State Duma [lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia] member from the United Russia party [ pro-Putin’s ruling party] Maxim Ivanov has proposed to mobilize unemployed citizens of Russia. Instead of "valuable specialists" needed in production, the State Duma member has proposed to send unemployed "clients" of a job center to the war. In turn, this idea has been criticized by the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. Council member Marina Akhmedova notes that in Russia, every person is valuable, and the unemployed should not be treated as worthless citizens.
Another State Duma member Dmitry Gusev, a member of the working group on mobilization under the Defense Ministry, proposed to remove the reservation from some scientists, engineers, and IT specialists, as they can help the Russian Armed Forces. He advised sending them not to the frontline but to the specialized units of the armed forces. “But this requires more fine-tuning of the army mobilization machine,” the State Duma member said.
The Ministry of Defense has issued an official reply to politician Elvira Vikhareva's request about the lack of Putin's decree on the end of mobilization. According to the document, such a decree is not possible to issue because it will "violate the rights of the mobilized men" in the context of payments.
The head of the State Duma Committee on Family Affairs, Nina Ostanina, sent an appeal to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin with a proposal to pay 50% of the monetary allowance to the families of the missing in action. It should be noted that the Ministry of Defense has never published the number of servicemen listed as missing.
The Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said that the funds to equip soldiers fighting in Ukraine will come from the sale of the nationalized property of Ukrainian businessmen in Crimea.
Russian IT specialists must apply for a deferral from regular biannual conscription until Feb. 6. MinTsifry [the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of Russia] explained that previous applications submitted during the past regular biannual conscription campaigns are not considered valid. Therefore, IT specialists from accredited companies need to reapply.
A mobilized father of three minors from the Aginsky district of the Zabaykalsky region was returned home to his family. The man was mobilized on Sept. 23 and returned home on Feb. 1 by a decision of the regional mobilization commission.
50 illegally mobilized residents of the Samara region were returned home. One fighter was brought from Makiivka on Dec. 31, 2022, as announced by State Duma member Alexander Khinshtein at a press conference.
Miners, who were mobilized by fraud in so-called DPR, are being forced to take an oath to the Russian Federation under threat after a year of participating in the war. The men were illegally mobilized to "distribute humanitarian aid" in "liberated territories", but were all sent on the front line. Now they are being forced to take an oath to the Russian Federation, even though some of them do not even have a Russian passport.
More than 13,000 Russian soldiers were killed in the war, 924 of them being mobilized soldiers. This number of deaths has been confirmed by the BBC together with Mediazona [an independent Russian media outlet] from open sources as of today. A week ago, it was known about the death of 823 mobilized soldiers.
Mobilized soldiers continue to die in the combat zone. Among them: Alexey Konnov from the village of Paris, Chelyabinsk region, Yuri Vasiliev from Kursk, Aleksandr Petelin and Nikolay Samsonov from the Krasnoyarsk region, Aleksandr Filimonov from the Novosibirsk region. The list of casualties as a result of the attack on Makiivka now includes 102 names — today, they said goodbye to Oleg Gumerov, who was previously considered missing.
In Makiivka, they want to establish a memorial to the Samara military, who were killed during the strike on Jan. 1. The governor of the Samara region and head of so-called DPR Denys Pushylin have preliminarily agreed on it.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense releases a video showing crews of D-30 howitzers "conducting fire missions." The crews include mobilized troops. The Ministry of Defense also shows servicemen performing their daily training routines at one of the Western Military District training grounds before being sent to the combat zone.
In Novosibirsk, Governor Andrey Travnikov signed a decree lifting a ban on the sale of alcohol near the Novosibirsk Higher Military Command School on Jan. 31. The ban had been in effect since the end of last September.
In Ulyanovsk, two mobilized men were found guilty of using violence against superior officers. Private Malyasov, being on active duty within the military unit, assaulted an officer. On another occasion, Corporal Fyodorov hit his commander in response to a remark. The court sentenced Malyasov and Fedorov to 6 and 5.5 years in a maximum security penal colony.
A mobilized soldier left the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and reached the Rostov region on foot, trying to flee from the “special military operation” area. Yesterday afternoon, police officers detained the man in a border village while on patrol. The man was identified as Valery S., deployed to the “special military operation” area following mobilization. Unwilling to fight in the war any longer, on Feb. 1, Valery left his unit and headed to the Rostov region on foot, intending to return home. Valery was handed over to the military police, and an investigation into him is ongoing.
A mobilized serviceman stationed in Tolyatti was charged for going AWOL. The man was drafted into the army under Putin’s “partial” mobilization. At a certain point he left his unit and went home where he stayed for less than a month. Later, he returned to active duty voluntarily. Criminal proceedings were initiated against him under the article “On absence without leave.” The soldier remained in his unit for the whole duration of the proceedings and trial. On Jan. 31, he was sentenced to two years in a penal colony.
A blogger from the Moscow region has come under official scrutiny over a possible act of sabotage on the railway lines. The Security Service of RZhD [Russian fully state-owned railway company] came to the conclusion that the guy paid “suspicious attention to the RZhD facilities, which are used, among other things, for transportation of military supplies” based on examining photos of trains in his Instagram account. Photos and videos of trains, railway stations, and railroad tracks of the Kursky suburban railway line were found in the archive of the blogger. The dossier on the blogger was handed over to law enforcement authorities.
A criminal charge was initiated against the leaders of the unofficial “Left union of Zabaikalsky region” youth movement under the article “Public justification of terrorism”. According to the investigators, the youth movement condoned arsoning of draft offices and sabotage on the railway. The article provides for up to 7 years of imprisonment.
A court in Podolsk condemned a 70 y.o. retiree suspected of firing up a draft office to involuntary psychiatric treatment. Allegedly, the convicted appears to be Aleksandr Rassohin, who had been detained along with his wife in Podolsk at the end of December while trying to put the local draft office on fire. The man was charged with a crime.
A criminal case was initiated against a father of mobilized soldiers in the Magadan region. There is no centralized heating in the settlement where the man lives. State officials still haven’t provided firewood to the man, though it had been guaranteed [by the Russian government] to the parents of the mobilized, so the man had to cut some trees. Meanwhile, a mother of a mobilized soldier from the Republic of Bashkortostan [Russia’s constituent republic] was provided firewood only after numerous appeals, and even then insufficiently and 3.5 months after her son left for war.
Healthcare systems of the Altai and Zabaikalye regions are having serious problems caused in part by local physicians being drafted into military service. For example, on Jan. 9, a one year-old girl died in the village of Gorny in the Zabaikalye region. Locals complain of insufficient number of paramedic crews operating since some of the medics were sent to fight in the war. In the Altai region, residents are planning a rally to protest the lack of medical personnel. Some families have already experienced tragedies because specialists were not available to treat their loved ones and the non-specialist physicians who saw them misdiagnosed their conditions. The last straw was the death of a 7-year-old boy.
Beginning Sep. 1, Russian higher education institutions will start teaching the refreshed history curriculum that covers the objectives of the “special military operation” in Ukraine and the year 2020 “constitutional referendum.” Also, a military training center will be created at the Ufa University of Science and Technology (UUST).
Russian TV stations in cooperation with the All-Russia People’s Front [a political coalition founded by Putin] are planning to collect tens of millions of rubles from their viewers to procure outfitting and gear for the Russian Army. The campaign announcement makes it clear that donations of literally everything will be collected, from footwear and clothing to automobiles and electronic warfare weapons.
Yet another trench candle-making master class was held at Novosibirsk School No.135. At a kindergarten in the town of Vyazniki in the Vladimir region, a drive to collect socks, balaclavas, personal care items, and food for the participants of the military invasion into Ukraine has started. School students from Skolkovo made bedding for a military hospital.
An erotic massage salon in Kaliningrad now offers veterans and participants of the “special military operation” a “boundless ocean of passion and pleasure” at a discount. According to a representative of the establishment, the “special military operation” participants come there often and enjoy special discounts, including 50% off alcohol purchases of up to one liter.
