Mobilization update as of October 28–29
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that it is necessary to modernize the work of military recruitment offices. “At the first stage [of the “partial” mobilization], there were certain problems and difficulties. It was probably inevitable. I mean that such events have not been held in our country for a long time. Nevertheless, it is necessary to draw the necessary conclusions, it is necessary to modernize the entire system, the work of military recruitment offices”.
Yedinaya Rossiya [“United Russia”, Russia’s ruling party] introduced a bill before the State Duma [the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia], according to which judicial and enforcement proceedings against citizens should be suspended as soon as they are drafted or signed up for the front as volunteers.
Elvira Nabiullina, the Head of the Central Bank of Russia, considers mobilization to be a cause of inflation. “It is impossible to predict the full economic consequences of this shift in the employment pattern.”
Despite the statement of Sergei Shoigu, the Minister of Defense of Russian, about the winding down of the “partial” mobilization in the country, Yuri Shvytkin, the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense, allowed it to be resumed with a certain change in the situation: “The situation may change and additional mobilized soldiers will be needed. We will have to get them from somewhere."
Pavel Chikov, human rights activist and lawyer, sums up the results of the first stage of the “partial” mobilization and recalls that the Ministry of Defense can issue new plans to regions at any time, and active conscription operations will resume, until there is a presidential decree to end the mobilization.
More and more video evidence of problems with accommodation and supply of mobilized men is coming in. Drafted residents of Penza were accommodated in a cowshed. One of them complains that they sleep on straw and many of them are already sick. A mobilized man from Vyborg spoke about life on the Ukrainian front (caution, obscenities). According to him, in two weeks at a collecting point in Luga he was once sent to a shooting ground, where he was allowed to fire a grenade launcher and throw training grenades. As a result, 30 people were brought to the front and left without food and water: a field kitchen came to them, to an area between the Luhansk and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine, only once in a week. Due to the lack of minimum living conditions, the mobilized soldiers spend the nights in puddles into which the trenches turn into, but they cannot retreat as they are afraid of being convicted of desertion. Relatives of mobilized residents of Severouralsk complained in a video about the soldiers’ conditions. The women are concerned that the men have been sent to the combat area, taught only to "dig trenches and hide", the command neglects its duties.
Mobilized Russian nationals who refused to return to the frontline are being held in custody in a former penal establishment in Perevalsk, Luhansk region. These men have not been in touch with their relatives for 5 days. Mobilized soldiers from the Far East are illegally deprived of liberty in the so-called LPR for refusing to participate in hostilities. Noteworthy, the Military Department of the Russian Investigative Committee rejected applications of a wife of a mobilized soldier, motivating the refusal by saying that "the times are difficult now. The special operation is ongoing, you should know."
There is a video showing mobilized soldiers forming up before being sent to the combat zone. Only one platoon is equipped with bulletproof vests. When asked where his bulletproof vest came from, a soldier answers that he bought it himself. An officer recording the video says that the right answer is that everything is provided by the state. In Samara, 680 mobilized men were gathered at the Solidarnost Arena stadium yesterday. They were stationed within the premises of the fenced stadium. The administration of the Vladimir region confirmed cases of pneumonia and common cold among mobilized soldiers, who are now at the training center in Kovrov. According to the mobilized, 125 people were "herded" into a building designed for 60 people. In such conditions, they began to get sick. Medical care was not provided to them.
A video appeared showing mobilized residents of Tomsk, who are asking for money to purchase equipment. They accused the regional authorities of not fulfilling their promises and published a list of necessities ranging from hats, batteries, and winter uniforms to night vision systems, bulletproof vests, and UAVs. TV2 Telegram channel reports that the video was recorded in the training ground in Elan on the night of October 28. Journalists talked to a relative of one of the soldiers in the video. She claims that the mobilized have to spend their salaries to buy uniforms and equipment.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has published footage of the mobilized training to handle T-72B3 and T80BV (labeled as T-80U) tanks at a training ground in the Western Military District, of a training of engineering units at a training ground in the Southern Military District, and also footage of the Central Military District military personnel drilled in the rear areas of the "special military operation" zone. And pro-Kremlin Telegram channels released photo reports in order to demonstrate progress in the field of combat training of the mobilized at a military base in Yelan'.
Relatives of the mobilized from Volgograd and the Volgograd region have still been filing complaints about the absence of allowance and of the "sign-up bonus" of 100 thousand roubles promised by the Governor Andrey Bocharov. According to the residents of the region, their sons and husbands get paid either with a pittance, or nothing at all.
A schedule of appointments of the mobilized with their relatives and friends was implemented at the draft gathering point by the Novosibirsk Higher Military Command School (NVVKU).
Details were revealed regarding the accident at a military base in Volgograd. Mobilized Kalmykian natives (Republic of Kalmykia, Kalmyk people national region in Russia) roughed up contract soldiers. The conflict broke out back on October 25 because the contract soldiers didn't let the mobilized bring in alcohol at a checkpoint. The skirmish escalated into a brawl and, as a consequence, the contract soldiers got seriously injured for they were outnumbered.
Regardless of the order of the Russian General Staff and the claim that the multi-children fathers had already been sent or were to be sent back home, many of them still stay at "training centers" or deployed in the combat zone already, and the authorities are not in a hurry to take measures in order to get them back. The court of the Chernovsky district of Chita imposed a ban on sending out to war a mobilized resident of Chita during the lawsuit consideration; his wife has filed a lawsuit with a claim to abolish the mobilization of this man.
Employees of the Sibenergomash- BKZ, LLC plant in Barnaul were mobilized, regardless of exemptions. Due to bureaucracy protractions they have been kept at a military base since the end of September, and the relatives get only boilerplate replies. In Orel, mobilized men were seen out, some of whom had been urgently mobilized during the last days of the mobilization.
More and more mobilized men become POWs. This video shows 12 POWs, most from the Belgorod Region. One of the captured mobilized soldiers is from Lipetsk, another one is from Vladimir. Relatives of the Belgorod POWs in the video asked the governor Vyacheslav Gladkov to return their loved ones from captivity. The head of the governor’s administration Ivan Budlov gave the same answer to all of them: “Measures are being taken. All necessary letters have been sent to the appropriate ministries.” Earlier, Gladkov himself stated that he would try “all within his power to return the captured Belgorod residents home.”
The 22-year-old corporal Kirill Artemovich Makarov from the village of Poletaevo near Chelyabinsk was mobilized in September. On October 19, he was killed. Roman Farafonov, 45, from the town of Raduzhny in Vladimir Region was killed even before he reached the combat zone.
In the Rostov Region, medics employed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs were forced to “deposit” their international passports. Allegedly, this was done under a directive of the Federal MIA and the Main Office of the MIA in the Rostov Region. According to one of the employees, those who cannot locate their passport must write an explanatory note saying they lost it. Upon receipt of such a note, the passport is annulled. A 22-year-old Krasnoyarsk resident was denied issuance of an international passport in accordance, supposedly, with a decision by the regional draft commission. At the same time, the Astra Telegram channel reports that the FSB (the Federal Security Service) lifted the ban on leaving the country for over a million of citizens. On October 29, the database used by the FSB border control service was deleted. Earlier, the database contained 1,025,703 names.
A mobilized man from the Kemerovo region published a personal ad saying he is looking for a bride. He wasn’t planning to get married but after receiving military summons, he now wants a wife so in case he is killed, she would receive the compensation payment for his death.
A Petersburg resident reported that he was fined for not appearing before the draft board despite showing up at the conscription office twice with a deferral of service papers in hand.
A 19-year-old youth was detained in Almetyevsk as he was trying to set fire to a draft office. He may now face attempted terrorism charges.
In Vladivostok, Ivan Gorbachev, once popular on social networks, was mobilized. He is known to have mental health issues.