Decay of the army from within. The 6th overview of anti-invasion sabotage in Russia

On the eve of the decisive big battle for Donbass, more and more evidence appears that Putler's military machine is crumbling from the inside and there is nothing to replace the huge losses. As we wrote in the previous issue, a leader of Russian monarchists Igor Strelkov-Girkin says with reference to his own information that a lot of Russian contractors, having learned about the sending of their units to Ukraine, break the contract and categorically refuse to comply with the order, moreover, they are not afraid of either sanctions or threats from their superiors - they even go to court, trying to defend the correctness of this steps. Russian liberal investigator Ruslan Leviev from the Conflict Intelligence Team also said a week ago about the refusal to re-go into battle from 20 to 40% of contract soldiers who fought in Ukraine and were withdrawn to the RF. According to him, not a single refuser in Russia has been prosecuted so far: only flight from the battlefield or collaboration with the enemy is considered "desertion". Refusal to re-participate in the "special operation" is a failure to comply with the order, the negative consequences of which still need to be proved for impution of the article of the Criminal Code to the objector. Several examples of such boycott leaked in some media - from the refusal of going to Ukraine by airborne paratroopers in Pskov (about 60 people in only one unit!) to homecoming by about 300 local and Russian combatants from the 4th military base in South Ossetia after the death of some fighter on a minefield and the commander’s prohibition to evacuate his body for burial. In the border regions, “a mass of reports of refusers has accumulated, there are already stacks up to the ceiling”, tells military lawyer and blogger Yuri Grebenyuk.

On the night of April 18, unknown people attacked military commissariat in the village of Zubova Polyana (2,5 hours drive from the capital of Mordovia Republic). Around 3 a.m., the watchman smelled smoke in the building, ran out into the street and saw offices on the first and second floors being engulfed in flames. 40 m² of the rooms with the data of conscripts were damaged, several computers were destroyed, one of the offices burned down completely. "The draft campaign in two neighbourhoods is stopped, since it is impossible to restore the personal files of recruits. No budget was provided for paper or electronic copies of documents". Later, the remains of four Molotov cocktails were found on the spot. The recruitment office didn't have even cameras and alarms! A criminal case has been initiated under Part 2 of Article 167 of the Criminal Code - "deliberate destruction or damage to property". There are no official statements yet.

The last officially confirmed arson of military commissariat took place on the night of March 19 in the Ivanovo region near Moscow. The guy threw a Molotov cocktail in the window and ran away by a complex, thoughtful route, changed clothes, got rid of all the evidence that could lead to him, and hid in his mother's apartment. But after 5 hours he was detained

Mikhail Afanasyev, editor-in-chief of the New Focus newsletter, was arrested in Abakan after writing a note about riot cops refused to fight in Ukraine. The publication reported that the reason for the refusal was the incident with the Russian Guard's broken column near Kyiv, which tried to hush up the commanders: “More and more, the fighters came to the conclusion that the Russian Guard leadership was simply trying to stop the spread of information about the death of policemen from Siberia to save their asses in front of the first persons of the state”. The Investigative Committee insists that Afanasiev provided unreliable data on the number of those killed, missing and wounded, as well as on the inadequate level of material support.

Ukrainian sources show an even more serious scale of internal collapse among the invaders. According to pro-governmental journalist Roman Tsymbalyuk, the recruitment of contract soldiers for the Western Military District is actually failed. From the beginning of the year to April 15, only 103 contractors were selected for service in 56 military units of the district, and 23 of them immediately wrote a letter of resignation after learning about the participation in "special military operation" in Ukraine. In occupied Pologi of the Zaporozhye region, Russian soldiers on April 18 began to refuse from taking part in hostilities due to not receiving the promised reward. However the Chechen militants brutally killed three instigators of the protest, who were ready to hand over their weapons and go home. It was stated by the speaker of regional military administarion Ivan Arefiev with reference to Ukrainian intelligence.

The very fact of the appearance of such stamps for Russian soldiers who do not want to go to war hints at the mass character of such cases

Pavel Chikov, the chairman of the International Human Rights Group Agora, claims in his 7th April interview:

“At some point, somewhere around mid-March, the command of the Russian Guard and the Ministry of Defense apparently received information that there were a certain number of those who refuse to participate in hostilities. And there they began to develop a position on what to do in connection with this and how to behave. And, of course, their plan is to ensure that this information does not become public, so that there are no such scandals. But I will tell you that we were contacted with information from about ten cities and, as a rule, these are groups of people. We currently have 1200 applications. A little over two weeks. There are almost five hundred people from one North Caucasian region. From another region one and a half hundred. From the third fifty. I can say that we have such information. Legally, these are two different categories. The Russian Guard is one story, the military is another story. Military personnel are all contract servicemen who, after completing military service in the army, agreed, or were persuaded, or otherwise, to sign a contract. And they were called up, and they went there, and for them the termination of the contract is the risk of criminal liability for failure to comply with the order, because this is a military crime, a separate chapter in the Criminal Code, these are military investigation departments, these are military courts. For some interesting reason - this needs to be emphasized here - we are not aware of any criminal case so far.

That is, roughly speaking, there is no political decision to prosecute. Moreover, there is even another story. There is a telegram from the Ministry of Defense, which explains how to act. The commanders of these units need to conduct a checking, a protocol must be drawn up on the disciplinary offense of a serviceman - each individually - and then an order must be issued for dismissal from service on defamatory grounds for violating the charter.

Another story is the Russian Guard. They are in the service, they have an employment contract, and within the framework of this employment contract, they are obliged to exercise their powers in accordance with the federal law on service in the internal affairs bodies. But in our country this is an internal affairs body, you understand, these are internal affairs. That is, the Russian Guard is not intended to perform any functions outside the Russian Federation. They claim that "we can only be sent somewhere with our consent."

We had reports that a group of servicemen fled from the territory of Ukraine to Belgorod, and they were even detained, and even kept in isolation for some time, to put it mildly. But it seems that there were no consequences in the form of criminal cases.

To some extent, this can be explained by the fact that criminal cases against military personnel and members of the Russian Guard are a serious undermining of their confidence in the command. That is, obviously the authorities do not really want this."

Interesting things: riot cops could continue to serve, beat up Navalnists on the streets and enjoy life. But when the smell of fried - ran to the human rights advocates for protection from possible pressure!

The "victorious" withdrawal of storm troops from Mariupol today shows a reduction in the occupation forces and an acute shortage of reserves to replenish it. And this, in turn, means that soon they will again have to announce the “successfully” completed next phase of the “special operation” and the “voluntary withdrawal” of troops from a number of regions of Ukraine.

See also such analysis on sociocultural preconditions for popularity of anarchism in the Ukrainian mass consciousness and why they transformed into a unity around Zelensky.

And this survey of the stories about civilian heroes of Kharkiv defense killed by Russian missiles helping other residents without any remuneration from the state.

Freedom to conscripts! Weapons to the people!