mobilization briefs
October 21, 2022

Russian mobilization news update by CIT volunteers, October 19-20

Putin has officially approved loan repayment "vacation" for the newly drafted business owners. He signed two laws to uphold this initiative. The first legislation allows conscripted entrepreneurs to apply for a loan vacation and the second allows to transfer the management of the business to a trustee. Also, Putin inspected training facilities of the airborne units from the Western military district (in the Ryazan region), where the new draftees were being put through their paces. While there, he received the defense minister Shoigu's report about the specifics of the combined arms training the new conscripts are receiving as part of the active army units. He also observed the new draftees practicing their firearms, engineering and medical skills. Then he fired a few shots from a sniper rifle, shook hands with a random draftee and asked if anyone had any issues or questions.

Russian Parliament members from the LDPR (a Russian nationalist political party) and the ostensibly moderate New People party, tabled a new law, giving conscripted Russian citizens the right to a full refund of all their flight and holiday tour expenses.

Kursk regional governor Roman Starovoit said his region is about to end the mobilization by the end of the week. Meanwhile, however, new conscripts are being shipped off from Kursk as per normal. A local Kursk volunteer, who collected funds to purchase gear for the soldiers, was himself issued a draft notice, right after his meeting with the local government representatives.

In the town of Kamensk-Uralsky, Sverdlovsk region, radio stations broadcast an announcement urging machine gunners, squad leaders, gunners, and driver-mechanics who have mobilization orders to arrive at the military commissariat without waiting for a draft notice delivery. This happens even though on October 4, the mayor of the city Alexey Gerasimov reported that the mobilization plan was completed.

The governor of the Chukotka region Roman Kopin announced the completion of a plan for the "partial" mobilization in the region. "After sending the second group of reservists, the mobilization plan in the region has been completed," he said.

The head of Buryatia Alexey Tsydenov refuses to pay a 195,000 rubles salary to the mobilized. According to him, while conscripts stay in Buryatia, the payroll is drawn based on a wage rate without bonuses — about 25,000 rubles per month for a private. Meanwhile, yesterday at the Security Council meeting, Vladimir Putin said that the mobilized were entitled to payments of at least 195,000 rubles per calendar month, including the training period. The head of Buryatia also met with the mobilized in the annexed Zaporizhzhia region. During the visit, Tsydenov checked how their training was going and whether they were provided with everything necessary. He noted that "everything is as it should be." He also promised to provide families of servicemen with firewood.

Families of the mobilized from the Primorye region will receive a lump-sum payment of 150,000 rubles, according to the governor Oleg Kozhemyako. And the spouses of the mobilized residents of the Sverdlovsk region will be paid 20,000 rubles in a lump sum. Children of the mobilized, including minors and those under 23 years of age studying full-time, will receive the same financial aid. In addition, children of conscripts will be provided with free school meals, and tickets to children's New Year's parties. The regional authorities also promise to pay for services provided by kindergartens and children's clubs.

For the first time, a court took into account the General Staff’s guidance and applied an unpublished “internal use only” normative act in a case where a father of three children under 16 appealed his military summons. In another first, a St. Petersburg court ruled unlawful the mobilization of a resident who had been placed on the centralized list of potential conscripts employed by an organization that ensures the stability of the national payment system.

“We are asking for humane treatment of our families,” wrote parents of disabled children in an address to Putin petitioning to defer their mobilization.

In the Khabarovsk Region, all the unemployed were called up. “With respect to the unemployed, we have fully completed our work. All unemployed who matched the eligibility criteria are called up and dispatched to military units,” stated the acting military commissar Vyacheslav Makarov.

Eight Sverdlovsk Region men mobilized in error were returned from a training center in Luhansk. They are currently undergoing medical examinations that would determine whether they are ready for combat or need to be sent home. Rayaz Bogdanov, a Sterlitamak resident, was mobilized before his employer was able to request for an exemption for him. The city administration communicated that his return won’t be possible. In St. Petersburg, the head of the Obyatie (Embrace) charity fund Roman Mironov who suffers from cerebral palsy said that he received a notice to appear at the draft board. In Ulan-Ude, the chief medical officer of an emergency hospital was mobilized. A few hours before the mobilization in the Moscow Region was declared over, the ICU doctor Sergei Shevyrev who had been saving lives in the so-called LPR and DPR was called up into infantry despite having an exempt status and regardless of the fact that his summons were not properly signed.

College students continue to be mobilized despite being eligible for deferral of military service. In Tatarstan, a 21-year-old trade school student was mobilized. In Volgograd, a full-time student enrolled in an in-person program was mobilized and sent out to defend Kherson.

Dmitri Sidorov, 23, from Buryatia was mobilized on September 22. Already on October 4, he was killed “on Ukrainian territory”. Four mobilized were buried in the Krasnoyarsk Region.  They were killed almost immediately after being deployed to the combat zone. The circumstances of their deaths have not been officially reported; however, it is known that they could have been killed in the Kherson Region. Earlier, the authorities confirmed three more killed among the mobilized region natives.

In an interview to Bumaga (Paper) news portal, the sister of a St. Petersburg attorney who was killed in action said that out of seven men who served with him, only two survived.

Those mobilized from Anapa (Krasnodar Krai) were driven out into the street from their military unit in Maykop (Republic of Adygea) because paperwork for them was not done in time. Despite that, people waited without food by their quarters and began to set up a makeshift camp in anticipation of being sent to war. The video is from October 14.

From a camp in Novosibirsk, the mobilized from the Novosibirsk and Irkutsk Oblasts, Krasnoyarsk Krai and two other Siberian regions were sent to war with ceremony. A man witnessed a group of mobilized soldiers from Kuzbass on the road. And this is how the farewell ceremony for those mobilized from Izobilny (Stavropol Krai) went.

As part of the mobilization in Chuvashia, a national regiment was created. According to one of the mobilized, “only about 40 percent of soldiers are combat-ready. The remaining 60 either still have hangovers after farewell parties, or do not understand what lies ahead of them and are always keen to have a smoke break rather than attend training, say, in medicine. The regiment will be commanded by a former life safety school teacher from Novocheboksarsk. He has the rank of lieutenant colonel."

The Sakhalin branch of the Russian Women Union handed out “protective” belts with the text of the 90th psalm to the mobilized. And a retired woman from Ulyanovsk donated woolen socks and drones worth 300,000 rubles to the Russian army. Another massive list of what is needed for the mobilized is being made this time in Pskov Oblast.

Several industrial facilities simultaneously faced the consequences of mobilization. Printing equipment engineer Sergei Kolmykov has been at the gathering point at the Novosibirsk Higher Military Command School (NVVKU) since September 27. His wife reported violations in the delivery of the draft notice, and a number of Siberian enterprises said that without such a qualified specialist, their work could stop. Complaints and an official request did not help.

Once again, a video of the mobilized during their training. This time from the training ground of the Baltic Fleet, where those mobilized from Komi republic undergo combat cohesion training. They were visited by the head of the region and the commander of the Baltic Fleet. Those mobilized from Karachay-Cherkessia are also being trained. And those mobilized in St. Petersburg, according to the Bumaga independent media (Paperpaper.ru), will be trained by the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia).

In Perm, Nikolai Blagov, MP of the regional Legislative Assembly, proposed to create a board of shame for those who fled from mobilization.

Students of the Novosibirsk Pedagogical University are offered to hand out draft notices in exchange for "a certificate of honor and financial assistance".