One of the Men Detained During the Raid in Penza Was Sent to Occupied Mariupol. He Was Forced to Sign a Contract — Mediazona

TV Rain:

Penza police said they were supposedly looking for draft dodgers who “had received Russian citizenship.” Human rights defenders describe it as forceful recruitment of men from vulnerable groups. The Russian Interior Ministry’s department for Penza Region commented on reports of raids in Penza, calling them “inconsistent…

One of the men detained during the raid in Penza was sent to occupied Mariupol. He was forced to sign a contract — Mediazona

His wife told the outlet about it.

According to her, on the morning of June 16 he went to visit his parents in another district of Penza Region. On the way to the bus stop, he was forced into a bailiffs’ car.

“No one introduced themselves — they were all in civilian clothes: a man, a woman, and the driver. They brought him to the bailiffs’ office in our town, checked him there — he had no debts, no alimony, no loans,” she says.

Then the bailiffs called a taxi and took the man to Penza, to the military enlistment office building; after that, contact with him was lost. His wife went there, and late in the evening she was allowed to meet her husband.

“We went in: two rooms, one family in one, another family in the second. Basically, he told us they had made him a new passport, annulled the old one, issued them cards (bank cards — ed. note)… They beat him, battered him, forced him to sign a contract,” the woman recalls.

She believes he and the other detained men were “intimidated, terrorized, beaten down” — he had not intended to go to war: one of his two mobilized relatives was killed, and the other returned with a serious injury.

After that, the men were taken out through a back entrance, put into a Gazelle van, and driven away. On the evening of June 17, Tamara’s husband called her and said he was already “in Rostov.” The next day he said that “they have already clothed and shod us” and that they were “in Mariupol.”

“He dictated the military unit number and his tag number,” she said.

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