The Russian army immediately had her brother picked up from his workplace in the Rostov region. “He would fight in the Donbass, what a nightmare,” said Viktoria (37) from Moscow, who wishes to remain anonymous. “I can’t sleep at all.” Viktoria cries, worried not only for her brother, but also for her husband Andrej. The conscription office in the Rostov region is already looking for him.
Viktoria is like many in Russia. Across the country, women with small children complain that the breadwinners are being cut off from the family. They don’t know how to make ends meet and often sacrifice the last of their money to buy the man bare necessities for the front line. For example, there is a demand for protective vests, but it is hardly available or affordable. The reservists also complain that sometimes there is not even a helmet or weapon. In addition, the proposed military reward may not come or come too late.
“It is a pity!”
The unrest is so great that governors and MPs in Russia have long intervened because of the mobilization problems. They are now buying their own binoculars and night vision goggles for the conscripts, circumventing the Ministry of Defense budget. Prominent MP Leonid Slutsky (54) bellowed: “It’s a shame.” Sometimes even ammunition and weapons were missing.
While hundreds of thousands have fled the country, many others are resigned to their fate. There are Russians who are determined to fight for the goals of Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin (70) in Ukraine. But many serve only because they do not see escape or prison as an alternative.
Fear paralyzes many now. They hardly dare to take to the streets anymore, because according to the authorities, the video surveillance used in many places in Russia is now also intended to help track down conscientious objectors. Meanwhile, there are also more and more reports that many conscripts had barely arrived at the front and were already underground.
‘Two weeks of military exercises were promised’
Even the Russian state media reacted with horror last week when it became known that a senior official of the Moscow city administration had been sent to Ukraine without any combat experience. 28-year-old Alexey Martynov, who was drafted on September 23, died at the front on October 10.
A similar fate befell the 27-year-old father of two, Igor Puchkov from the Siberian city of Minusinsk, who, according to his relatives, was sent to the front without any additional military training. His sister-in-law Svetlana Puchkova told the Moscow Times: “We were outraged. He was promised two weeks of military exercises, but he received only 30 bullets.”
Just ten days after being drafted into the Russian army, Puchkov fell on the battlefield in the Kherson region. “He’s gone and his wife is alone, without money, without anything,” says Puchkova. “He always had a smile on his face. We don’t even know how he died.”
“The next day he was dead”
On the same day, 35-year-old Alexander Parilov, who, like Puchkov, came from Minusinsk, died. His best friend Igor Solondaev was also shocked by the Moscow Times: “No one had even held a machine gun in their hands during training. Only a day before he was sent to Kherson, they gave him his uniform and rifle. The next day he was dead. .”
A journalist close to the Kremlin asked Putin how this was possible at a press conference in the city of Astana in Kazakhstan last Friday. But the Kremlin chief never said a word about the dead men returning in coffins. In about two weeks, Putin said, the “partial mobilization” should be complete. What is happening today is “not very pleasant” but would only have gotten worse later on, Putin said. “So my actions are right and proper.” (bbs/SDA)