Russian Authorities Failing to Live Up To Promises To Those Mobilized For Service In Ukraine – OpEd

In violation of the principle that it is not a good idea to fail to pay those you have given guns to and want to fight for you, the Russian authorities across the country are making promises to those mobilized of various kinds and then failing to live up to those promises, a report on the Kholod news agency documents.

The problem began at the top with Vladimir Putin promising massive supplemental pay to those mobilized, a promise that regional officials in many cases sought to top. But neither Moscow nor the regions had the funds to live up to their promises and the newly mobilized were left often in the lurch (holod.media/2022/12/04/vyplaty-mobilizovannym/).

Kholod documents cases in Chuvasia, Irkutsk Oblast, Khabarovsky Kray and Chita but suggests that the problem is more massive. In some places, the mobilized have revolted; in others, they have complained; but in every one of them, the men called to fight for Putin’s war have been left disappointed and likely in many cases extremely angry. 

The unmet promises involved not just bonuses, the news agency says. Moscow promised that those mobilized would not have to make payments on debts. The Duma even passed a law to that effect. But Russian banks have refused to obey that law and instead have insisted on receiving their money.

And in Buryatia, already a hotspot of dissent about the war, the authorities promised supplies of wood to the families of those mobilized to ensure that they could heat their houses over the winter. But they promised more than they could deliver, and many of these families have received nothing. 

All these people are going to remember what they were promised and what they didn’t get.