Agenda. On September 25, we learned that the summons for my husband was in the village administration [в Ленобласти]. The husband said that if the summons came, he would not run. That’s why [он] he went and picked her up. The agenda was for September 30: we got together, went to the military enlistment office, and there he [мужа] sent to the unit.
Somewhere in 2014, my husband was doing military service, he was 18 years old. It was the engineering troops, where he received the specialty “electrical engineer”. But our amazing army puts the specialties they need. Upon arrival in Luga, he became a “radio telephone controller”, and when he was sent to the front, he became a “senior gunner”.
According to his health at the time of mobilization, he had a problem with his eyes: destruction of the vitreous body in the eye. He sees “black flies” that do not go anywhere. And he had a problem with his shoulder. [До мобилизации] my husband just wanted to deal with this, because it hurts even to sleep on his side.
Military commissariat. He thought that there would be a medical board in the military registration and enlistment office and he would outline these points. There was no medical board at the military registration and enlistment office, it was not even offered. [В части потом] no one asked if he had health problems either.
Fees. From the military registration and enlistment office he was sent to Luga, where he was promised a two-week training. But there, in his words, [мобилизованные] only once went to the exercises: once they threw training grenades, once they fired from a grenade launcher – and that’s it. In Luga, they promised that the exercises would still take place in Belgorod. Unfortunately, it wasn’t there either.
The husband described Luga as an absolute mess. He said that this was not a military unit, that he was simply in shock. There, even conscripts behave terribly. Everywhere they smoke and drink endlessly, as if they are trying to drink all the vodka from the region. The guys run away through holes in the fences, hang around at night – some for women, some for alcohol, some worse.
We collected the husband completely ourselves. Because when the summons came, we were told that a lot of things were not given to the guys. We spent over 40 thousand rubles, and even then we didn’t buy everything that was needed – there is still more to buy and buy more.
Front. On September 30, my husband left for Luga, two weeks later they left [мобилизованные] in the direction of Belgorod, on October 20 they arrived near Belgorod, on October 21 he was already sent to the front line.
I have a connection with my husband, he calls every three or four days for just a couple of minutes to say that he is alive and well. According to him, the conditions are terrible along the entire front line. The guys did not expect that they would simply be taken to the forest-fields. They are left without anything: without tools, without food, without water, without any instructions and tasks.
For two weeks, the command came to them, maybe a couple of times. When they get there [на фронт] We walked, we were ready, that it would be very difficult. But at least they wanted their fucking commanders to come, so that they would have a connection with them. But in fact, as the husband says, even if someone is injured or killed, there is nowhere to wait for help.
A family. We are experiencing his departure very, very hard. We have two small children. My son is one and a half years old. My daughter turned five years old on October 5 – her husband, unfortunately, did not have time for her birthday, he was already taken away then. She cries for dad every day.
If I even knew that these two weeks [на сборах] they were trained every day, that if they weren’t trained in their specialties, then they would have picked up at least [задачи] for the guys, for what they can do. If there was at least some kind of medical examination, it would be easier for me. And so you know that he is almost at the forefront with such conditions … Of course, it’s hard for me.
