Summary of mobilization in Russia for October 2–3

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported on the training of the mobilized Russians "in the rear areas of the Special Military Operation." Currently, the mobilized are undergoing "intensive combat training at training grounds in the rear areas of the Special Military Operation." Upon completion, the units "will begin to carry out tasks for the control and defense of the liberated territories." Based on the geolocation of the video published by the so-called "People's Militia of the DPR", the training ground where the mobilized are being trained, is located about 60 km away from the front line. The Ministry of Defense has shared the first footage of the mobilized Russians’ arrival to the "LPR".

The governor of Novosibirsk, Vitaly Mukha, pronounced the first stage of the "partial" mobilization process as complete. On the 27th of September (2022), the region’s (Novosibirsk) military commissar [head of enlistment office] said that during the mobilization process, more than 2 000 Novosibirsk residents have been conscripted. Earlier plans were made to draft 8 000 people, but the timelines for this figure were not verified. In the Russian city of Kurgan, the authorities had to stop drafting people because, as they claimed, they were overwhelmed by the number of volunteers. Authorities in the Perm Region have also met their mobilization quotas. A complete list of all Russian regions which have completed the first stage of the "partial" mobilization process can be found at this link.

The governor of the Kemerovo region Sergey Tsivilev is immersed in the problems of mobilization. Just yesterday he talked to the relatives of the mobilized in his region, and today he came to the Kuzbass and mobilized people in the training center in Omsk, where he also conducted educational work with them.

Khabarovsk school principals were required to provide lists of male teachers they are ready to "part with" and send for mobilization. And this is against the backdrop of reports that in the Khabarovsk region half of the mobilized were called up by mistake. According to Governor Degtyarev, all of those wrongly conscripted were returned home, and the military commissar of the Khabarovsk region, Yuri Laiko, was dismissed from his post. Now it is known that this military commissar has already been appointed to a similar position in the Magadan region. We've got conflicting information about the fate of Valery Gritsay, military commissar of the Belgorod region. According to some reports, he was sent to resign. The reason was the improper preparation of the places intended for staying mobilized in the region. However, the press service of the regional government said that the information about the military commissar's dismissal was not true.

The living conditions and morale of mobilized people in many military units are not improving. The mobilized from Norilsk, Khakassia, and Altai, who were sent to Omsk, describe their living conditions: people live outside, go to the forest for firewood, burn fires, temperatures are below zero, they are not provided with food, periodically are taken to formations, but are not moved into the base (video 1, video 2, and several other videos). According to the Telegram channel Baza, there was a conflict between soldiers in a military unit in Alabino near Moscow: contract servicemen wanted to take equipment and phones from mobilized men. It did not work: the conscripts simply beat up the "old-timers".

The ongoing mobilization also leads to tragic consequences. For example, a mobilized man hanged himself at a recruiting station near Tyumen. The accident happened on September 28, but there is still no official comment from the authorities on this case. It also became known that three conscripts who came from the Kurgan region to the well-known training center in Yelani, Sverdlovsk region, died: one of them died of a heart attack, another committed suicide, and a third was discharged and later died at home from cirrhosis of the liver. In connection with the last incident, the Investigative Committee started an inspection. Оne of the mobilized men died in the Novosibirsk Higher Military Command School. The death happened in his sleep, and the cause of death is being determined. In Moscow, a 23-year-old man who attempted suicide after receiving a summons was saved. Altogether, according to "Horizontal Russia" calculations, nine people, mobilized or summoned, had passed away.

In Moscow, a 33-year-old IT worker was mobilized without allowing him to collect documents to confirm his deferment. And in Crimea, a 39-year-old father of three children who had never served and suffered from arrhythmia was mobilized. At the same time, about 300 residents of Yakutia, mistakenly conscripted during "partial" mobilization, returned home. And in the Sverdlovsk region, the number of citizens mistakenly mobilized and sent home was 100.

Infrastructure in the cities is working for mobilization. Over the weekend, facial recognition cameras in Moscow detected twelve people suspected of dodging mobilization. In most cases, the cameras were triggered in the entrances of residential buildings. In Berdsk, Novosibirsk region, due to "partial" mobilization and the need to deliver servicemen to assembly points, some buses were taken off municipal routes. Since October 3, several buses in Penza have been taken off the routes in the same way.

Another video of the transportation of the mobilized with the help of aviation. A passenger plane is used to deliver Chelyabinsk soldiers. The author of the video claims that the flight goes to Rostov. At the same time, there is information that the mobilized from Sakhalin are sent to the front immediately after arriving in Rostov.

A 48-year-old soldier who was mobilized sued the military commissariat in St. Petersburg. It is already the second lawsuit on mobilization in the city. The suit against the military commissariat on "partial" mobilization was also accepted for consideration by the Krasnoarmeisky court of Volgograd. The plaintiff was a 43-year-old resident with a leg disease. We have already written about the fact that medical commissions are practically not conducted during mobilization. New confirmation of this information came from Tyumen, where mobilized people are denied the medical commission that was promised earlier; the conversation is quite heated.

In Krasnoyarsk, an unknown person tried to set fire to the building of an enlistment office. At 4:30 am on October 3, a man entered the territory of the enlistment office and threw two bottles with incendiary mixture through the window. And in Kazan, an 11th-grader schoolgirl tried to set fire to an enlistment office.

Pavel Chikov (Russian lawyer, human rights activist, and public figure) commented on yesterday's RBK media outlet publication about the sharp drop in the number of cases of evasion from the army: he suggests that this is connected with the order to investigators to submit the cases of previous years to the courts.

A man who refused to take a summons at the border with Georgia was released. But in Krasnoyarsk, a resident who refused to take the summons was brought to the police, who gave him a fine and took him to the draft board.

Another person was denied from boarding a plane, this time to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from Domodedovo, Moscow. And the queue at the border with Georgia seems to be gone.

The Russian embassy in Tashkent denied information about the conscription of citizens of Central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan. At the same time, TASS (Russian state federal news agency) reported: "Reception points for enrollment of foreigners in military service under contract were opened in the premises of territorial agencies of the Russian Interior Ministry and regional offices of Passport and Visa Service."

Ramzan Kadyrov promises to send his sons, who are 14, 15, and 16 years old, to the front line.

On October 9, Buryat shamans plan to hold a combined ritual with their colleagues from other regions to help Russian troops. And "Night Wolves" (Russia’s oldest and staunchly pro-Putin biker club) and its founder and leader Alexander "Surgeon" Zaldastanov contribute to the "partial" mobilization in their own way. They are closing the motorcycle season in Moscow with a concert that features Russian bands "PilOt", "Time-Out", "Mango-Mango" and others and is dedicated to the mobilized and volunteers leaving for the zone of "Special Military Operation" in the near future, and the proceeds from the entrance (500 rubles per ticket) will go "to buy things and equipment for the mobilized".