The GUR of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reports that a new wave of mobilization in Russia and the occupied Ukrainian territories controlled by it may begin on January 15. Up to half a million Russians will be mobilized into the Russian armed forces. Department representative Andriy Chernyak in the comments t-info publication reported that there is a certain project of a decree on mobilization in Russia, which this time will significantly affect such large Russian cities as Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Reports of covert mobilization measures, including in the annexed Crimea, came from Ukrainian authorities and human rights organizations after the Russian president Vladimir Putin announced the end of “partial mobilization” at the end of October 2022.
Putin’s press secretary Dmytro Peskov information about a new wave of mobilization in Russia does not confirm or deny: recommends following official sources of information.
Crimea. Realii spoke with experts about how likely it is that the second wave of mobilization in the annexed Crimea will begin in mid-January 2023, and what the mobilization plans of the Russian authorities may be.
“They will just start bringing summonses”
Head of the Russian human rights group “Citizen. Army. Right” Sergey Kryvenko draws attention to the fact that in order to start the second wave of “partial mobilization”, the Russian president essentially does not need to issue new decrees, since the old one on “partial mobilization” is in effect:
They will just start bringing summonses
“The mobilization has been announced. In the presidential decree of September 21, there are no deadlines, no dates for which mobilization is announced, no indication of the period for which mobilized citizens are called up, no information about the categories of citizens to be called up and their number.” According to the human rights defender, a clarifying decree may still be issued. It may specify the categories of mobilization in order to “reassure” Russian citizens that the Russian authorities can take into account the experience of mistakes made during the first wave of mobilization. However, Kryvenko says, the second wave of mobilization in Russia may begin without an official announcement – they will simply start bringing summonses.
Speaking about how many people in Russia and in the territories controlled by it can be mobilized, Serhiy Kryvenko rejects the statements of the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
At the end of December, Shoigu announced the need to increase the number of servicemen in the Ministry of Defense to 1.5 million.
“At the end of December, Shoigu announced the need to increase the number of military personnel of the Ministry of Defense to 1.5 million. The number of employees of the Ministry of Defense is an important value. Before the war, by presidential decree, it was set at the level of 1 million military personnel, but according to experts’ estimates, the real number did not reach this figure, and was approximately 700-800 thousand.
After the start of the full-scale war, due to losses and disruption of contract recruitment, a new limit of 1,100,000 was established at the end of August. According to experts, this is 300 thousand (on which he reported Serhiy Shoigu based on the results of the first wave of mobilization – ed.). If we now see an increase in this number of full-time employees to 1.5 million, then we should expect that the second wave is 300-400 thousand mobilized, whom the Ministry of Defense probably wants to call up in the near future,” says Kryvenko.
Do prisoners have to wait for summonses?
Russian edition in November 2022 “Mediazone” drew attention according to the official statistics of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, according to which the number of prisoners in Russian colonies in September and October 2022 decreased by 23 thousand people. The number of prisoners in this statistic fell simultaneously with the publication on the network of videos about the recruitment of Russian prisoners into the private military company of a Russian businessman Evgeny Prigozhin.
Co-founder and head of the human rights organization “Sitting Russia” Olga Romanova in the comment Crimea. Realii says that Russia can apply the same approaches to prisoners from the occupied territories of Ukraine.
Crimea is somewhat similar to Chechnya in its special status
“All the prisoners who were in this territory at the time of the de-occupation of the Kherson region were taken to the territory of Russia – 2.5 thousand people. And another part of the prisoners was captured in the Mykolaiv region. They have now been distributed to the zones of the south of Russia and the center of Russia, and now they are going to be retried,” says Romanova.
According to her, several people whose prison terms had expired were released on the condition that they live with relatives in the annexed Crimea. “It is difficult to check whether this is the case, because most likely they will be recruited to PMK “Wagner”. At least that’s how it was explained to other prisoners,” says the human rights activist.
According to Romanova, Crimea is currently used mainly for the transfer of prisoners of war and captured civilians from the mainland of Ukraine, who are being prepared for exchange, or as a bridgehead for the detention of Ukrainian citizens who are planned to be charged with terrorism and espionage.
“Crimea is somewhat similar to Chechnya in its special status. Only Chechnya is such a quasi-extraterritorial entity, and Crimea is the territory of a separate judiciary,” says Romanova.
In November 2022, the Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a law that allows the mobilization of citizens with unexpunged or outstanding criminal records, in particular for a number of serious crimes. According to the human rights activist, this means that the summons can now be brought to the colony. At the same time, the prisoners simply will not have the opportunity to refuse. “When necessary, they will simply be taken away,” the human rights activist believes.
Plans for Crimea
Head of the Crimean human rights group Olga Skrypnyk draws attention to the fact that in the annexed Crimea two processes of replenishment of Russian troops are taking place at the same time: the planned conscription, which since 2015 has been set at the level of 6 thousand people per year – 3 thousand each for the spring and autumn campaigns, and announced in 2022 ” partial mobilization”. At the same time, there are not even approximate confirmed figures for the number of partially mobilized in the annexed Crimea in 2022.
As the war continues, Russia will continue both mobilization and conscription in Crimea
“We registered the first conscripts in Kerch, who were then immediately sent on 6 buses to the territory of Russia to the military unit. We, as the Crimean human rights group, are not ready to take responsibility and name any real numbers, because they are very different, from several hundred to several thousand people. But since the war continues, Russia will continue both mobilization and conscription in Crimea,” says Olga Skrypnyk.
Online Crimea. Realii the material is published “Coffins that are not visible. How Russia Hides Military in Crimea”, which includes data from the Permanent Mission of the President of Ukraine in Crimea, according to which 243 graves of those who died in the war against Ukraine were recorded on the peninsula at the beginning of 2023. 143 of them “probably were citizens of Ukraine,” the department notes.
Olga Skrypnyk considers these data to be close to the real state of affairs. At the time of our conversation, the Crimean Human Rights Group identified 205 residents of Crimea who died in the war against Ukraine on the side of Russian troops.
Those who were called up for military service in the fall of 2021 stopped contacting each other, and relatives feared that they had been sent to war
“We started identification attempts immediately, on February 24. Moreover, the parents of conscripts, whom Putin promised not to send anywhere, began to contact us. Those who were called up for military service in the fall of 2021 stopped contacting each other, and relatives feared that they had been sent to war against Ukraine.
Then we started looking for these people, and indeed found several conscripts among the dead and among those captured by the Ukrainian military. By the end of the year, according to our data of the Crimean human rights group, those whom we were able to accurately identify with names and surnames are 202 Crimeans who were killed by the Russian army in the war against Ukraine. And already at the beginning of January, we identified three more,” says Skrypnyk.
Russia’s large-scale war against Ukraine
On February 24, 2022, Russia attacked Ukraine on the ground and in the air along the entire length of the common border. The territory of Belarus was used for the invasion of Kyiv region with the intention of capturing the capital. In the south, the Russian army, in particular, occupied part of the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, and in the north – the regions of Sumy region and Chernihiv region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the full-scale invasion a “special operation.” Initially, its goal was defined as “demilitarization and de-Nazification”, later – “protection of Donbas”. And in September and early October, Russia made an attempt to annex the partially occupied Zaporizhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions. Ukraine and the West have declared that these actions are illegal. On October 12, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution condemning the Russian Federation’s attempt to annex the occupied territories of Ukraine.
The Russian authorities say that the army does not attack civilian objects. At the same time, Russian aviation, missile forces, navy and artillery bombard Ukrainian cities every day. Residential buildings and objects of civil infrastructure throughout the territory of Ukraine are subject to destruction.
At the end of October, Ukraine estimated Russia’s losses in the war at more than 70,000 dead soldiers. In September, Russia announced that its losses were less than 6,000 dead. In June, President Zelensky estimated the ratio of losses of Ukraine and Russia as one to five.
Having not overcome the resistance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the surviving Russian units withdrew from the territory of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions in early April. And in September, as a result of a lightning counteroffensive, the Ukrainian army liberated almost the entire occupied part of the Kharkiv region.
After the liberation of Kyiv region from Russian troops, facts of mass murders, torture and rape of civilians, including children, were discovered in the cities of Bucha, Irpin, Gostomel and villages of the region. Ukrainian authorities have declared that Russia is committing genocide. Western countries participate in confirming the facts of mass murders. The Russian Federation rejects accusations of war crimes.
Later, the facts of torture and murder of Ukrainian citizens began to be revealed in almost all settlements that were under Russian occupation. In particular, in Chernihiv Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Kherson Oblast.
As of January 9, 2022, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights confirmed the death of 6,952 people and 11,144 cases of civilian injuries in Ukraine as a result of the full-scale invasion of Russia.
They are like that organization data from February 24, 2022 to the beginning of the second week of January 2023.
