2/ The independent Russian media outlet ASTRA has interviewed Mikhail N., a mobilised man from Primorsky Krai in the Russian Far East. He was denied a medical examination despite suffering from ill-health caused by a traumatic brain injury in 2018.
Like many others, he says he received little or no training when he joined his unit, the 60th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade. He was flown to Rostov-on-Don, where he was supposed to get training and be stationed in the "green zone" along the border.
3/ However, immediately after arriving at Rostov on 2 October the mobilised men were sent on buses to the war zone in Donetsk oblast. They returned from the front line on 12 October and 14 men including Mikhail wrote reports of their refusal to fight.
Officers threatened the men with being taken out into the forest and shot. Mikhail and his comrades were imprisoned in a basement in Staromlynivka – they are pictured in the photo at the top of the thread below.
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1590696393001168897
“1/ Dozens of mobilised Russians are being detained illegally in a network of improvised prisons in occupied territories of Ukraine, where they are being abused and living in terrible conditions, according to an investigation by ASTRA. ⬇️”
4/ They were subsequently taken into a forest near Mariupol, apparently to evade an inspection by another part of the Russian army. They lived in a tent for a week and dug shelters and trenches. Then on 1 November they were brought to a basement-prison in Zavitne Bazhannya.
This location has previously been described in reports (see the thread below). The men held there in October were threatened with being shot and thrown into a mass grave. Their fate isn't known.
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1589387315914633217
“1/ The independent Russian investigative newspaper The Insider appears to have found the location of a secret Russian basement-prison for refusenik soldiers, the existence of which was earlier reported by ASTRA (see below). Translated extracts follow: ⬇️ https://t.co/fDGhPSu5UE”
5/ Mikhail describes conditions at Zavitne Bazhannya:
"There were two rooms in our basement. My room was about 5 by 3 metres, I guess. One side of the room was just covered with bunk beds. Bunk beds made out of planks. We slept in sleeping bags on the boards.
There was nothing else in the room. They did not feed us for the first three days. We were given expired rations and that was it.
6/ Then they started feeding us once a day, 'cooked' by some young man, I can't say cooked, my parents feed their dogs better at home.
If you have acquaintances in the army, ask them what a stew called "chicken meat" is. It's a tin can, not a stew.
We never bathed once. There's no place to wash. We had some wet wipes and that was it. We had to go to the toilet in the side of the room and you had to knock to get out in a big one. And there was no guarantee they'd open. Do what you want.
7/ Then we earned some favours and were allowed out more often. The basement was warm because the room was small and we breathed there."
Mikhail says that there were up to 28 people in the two small rooms. The captives were put under intense pressure to return to the front.
"They tried in every way to get us back to the front. "If you don't pick up your assault rifles now, our enemies will come to your homes and rape your wives and mothers," those sort of words. They shouted and threatened.
8/ Of those with whom I was initially there, no one was beaten up, nor was I. But the other boys, who were brought to us from the basement in Perevalsk, said that they were led one by one into the basement and people shot over their heads into the wall with a submachine gun."
[The Perevalsk facility is reportedly a former Ukrainian penal colony, which is now partly destroyed by bombing. Video of the conditions men were being held in there is in the thread below.] https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1584835293265690624
“18/ The men tell their story in a couple of secretly recorded videos made in their basement-prison, where they complain about the awful living conditions that include using a bucket as a toilet. https://t.co/1bZyLu2KXa”
9/ Mikhail and one other person with health problems were let out on 14 November and taken back to Russia in a KAMAZ truck along with a group of contract (professional) soldiers. He says they were dumped in Russia "on all fours".
"When we arrived, roughly speaking, the two of us were thrown out of the KAMAZ and told that that was it, you were on your way to the hospital".
10/ Now that he's free, Mikhail wants to campaign for his comrades to be released and for their illegal jailors to be punished.
"I would like to know the names of those freaks who told us we were nobody. We don't know any of them at all, they didn't introduce themselves," he says. /end
ASTRA взяла первое интервью освобождённого из подвала в населённом пункте Завитне Бажжаня Донецкой области мобилизованного гражданина РФ Михаила Н. (Личность Михаила подтверждена автором текста, — прим. Astra). Редакция рассказывала историю Михаила ранее, вместе с историями других удерживаемых в подвалах россиянах в большом тексте из двух частей. В том же материале мы установили как минимум 7 подобных подвалов.
@ChrisO_wiki "Now that he's free, Mikhail wants to campaign for his comrades to be released and for their illegal jailors to be punished."
Yeah, no. Not happening. He's more likely to be re-mobilized and sent back to the front than there to be even the slightest response.
ChrisO_wiki
Beeg Fulfee