26 September and 3 October 2022
Two recent posts on Facebook by Sergei Parkhomenko, journalist and civil society activist
Source: Facebook
26 September 2022, Facebook
Here is an important announcement for anyone who thinks a state still exists in Russia that maintains exclusive control over its functions as defined by the Constitution. Among those functions, let me remind you, are the country’s defence and security (Art. 79 of the Russian Constitution).
But the country’s citizens are being openly called on by people who are building their own army separate from the state and not subject to the state’s laws.
This separate army has its own separate procedures, which allow it “to escape all the ‘joys’” of the army, like discipline, standards of behaviour, and the daily duties of the ordinary soldier.
This separate army has its own separate uniforms, equipment, and supplies, which, unlike the ordinary serviceman, they can choose and supply for themselves if they like, for which they are paid compensation.
This separate army has its own separate social guarantees, its own compensations for wounding, disability, and death, and its own wage rates, which have nothing in common with the standards the state has set for its own army.
Those serving in this separate army have their own separate, indeterminate laws and relationships with their criminal accountability for crimes previously committed, judicial decisions issued against them, and sentences they have not served out.
This is basically a different, separate army in the same geographic zone seemingly defined by the borders of what we say is the same country. It exists in conditions where no laws are in effect and where the state has no significance and doesn’t dare interfere.
Not only does the state agree to its existence, it encourages its expansion.
There is no state. It’s all gone.
***
“Right now, with the start of mobilization, I’m getting lots of calls with questions regarding service in the Aleksandr Nevsky volunteer detachment.
The Nevsky detachment is a tactical battalion group reinforced by tanks and artillery in SAU [self-propelled artillery unit] and BM [multiple rocket launcher]-21 technical units.
Service in the detachment is a legitimate alternative to mobilization and makes it possible to determine independently where and with whom you participate in the SVO [special military operation], as well as to avoid all the ‘joys’ of the army, such as mandatory shaving of beards.
The Detachment’s backbone and command consist of officers and militia who have been taking part in the war “in the ukraina [borderlands]” since 2014.
New recruits, regardless of previous experience, undergo individual and team training at the testing ground of the special ops brigade of the GRU [Main Directorate of the Russian General Staff] in Tambov.
All volunteers are provided with body army (vest and helmet), as well as the essential kit (uniform, boots, thermal underwear, backpacks, sleeping bags, ground pads, and so on), and if they have their own equipment they are compensated $700.
The volunteer’s monetary allowance starts at 220,000 roubles a month plus an additional one-time payment of 100,000 roubles before their departure and an additional 100,000 roubles a month while on battle assignment.
Compensation for injury is 1/2/3 million roubles for light/medium/serious injury, plus up to 2 million roubles one time when invalided out.
The death payment is 5 million roubles and an additional 4 million roubles.
Travel compensation is up to 20,000 roubles upon presentation of receipts for travel to Tambov made out to the volunteer (excluding business class).
There is a way to register so as not to interrupt job seniority.
Individuals who have a record of convictions, are released on parole, or are under travel restrictions have a way to settle these matters on an individual basis.
Based on the results of their participation in the SVO, they receive a certificate as a veteran of military actions as well as decorations from the Russian state.”
***
I won’t give a reference: I do not encourage banditry, armed robbery, marauding, or mercenaries.
3 October 2022, Facebook
Analyzing the “legalization” of Putin’s seizure of Ukraine’s territory is, of course, a very specific occupation for major fans and enthusiasts. Naturally, it’s all a deeply illiterate and illegal gangster kind of “licenсe.” But out of pure curiosity, it would be nice to have an answer to the question.
The pharaoh’s edicts annexing new territories states that the borders of the territories of Kherson and Zaporozhia Oblasts “are defined by the borders… that existed on the day of their formation and the day of their admittance to the Russian Federation…”
From this it follows that they mean not the oblasts that existed (and from the standpoint of international law exist today as well) inside Ukraine, but rather some kind of new oblasts organized “on the day of admittance” to the Russian Federation.
So I would like to know whether some domestic act existed by which these new “territorial units” asserted their own existence, their own borders, and the size of their territory. After all, in order to be “admitted to the Russian Federation,” they would already have to exist, if only for a few seconds.
So who founded them? After all, there are no organs of power there of any kind, even self-proclaimed. There is an occupation administration appointed, by the way, also by no one knows who or how. We never saw any documents about their appointment published anywhere: whether by Moscow, by the Kremlin, by the General Staff of the Russian Army, or by the headquarters of military units or formations that occupy part of Ukrainian territory. There are no electoral bodies, even quasi-legitimate, nor are there any self-appointed ones there either: no Soviets, no Dumas, no assemblies of any kind…
So where is the document about their formation?
Or were they not just pulling the wool over their own eyes? Founding, proclaiming something there…
It’s a question especially for those who for years would point upward and with a sage look proclaim, “Our president is a legist. Purity of procedure is very important for him…”
Translated by Marian Schwartz
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