The wives and mothers of those mobilized from Tatarstan appealed to the authorities with a complaint that their loved ones were being sent into battle without weapons, “like cannon fodder.”
In the video message, the women said that their husbands and sons serve in military unit 29655 (regiment 1231). After training, they were sent to the “DPR” army, where they were ordered to storm with only machine guns. The territory before the assault is not cleared of mines. Soldiers from the support companies, who were not prepared for such tasks, are also sent to the assault. According to the women, the military from the "DPR" tell them that they are "the future 200th", and new mobilized will come to take their place. Soldiers call home and say goodbye to their families.
Relatives of the military sent an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin and other bodies. They emphasize that their sons and husbands do not refuse to perform tasks, but ask to look into the situation.
On February 7, a similar appeal was recorded by the mobilized from Tatarstan themselves. They said that their unit was given under the leadership of the military from the “DPR”, who send them “to be slaughtered”.
“We are regiment 1231 from Tatarstan. We were handed over to the leadership of the "DNR". The local leadership does not care about us, we are here as expendable material. Their motto is: we fight to the last soldier, and then they will send new ones. Arriving here, we were scattered by 6 people into different units, they took away all the equipment and humanitarian aid from us. On February 5, we were sent to storm without any preparation … They have not been able to take this point for a very long time. This is not a fake, and we are not in captivity, we just want to convey to you this information that is being withheld from you. We are already the fourth replenishment that came here. And no one has returned from there yet. Either 200 or 300. We just really saw these mass graves that lie there – people, and whom no one takes away, ”the military says in the video.
On February 6, those mobilized from Tuva recorded a video message in which they complained about beatings and threats from servicemen from the “DPR” and the military police. The video was recorded in Tuvan, and its translation into Russian was published by the Russian Asians Telegram channel.
In the video, people in masks and camouflage clothes stand against the backdrop of a forest. They say that they were mobilized on September 29, after which they underwent training in Novosibirsk for three months. In the training unit, according to them, they “were not trained and prepared for fighting on the front line” and promised that they would be sent to the “commandant’s battalion.”
“On February 4, 2023, the military from the DPR arrived, they shot at us from machine guns, forced us to do push-ups, they said that we would not leave here alive. They said that we belong to them, to the DNR,” the mobilized say. They also allege that they were beaten by the "military police".
"Taiga.info" reports that a short video recording of the alleged beating was sent to the editorial office, where several people with machine guns knock a soldier down on the snow and swear at others. The video edition does not publish.
The governor of Tuva, Vladislav Khovalyg, called it "an outrageous case that discredits the position of the mobilized." He stated that he was sending his representatives to the occupied part of the Donetsk region for "direct investigation on the spot." The Vice Speaker of the State Duma of Russia, Sholban Kara-ool, also responded to the appeal, stating that he was "interrupting his business trip in Siberia and flying out to clarify the circumstances."