Mobilization in Russia for November 17-18, volunteer summary
The State Duma proposed to forgive fines for traffic violations for mobilized people. Deputies headed by LDPR party chairman Leonid Slutsky have submitted a draft resolution on amnesty for mobilized people for traffic violations. It is proposed to cancel the rulings on fines and arrests, as well as initiated proceedings against the mobilized. The State Council of Tatarstan asks to cancel the postponement of alimony payments granted to the mobilized. According to the current legislation, combatants may not pay alimony until the end of combat. State Council deputy Svetlana Zakharova believes that this is wrong: the money they send could be the only means of subsistence for the fighters' children or elderly parents.
Russian Z-war correspondents and propagandists began to claim that general mobilization could begin in Russia in December or January. However, so far there has been no confirmation of this information. Nevertheless, in St. Petersburg, they started issuing summonses for 2023. A woman went to the military commissariat [enlistment office] for a permission to fly abroad but received a summons for her husband for 2023. And a draft board of the Yaroslavl region required a 47-year-old man, who served in the army with the rank of private, to come to the enlistment office on November 17 "to clarify the data". At the draft board, he was given a recruitment paper and told to come with his belongings on Monday, November 21.
About 130 mobilized residents of the Vladimir region, previously sent to difficult combat conditions, have been placed in settlements in the rear zone of the "special military operation." More than 1,000 fighters of the 346th Regiment continue to serve, said regional governor Alexander Avdeev on Thursday. He noted that it was inadmissible to send unprepared soldiers to difficult combat conditions.
Relatives of the mobilized from the Vladimir region have recorded the third appeal so far. They ask to evacuate 80 bodies of the perished ones and to help the surviving mobilized in the area of Kuzemivka in the Luhansk region. The command of the surviving soldiers also consists of the mobilized, which, according to the relatives, “leads to mass casualties among the troops.”
Relatives of the mobilized from Volgograd requested their authorities not to send to the frontline their close ones from the 291th Regiment for they “were just ordinary people and not military professionals”. No one of them (the soldiers) underwent a medical examination, lots of them have dependent children and parents with disabilities, some are aged themselves and suffer from different diseases. The women (relatives) ask to get their close ones back home for they (the soldiers) had received draft notices on their own, but demand them not to be sent to the frontline.
More than 50 mobilized from Voronezh, who had experienced being under fire at the frontline and then managed to turn back to Russia, were again deployed in the Luhansk region on November 17. Alena, the wife of the mobilized soldier Ivan Desyatnikov, told about that. A sister of one of the soldiers came to Valuyki and tried at first to shoot a video of soldiers setting off and then to follow them in order to find out where they (the soldiers) were about to be taken to but she was detained by the police. Alena hasn`t been able to reach out to her husband or that woman since then.
Relatives of the mobilized from the Lipetsk region claim that their men were deployed at the frontline without training or equipment and demand them back. Also the relatives pointed out that the command had put the mobilized under fire by deception, “assuring that they were being brought to a safe place”.
The mobilized complained about being deployed right in a snowy forest in the Voronezh region. They buy food at their expense and warm up by campfires. A relative of one of the soldiers told “Ostorozhno, Novosti” (Watch out, news) Telegram channel that the mobilized had been living for two days in the forest so far. Before that the men had been deployed at a military base in the Bryansk region. They have no tents, they have to make huts or go to hotels. Disease rates rise among the servicemen. The mobilized are not supplied with food as well — everyone gets food on their own at the nearest shops.
“Ostorozhno, novosti” (Watch out, news) Telegram channel has also published a story of one of the Russian mobilized soldiers, who complained about the deployment conditions. The man has joined the 138th Brigade (military unit 02511). According to him, the fighters of the Brigade had never taken part in combat actions so far, they were just deployed in a field with “zero amenities”, where they suffer shelings. His brigade sleeps on the ground in puddles, among mice, while the commanders live in cottages a couple of kilometers away. The conscripts haven't washed themselves for a month, haven't changed their underwear. “It’s easier to die here because of the conditions than because of the shells,” he concludes.
Military servicemen from Novosibirsk including both mobilized and volunteers who withdrew earlier from positions after shellings told about their current situation. The 12 men who filed reports are at some area on the border now and remaining in complete ignorance about their future. The bulletproof vests, helmets and weapons which they received back in Novosibirsk were taken away from them. At the same time, according to them, attempts to send them back to trenches are continuing.
Mobilized men from Tomsk are going to be sent to the war without training. In a video which was published on the Vkontakte social network in the comments under a post by the Tomsk region Governor, the mobilized say that they have been in a military unit since the 26th of October and still haven’t held assault rifles in their hands. Once they went out to throw grenades at a training ground, but no grenades were found and they went back on foot to their unit for 10 km. “Officers lied to our faces that we are territorial defense. In the end, a lieutenant colonel has come out now and has said that he hears about it for the first time and we are just a rifle unit”, a mobilized man says.
Three-minor-child mother from Konosha village, Arkhangelsk region Vera Pestereva desperately fights for the return of her husband home. She believes that he is entitled to a postponement from the mobilization. Wherever she turned, attempts had no results. There is less and less time left, the mobilized spouse must be sent to the “special operation” zone soon. Meanwhile, 3 mobilized fathers of many children were returned home after complaints from their relatives and a communist councilman from Bryansk Konstantin Pavlov. The mobilized servicemen were sent to the front from their unit in Soloty village, Belgorod region on the 14th of October. Their wives had written appeals to the deputy of Bryansk region Duma Konstantin Pavlov. As a result, a prosecutor revealed improper military training, lack of medical care in the unit and it was decided to return the mobilized home.
The Ministry of Defense of Russia claimed that a video with soldiers from Smolensk region saying that they were left on the left bank of Dnipro river without communication and artillery support was faked. “An inspection identified the unit is at their positions now performing tasks as intended and they haven’t been shelled”, according to a statement of the National Defense Center of Russia. The appeal and others “false materials about the plight of military servicemen in the special operation zone”, the Center stated, are distributed by Telegram channels “in order to discredit the Russian Forces’ actions”.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense continues reporting that mobilized soldiers are undergoing combat training. In the rear zone of the "special operation", the combat cohesion of units manned by mobilized airborne forces' artillerists is being completed, and assault groups formed from mobilized servicemen and volunteers are being trained. In Sakhalin, mobilized soldiers continue their training. They are trained to destroy reconnaissance and sabotage groups, and are performing live firing from 120-mm mortars. In the Stavropol region, conscripts are trained to fire machine guns when defending.
In Barnaul, veterans of special forces launched initial military training courses. For a "symbolic amount of money" they offer their services to both men and women. According to the advertisement of the course, "Reserv22 was created exclusively for those people who may be affected by mobilization to receive all the necessary skills and prepare themselves physically and mentally."
The number of mobilized soldiers killed at the front lines continues to rise. Mobilized soldier Saribek Adamyan from the village of Molodezhny, the Trans-Baikal region, was killed in Ukraine. Raif Mukhamedyarov, born in 1988 in Kunashak, Chelyabinsk region, was mobilized on October 3 and was killed near Svatove on October 31. Boris Arsenyev, a 26-year-old radiotelephone and chart operator from Vilyuchinsk, Kamchatka region, was killed on November 3. Mobilized Corporal Dmitry Polivan from Nizhny Tagil, was killed by artillery fire in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson region.
Mobilized soldier from Chuvashia Boris Onkov claims that soldiers have been waiting for the promised humanitarian aid from the pro-government fund "PERLE" for three weeks. The fund confirmed that the parcels have not yet been sent to Ukraine, explaining that there is a shortage of necessary goods.
Residents of Penza are encouraged to collect first aid kits, radio sets, goggles, underwear, bulletproof vests, quadcopters, backpacks, and other gear for soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Residents of the city receive such leaflets in their mailboxes. And here is what food aid for families of mobilized soldiers looks like in the city of Ob, Novosibirsk region. To get it, residents need to visit several institutions and submit various documents.
Moscow schools announced the collection of New Year's letters and gifts for those taking part in the "special operation". According to parents at one of the capital's schools, students received a message about the patriotic action "News to the front": they must write letters to soldiers fighting in Ukraine by December 10. Servicemen from Buryatia will receive gifts for the New Year — bags with candies and socks. In total, more than 13,500 gifts will be packed, 100 of which will go to soldiers in hospitals. And students in Buryatia provided firewood for the family of a mobilized soldier.