted him, resulting in the man's death.
Two 16-year-old teenagers and a 19-year-old young man have been detained for an attempted act of terror. According to the Federal Security Service (FSB), on June 20, they allegedly attempted to set fire to relay and battery cabinets on the railway in Shakhty, Rostov region.
Fifteen-year-old student Arseny Turbin has been sentenced to five years in a penal colony on charges of participating in a terrorist organization for distributing anti-Putin flyers in his neighbors' mailboxes, according to the human rights project Memorial. Memorial has recognized the boy as a political prisoner, making him the youngest in modern Russia.
The FSB has reported the detention of a resident from the Novosibirsk region who was "preparing to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine." According to the agency, the 28-year-old man from the Iskitim district was apprehended in the Belgorod region while attempting to cross the border into Ukraine. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
Assistance
At a session of the Irkutsk Regional Assembly, deputies allocated an additional 3.4 billion rubles ($39.36 million) to support war participants and their families. However, the region has opted to cancel repairs to some schools.
Children and Educational System
Propagandist Zakhar Prilepin will teach a course on special propaganda as part of the "Strategic Communications, Information, and Hybrid Wars" program at the Faculty of Political Science at Moscow State University.
Russian authorities are enforcing the use of the Russian language and promoting Kremlin propaganda in schools within the occupied territories of Ukraine, according to a report by the Human Rights Watch. Students are required to use Russian textbooks that describe Ukraine as a "neo-Nazi state" and portray the annexation of Crimea in a positive light. Portraits of Putin and "heroes of the special military operation" are hung in schools, and children are forced to learn the Russian national anthem.
Miscellaneous
Workers at the Kalashnikov Group in Izhevsk have been forced to work extended hours due to a failure to meet the state defense order, according to Udmurtia Against Corruption news outlet. Employees are now working 12-hour days instead of 8 and are given only one day off a week. Despite the longer shifts, their wages have not increased, although overtime must be compensated by law.
In Saint Petersburg, plans for a new residential complex have been scrapped in favor of constructing a new defense manufacturing facility.
The "Minute by Minute" project, in collaboration with Vyorstka, plans to reconstruct the complete timeline of Yevgeny Prigozhin's [deceased owner of the Wagner Group] military rebellion and march on Moscow, which took place a year ago on June 23-24.
Holod [independent Russian media outlet] has discovered that since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, at least 153 streets in various cities across the country have been named or renamed in honor of the killed military personnel.
Longreads
Vyorstka published an article on how courts operate in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Astra revealed how a large-scale mortgage construction project in Mariupol, devastated by Russia, left tens of thousands of people homeless. Valuable land in Mariupol's historical center was allocated to Russian developers without any tender on the orders of Denys Pushylin [head of the so-called DPR], while local residents, if they get apartments at all, get them on the outskirts.
The Laboratory of Public Sociology analyzed who, how, and why avoid statutory military service in the Russian Army.
Ostorozhno, Novosti discussed how PTSD changes the lives of military personnel and what they can do about it. Experts speak of an increase in the number of people suffering from PTSD; statistically, up to 11% of military personnel encounter it. Meanwhile, the Sibir.Realii [part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty] online media outlet reported on the challenges faced by Russian soldiers who need prosthetic limbs after being wounded. For instance, one of the soldiers has been unable to receive a hand prosthesis since the beginning of 2023, and his requests are ignored both in the military unit and in the hospital.
The Okno project published the story of a 33-year-old former mercenary of the Wagner Group, Vladislav Zamkov, who, after returning from the war in Ukraine, decided to start a blog talking about problems in his hometown of Pitkyaranta. The man confesses that he allegedly killed about 200 people as part of the group, which he joined from a penal colony, but does not understand why he did it.
Novaya Gazeta Europe [European edition of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta] reported on how Russian regions compete with each other for contract soldiers by offering higher sign-up bonuses and how much this costs the state. Thus, the amount of payments increases on average every four days, and the average amount of bonuses has increased 15 times in two years.
Sibir.Realii published the story of 44-year-old Dmitry Gerasimov from Buryatia. His wife Natalya reported him after finding a GPS tracker in the closet and deciding that her husband was spying on her, although Dmitry intended to use it for the safety of their 9-year-old daughter with Asperger's syndrome. Realizing her mistake, the wife tried to stop the criminal case against her husband, but law enforcement officers refused and even threatened Natalya with a criminal case herself. Eventually, Dmitry was coerced into signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense under threats.