Mobilization in Russia for Mar. 8–9, 2023 CIT volunteer summary
Service members involved in the “special military operation” having a loan under the low-interest mortgage programme will be eligible for a deferral and can register the property rights at a later date, Russia’s Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced. Moreover, interest rates will be fixed for members of the army who purchased or built housing under the Far East mortgage program, and they will be granted an option to register their property as their place of residence with a deferral.
Military personnel from the Kaliningrad region and their families will be reimbursed for the cost of air tickets, however, only starting from the year 2025, according to the comment posted by the governor of the region Anton Alikhanov on his page on the VKontakte social network.
The governor of the Belgorod region announced that the construction of the so-called "barrier line" on the border with Ukraine had been completed. “We have finished it. It was completed a long time ago. I hope the enemy can appreciate its magnitude and quality”, Governor Gladkov stated. Earlier, it was reported that 10 billion rubles had been spent on the construction of this line. Other than that, the governor demonstrated some fully equipped defensive positions located in the region. In response to these reassuring photos, a mother of a conscript posted photos of real trenches her son is stationed in on the border between the Belgorod region and Ukraine.
Each day, mobilized soldiers are killed on the front line. Aleksandr Starovoitov and Aleksey Aleksandrov from the Krasnoyarsk region, Dmitry Polyakov and Pavel Chebotkov from the Perm region, as well as Aleksandr Pogorelov from the Rostov region, lost their lives recently. Draftees die not only while on active duty. Maksim Baldin, mobilized from the Vladimir region, died in a road accident while on furlough, whereas some of his fellow service members sustained injuries.
The names of two more mobilized soldiers who were killed in Makiivka on the night of Jan. 1, 2023, have become known. They are Aleksandr Efimov and Valery Kuzmin. Thus, we now know the names of 136 people who were killed as a result of the strike in Makiivka.
Recently, an appeal appeared from mobilized soldiers from Mordovia [Russia’s constituent republic], Mari El [Russia’s constituent republic], and Ulyanovsk, who were handed over to the military of the “DPR.” According to the soldiers, the “DPR” military began to send them on unprepared assaults, resulting in significant losses. Their wives and mothers showed the editorial staff of the Govorit NeMoskva Telegram channel correspondence with their husbands and sons and, on condition of anonymity, told why the soldiers decided to share their data with journalists. Meanwhile, the relatives of the mobilized soldiers from Irkutsk sharply reacted to the report of the regional commission, which, after complaints from the soldiers, visited them in the "DPR". The relatives of the soldiers stated that they had not received messages from their husbands, brothers, and sons for several weeks.
Evidently, the number of complaints from mobilized soldiers about their situation on the front line has sharply increased recently. In a month, soldiers from 16 regions recorded video appeals about poor preparation, lack of equipment, and being sent "to slaughter." The Vyorstka media outlet collected all the appeals that appeared during this time.
In the town of Pakino in the Vladimir region, a special catch-all military unit for “lost” Ukraine war participants has been created. Mikhail Zvinchuk, a member of the special military operation working group at the office of the President, clarified that this special unit popped up because many soldiers had been assigned to newly formed units and often did not know where to report for duty.
In the Stavropol region, a hand grenade was detonated during a brawl resulting in several injuries. The confrontation occurred near a cafe in the town of Izobilny. As two groups were involved in a brawl, one of the participants took out a hand grenade and pulled the ring. Six people were hospitalized, and two of them are in an ICU.
Gunfire erupted in the downtown city of Dalnegorsk in the Primorsky region. Police detained a group of men and determined that they were draftees on leave from the combat zone who decided to fire some shots from an assault rifle.
The criminal case against a Kansk resident accused of firing a gun and throwing a Molotov cocktail at a billboard advertising signing a contract with the army has reached the court. This is the case of a 35-year-old English teacher facing charges of hooliganism and threatening to murder his neighbor whom he came across after shooting at the billboard. The man confessed and did not deny his guilt during the investigation. He now faces up to seven years in a penal colony. According to the news outlet Taiga.info, the prosecution is also attempting to charge the man with “terrorism” for setting fire to a local draft office. The authorities are trying to pull a confession out of the man for something he did not commit. At the first opportunity to do so, the man made a claim that he had been subjected to torture.
On Sept. 26, Ruslan Zinin came to a draft office in Ust-Ilimsk and opened fire. As a result, he wounded Aleksandr Eliseev, the local military commissar. Two days later, Zinin was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of a law enforcement officer. The initial charge does not reflect the facts of the case: a military commissar can not be considered a law enforcement officer. Now Zinin has been charged with a terrorist act and is facing from 12 to 20 years in prison. Earlier, he sent a letter in which he detailed the motives behind his actions.
The defendants in the “Mayakovsky case,” who recited a poem calling to refuse to accept draft notices, received additional charges. Artyom Kamardin, Egor Shtovba and Nikolay Daineko are now charged with “public calls for action against the security of the State by an organized group.” Pavel Chikov [Russian lawyer and human rights activist] notes that this is the first criminal case in the country under this article.
Elena Kabakova, a lecturer at the Pyatigorsk State University, has been found guilty of “discrediting” the army and fined 30,000 rubles. The charges stem from a conversation with a student, in which she condemned his stepfather for going to fight in Ukraine (where she has relatives).
Police in Novosibirsk detained 23-year-old Pavel Oleinikov, suspected of setting fire to an aid collection point for mobilized soldiers. Pro-Russian Telegram channels report that Pavel has already set fire to the Aktivnyy gorod [Active City] center twice, where they put up parcels for the army, and was previously allegedly convicted of theft and violence against a government official.
The court of Murmansk received a criminal case on calls for an attack on military commissariats [enlistment offices] against a 33-year-old local resident. The case against the man was initiated under the article on calls for activities against the security of the state. According to investigators, in September 2022, a resident of Murmansk, while at home, published a call to attack military commissariats and their employees on a social network. It is not specified what exactly and where the man wrote.
The husband of a woman with a disability was mobilized from a village to take part in the "special military operation." The authorities do not provide her with the promised support, payments turned out to be much lower than promised, and the woman sends most of the money she receives to her husband to buy food. Meanwhile, she has to get ice and melt it, as there is no water in her house and complains that she was brought “a KaMAZ truck full of firewood” just to make a photo report.
In the Ural region, an ex-official obtained recognition for his mobilization for the "special military operation" through the court. Initially, the court erroneously refused to send the former head of the Ministry of State Property Management of the Sverdlovsk region, Aleksey Pyankov, to the front because he was under investigation due to a criminal case of corruption. The investigators considered that because of this, Pyankov could not be mobilized, but his lawyer in court proved the legality of the mobilization, and the draft commission obeyed the decision of the judge.
One of the mobilized from the Republic of Buryatia [constituent republic of Russia] has managed to get cancellation of the decision on his conscription to the army. The man was included in the list of bank employees subject to deferment from military service, but the military commissariat of Buryatia ignored that and recommended contacting the military unit where he was serving before. The officers of the military unit informed him that granting a deferral was not within their competence. The military commissariat of the Soviet and Zheleznodorozhny districts of Ulan-Ude replied that the man had no reason for the deferment of mobilization at all. However, the court took the man's side and satisfied his administrative claim.
In Krasnoyarsk, basic military training courses were opened for everyone. "Army" classes were organized by activists from the Rokot community — they perform assault training, teach weapons handling, and conduct forced marches.
The To Be Continued Telegram channel described how the war affected the standard of living in the Kurgan regional center, in particular, the city's real estate market.
At School No. 208 in Yekaterinburg, fifth-graders were given the task of learning Shaman's [Russian singer who supports the invasion of Ukraine] song "I'm Russian."