Mobilization in Russia for Mar. 4–5, 2023 CIT volunteer summary
Head of the Irkutsk branch of the All-Russian Student Rescue Corps and member of the ruling United Russia party Yakov Mindrulyov denied allegations that most of the mobilized soldiers of the 1439th Regiment, who had appealed with complaints to the Governor of the Irkutsk region Igor Kobzev, were killed. On the governor’s channel, Mindrulyov responded to members of the public concerned about the wellbeing of these draftees. He claimed to have visited the “DPR” to meet with the servicemen mobilized from the region. “A large number of our men are alive and in good health,” Mindrulyov reaffirmed. However, family members of these soldiers have not yet received any response from the governor.
Mobilized residents from the Kaliningrad, Murmansk, and Arkhangelsk regions serving with the 1004th Regiment issued a video appeal to Putin. The soldiers complained of being ordered to assault the Ukrainian positions with “weapons from the 1940s,” including mortars and cannons. “The tactic of miners is ineffective, no written combat orders are issued. We were trained to serve in territorial defense, we are not an assault unit. During the first assault mission, six people were killed”. The men started to receive warnings and threats. “We will be disciplined for speaking up. They say they will lock us in a basement and will arrange one-on-one conversations.”
Mobilized men from the Krasnodar region complain about “being sent on assault missions every other day” without preparation and suffering “enormous losses” in the Donetsk region. Previously, soldiers of the 255th regiment of the 20th division were serving on the Kherson axis but have since been deployed to the Donetsk region, where the DPR military leadership has been ordering them to storm Ukrainian positions. During these assaults, commanders do not provide support to their men or evacuation for the wounded, who remain lying on the battlefield for hours until the Armed Forces of Ukraine take them prisoner.
The wife of a mobilized man from Ust-Kut [a town in the Irkutsk region] described her husband’s survival on the front line in the so-called LPR. In 2 months there, he took part in approximately 10 assault sorties. “Almost everyone is shell shocked. Air attacks are incessant. Soldiers are thrown into battle without tank support, and forced to storm with automatic rifles and grenades only. Casualties are high”, described the woman. She says her husband and his comrades sleep in local residents’ basements or in dugouts. Many have started using drugs. Some soldiers attempt to harm themselves in order to be taken to a hospital. But it is almost impossible to get out of there, says the wife of the mobilized man.
A resident of the village of Kosinskoye, Vladimir region, recorded a video message for President Putin. The woman claims that her son, who was called up for war, disappeared in Ukraine in November. Since that time, the mother knows nothing about the fate of the serviceman. "I've been looking for him for five months. I applied everywhere: to the Vladimir regional military commissariat [enlistment office], and to Governor Aleksandr Avdeyev. As November and December progressed, I was still calm: payments were coming in, so he was considered a serviceman on duty, even though I could not contact him. In January, I began to worry because the payments hadn't come. In Pakino, from where he was called up, my son has been reported missing," the draftee’s mother says. Her appeals to the authorities have not yet led to anything.
The Ministry of Defense posted videos showing the training of airborne assault units, as well as positions held by Russian draftees on Dnipro's left bank.
In addition, the Ministry of Defense launches an additional hotline number covering issues of the "special military operation." The number 117 is now available for citizens to contact the Ministry as an alternative to the number 122.
The number of mobilized soldiers who were killed in the war in Ukraine continues to rise. Andrey Saraev and Leonid Glinskiy from the Novosibirsk region, Aleksey Lanert and Ivan Matasar from the Sverdlovsk region, Andrey Pavlenko, Andrey Putsillo, Sergey Dyomin, Mikhail Romanov, and Yuriy Mamontov from the Tula region were killed on the frontlines.
In the Sverdlovsk region, Vladlen Menshikov, who was previously accused of attempted "sabotage on the railway", has now also been accused of "collaborating with foreigners against the security of the Russian Federation" (Article 275.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and "publicly calling for terrorism" (Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). We wrote about Menshikov’s case in one of our previous summaries. The man was arrested on Feb. 22 and may face up to eight years in prison on the new charges.
According to Russian lawyer and human rights activist Pavel Chikov, last year saw a record number of criminal cases related to terrorism and extremism in Russia. The trend is expected to continue in 2023. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation has reported that in January of this year, 157 criminal cases of a "terrorist nature" and 134 of an "extremist orientation" have been initiated.
As reported, a mobile selection point for military service was put in Kurgan. Previously, similar points were also noticed in the Sverdlovsk region, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, and other places.
A 28-year-old Pavel Zavalishin from Kursk was digging trenches at the Ukrainian border when he found a hand grenade which he then took home. As he bragged about his find to his neighbors, the latter was not amused and called the police. Suddenly scared, the man threw the grenade out the window. The police arrived, detained the man, and sent the grenade to a lab for analysis.
Traditional 8th of March [International Women’s Day] concerts in Russian regions have been replaced with patriotism-themed encounters with widows and mothers of soldiers killed in the war. Several regions held concerts for female relatives of those killed, where Russian flags were waved, and speeches about defending the Motherland were heard.
On March 4th, one of the shopping centers in the city of Obninsk held a “Gratitude for Kindness” fair where crafts made by children were sold. The local journalist Yevgeniy Serkin informed that the souvenirs were made by children suffering from various illnesses, including oncological disorders. The proceeds will benefit the wounded soldiers from Obninsk.
A schoolboy from Yekaterinburg weaves camouflage nets for the Russian soldiers at his home. Representatives of his school stated that the boy will be provided with a workspace and a team of helpers.
The Ostorozhno, novosti [Beware, the news] Telegram channel got the decision of the commission on juvenile affairs of the Tula region, which sent the year six student Masha Moskalyova to the orphanage (we reported about her and her father in previous summaries). The decision, in particular, states that the girl does not study well due to improper control, and the father is not interested in her upbringing, which negatively affects the spiritual and moral development of her daughter. Earlier, FSB [Russia’s Federal Security Service] officers threatened the man to take his daughter away from him, and a few days ago, he was placed under house arrest after being detained, but his daughter was never returned from the orphanage. A Bring Masha Moskalyova home petition appeared on the Change.org portal. The authors demand that the case against Aleksey Moskalyov is dropped and that his daughter, Masha, be returned home from the orphanage. At the moment of making the summary, the petition has received nearly 3,000 signatures.
A man went to a psychiatrist as he had suicidal thoughts because of the war and the human suffering associated with it. As follows from the published part of the correspondence, in response, the doctor suggested that the man himself go to war in order to “bring the day of victory closer” and not become “another senseless corpse.”