'Everyone's Drunk. No Uniforms. No Food.' Inside The Confusion Greeting Some Of Russia's Newly Mobilized Troops
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-mobilization-chaos-deaths-ukraine/32072319.htmlFour days after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the order to mobilize hundreds of thousands of men to fight in Ukraine, Aleksandr Koltun, a 35-year-old father of six, showed up at the local draft board office in the Siberian city of Bratsk and presented himself for service.
He, and a batch of other conscripts, were sent later that day to Novosibirsk for further preparations for deployment.
Nine days later, his relatives said, he was dead.
"My daughter-in-law…told me, she called me in tears in the middle of the night and said that Sasha had died," Koltun's mother, Yelena Gudo, said, using Aleksandr's familiar, affectionate name.
Russia is continuing to ramp up its mobilization efforts, a massive campaign aimed at shoring up the faltering, seven-month war in Ukraine and, by extension, the credibility of the Kremlin. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Russians are being called up under the process.
By all accounts, the process has been chaotic and haphazard.
Newly mobilized soldiers -- known colloquially in Russian as mobiki -- have reported being left without food and water while awaiting orders; videos have shown logistics officers telling new conscripts to buy their own equipment, or take first-aid supplies from their own home medicine cabinets -- or even their wives' personal sanitary supplies. Soldiers have taken to posting videos on Russian social networks complaining about the conditions and disorganization.
The process has also seen a small, but growing number of fatalities. At least 16 people have died, according to news reports and activists, since Putin made the announcement on September 21.
Many of the deaths have been reported as suicides. Others, like Koltun's, are unexplained, and his relatives fear they will never find out how he died.
"What really happened there, we still don't know," she told RFE/RL's Siberia Realities.
'All Mothers Need To Think Before Sending Their Sons There'More at link.
