For those interested, I'll post a recent interview with one of the mobilised in Ukraine:
"I was given [a military occupational specialty] of 'medical instructor' in a reconnaissance company, but in fact there were no teams."
"They just sent us out as cannon fodder. They put us in positions, we had the Khokhols, the Ukrops, sitting 700 meters away, firing mortars at us."
According to him (the mobilised soldier being interviewed), when he approached his battalion commander to send him to scout or equip him to destroy the enemy's mortar battery, he received the reply, "There is no such order, guys, sit tight, you just stay in the forest."
"We just sat there like assholes and survived on our own. We had no water - we just scooped from puddles and drank. We personally gave ourselves orders to go on reconnaissance, to watch [the Ukrainians], but we didn't have the weapons to liquidate them".
The mobiks had dry rations and a bottle of water to last only two or three days, they had no cigarettes and they had to find their own ammunition.
"The equipment was all broken, there was nothing to bring clothes with. I will say this - with such an attitude I don't want to sit there under artillery fire and just pray to God that I stay alive. I have a 19-year-old wife and a four-month-old baby," Ivan says.
Ivan (the mobilised solider being interviewed) was not sent to the front to serve in a role matching his military speciality. "You know what our commander, our commander-in-charge, told us? He said: 'Guys, the main thing is to hold on, dig deep,'" Ivan adds.
According to him, there were some who refused to fight in such conditions. They were visited, Ivan says, by "some colonel of a tank division" [most likely the 4th Guards Tank Division, which is reportedly in the area].
"He came there and just – pardon the expression, just bluntly said: 'What are you there, pussies? I'm going to send you to the 27th brigade [probably the 27th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade], they will kill you there at once".
According to the journalist who conducted this interview: "the mobilised Russian soldiers sent to Svatove in eastern Ukraine are in a "critical situation," "without training, without ammunition and often without commanders who abandon them in the very first hours of the attacks".
