If you don’t want to fight, you will be forced. That seems to be the motto of the commanders of the Russian forces. There is no fair trial for conscientious objection to those mobilized; instead, the soldiers are imprisoned. Their “willingness to fight” must be restored behind bars – including through violence and humiliation.
In the former penal camp in the Ukrainian city of Perewalsk in the Luhansk region, military personnel who, despite a contract, did not want to participate in the war were illegally detained before the partial mobilization. Now the former penal colony, which activists have called inhumane, is back in business. Now mobilized civilians are locked up there who do not want to fight. Under the name “Centre for maintaining combat readiness”, their morale needs to be boosted again. Because that’s where the slogan is: fight or lock up. This is reported by the Russian opposition news portal Mediazona.
The men live in tiny rooms. Mold is spreading on the ceiling, there is hardly any space between the beds and the windows are cracked. Instead of a toilet there is a bucket. Such videos are doing the rounds on the Telegram channel Astra. “That’s how we sleep, that’s how we eat in this room. Everything is wet, everything drips,” the soldier says in the video. The recordings would be from the beginning of October.
Soldiers face an ultimatum – war or prison
On October 2, another video showed the same soldiers sitting in a basement. In the video, the man talked about the fact that people were being held here who refused orders. The soldiers had withdrawn because they were in a desperate situation. “We were asked to go back to the front, but we said no,” said one of the soldiers. Now they don’t know what will happen to them.
According to Astra, these men were taken to Perevalsk shortly afterwards. A soldier’s friend told Astra: “After ten days in jail, the prosecutors came and issued an ultimatum: either the front or a 10-year prison sentence.” For many of the convicts, reinstatement is a nightmare. The hastily mobilized Russian troops usually lack sufficient equipment and even less training, and are often sent into battle like cannon fodder by their commanders.
Mobilized being dragged back forward
To prevent escape from the camp, men of the Wagner mercenaries have to keep watch. Former contract soldiers who were imprisoned in Perewalsk before the mobilized but who have since been allowed to return home describe the precarious conditions in the camp. There are no hygiene items, there is no bedding and there is food once a day, if at all. Those who do not yet want to go forward are beaten up in the cellar.
According to Mediazona, some men from Perewalsk would fight at the front again. But not voluntarily – they too were forced to do so.