‘They said we wouldn’t make it alive’

Indigenous draftees from southern Siberia publish video documenting abuses by ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ militia

A group of soldiers mobilized in Tuva, a region in Russia’s southern Siberia, have published a video documenting abuses by the militia of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” where the draftees were deployed after mobilization.

The video, recorded in the indigenous Tyvan language, has been translated into Russian and published by the Asians of Russia Telegram channel.

The footage shows a group of men standing in the woods, wearing masks and camouflage. A voice behind the camera explains that all of them were mobilized on September 29, 2022. For three months, they apparently trained in Novosibirsk but got no instruction in frontline combat skills.

On December 29, the group was moved to Donetsk, and some of them went straight to the frontline. After several men from the unit were wounded, it turned out that they weren’t formally enlisted with any Russian military formation and had no command as such.

On February 4, soldiers from the self-proclaimed “DNR” came to the unit and intimidated the draftees by firing machine guns into the air and telling them they were part of their army now. Military police officers then arrived and beat the servicemen, according to a speaker in the video shared by the Asians of Russia channel, which also shared mobile-phone footage of armed people forcing a man in camouflage to his knees.

The independent outlet Taiga.Info says it received another video that shows draftees being beaten by members of the “DNR” militia. A narrator nicknamed “Batya” (“Daddy”) describes what sounds like the extrajudicial killings of Russian soldiers in 2014–2015, telling the draftees that the general who sent him to their unit “begged him” not kill them, because “they’re all related to Shoigu,” Russia’s ethnically Tyvan defense minister.

Earlier, Rossiyskaya Gazeta tied a soldier with the nickname “Batya” to Lieutenant Colonel Vyacheslav Gubin.

Tuva Governor Vladislav Khovalyg has promised to speak to Russia’s Defense Ministry about the Tyvan draftees’ situation in the Donetsk region. Khovalyg has also asked Vitaly Khotsenko, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed “DNR,” to investigate the militia’s actions. In addition, Khovalyg sent a group of Tyvan officials to the Donetsk region to examine what happened.

“The whole country mobilized fathers, husbands, and sons to defend the Fatherland and meet the goals of the special military operation,” said Khovalyg, adding, “This is a shocking case that discredits the conditions of the draftees.”