6.06.2024
In the temporarily occupied part of the Donetsk region, the number of local residents who refuse to fight against Ukraine is growing. Forcibly mobilized into the ranks of the Russian occupation forces, Donetsk residents abandon their positions and go on the run – not wanting to become war criminals. And the situation has already alarmed the occupiers so much that they have taken an unprecedented step: now they have decided to pay money for the “heads” of such refuseniks.
Read more about this in the OBOZ.UA material.
A start
The first case of a search for a “deserter” of the Russian occupation army in the Donbass “with a guaranteed reward” became known in May. Advertisements with the details of a 35-year-old local resident appeared on the streets of the city of Yenakievo. The leaflet claims that he “deserted from the line of combat contact.”
“He leads an antisocial lifestyle (drinking, using drugs). He has uncontrollable outbursts of aggression,” the occupiers added to the horror.
But such scares are a common practice in the occupation in order to impress local residents and encourage them to apprehend the fugitive. This case was no exception. As a subscriber to one of the local Telegram channels dedicated to mobilization in the “DPR” reported, in fact “the guy is normal, he lived in our village, but they wrote this about him.”
The occupiers also stated how much they were willing to pay for the refusenik. “For providing reliable information about the whereabouts of a deserter – 10,000 rubles. For assistance in detaining a deserter – 20,000 rubles,” the advertisement says. According to the NBU exchange rate, this is from 4.5 to 9 thousand hryvnia.
“The guards often justify the kidnappings and illegal searches for residents of the “DPR” by the need to detain “war criminals” and “drug addicts”. Why drug addicts, deserters and war criminals are recruited into the Russian armed forces, they, as a rule, do not specify,” the local administrator wrote ironically channel.
It’s interesting that in the comments, almost all Donetsk residents sided with the fugitive: “The guy is a hero! Well done for getting away with it,” “So you can slander every normal person,” “Shame on this… Barbarism,” “Some people value money more than their conscience.” , “Even if I know where a person is, I will never tell anyone. Let these creatures go to the front.”
How to find fugitives
Every day there are more and more residents of the occupied part of the Donetsk region who flatly refuse to fight on the side of the Russians. This is evidenced by more and more new facts about raids by “security forces” who are looking for fugitives at their place of registration (or last known place of residence).
First, representatives of the so-called military police come home and communicate with family members of the conscientious objector and his neighbors. After this, relatives often receive a letter from a military unit asking them to “bring some sense” to the refusenik.
One of these letters, obtained by OBOZ.UA, states that the command is ready to “show leniency” and allow the fugitive to voluntarily return to duty.
According to our interlocutors in the occupation, local residents who fled from the occupying army are moving to an illegal situation and once again trying not to leave their homes. Most often they hide with distant relatives or friends.
“Even if they have pro-Russian views, then visiting the same MFC (multifunctional center for the provision of state and municipal services. – Ed.), which Russia opened in the occupied part of Ukraine, is dangerous for them – there visitors are immediately forced through the base. For all conscientious objectors A trip to the hospital is also fraught – there have been cases of detention of “deserters” in medical institutions in Donetsk and Gorlovka,” our source shared.
As for the Russian occupiers’ reliance on informers, it may well be justified. “Of course, among the local residents there are those who will not hand over a refusenik, but, unfortunately, there are many who will do it with joy. 10 years of occupation were not in vain. And here there is not just an ideological component, but they are also offering money. Considering , that with work in the “republic” everything is very bad, there will clearly be people who want to “make money” in this way,” says an OBOZ.UA interlocutor in occupied Donetsk.
Under one of the Telegram posts about deserters, a resident of Yenakievo said that her brother (who, apparently, was forcibly mobilized by the occupiers) fought for a year and escaped. However, his neighbors gave him up. As a result, he is now listed as missing – that is, with a high degree of probability he was killed.
During the first wave of mobilization in the “DPR,” when both young and old were forced into the ranks of the occupying army, tens of thousands of local residents who were absolutely unprepared (and most importantly, unwilling to fight against the Ukrainian Armed Forces) died. First of all, it is for this reason that now in the occupied part of Donbass there is such aversion to searching for those who fled from the front.
In case the reader is wondering why the word “deserter” is always in quotation marks, the Donbas belongs to Ukraine, thus the cockroaches have no right to draft anyone into their criminal gang from this region, and so they cannot be “deserters”. Everything the fascists are doing go against international laws.
Amen.