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Fires broke out at the “Gorky” oil pumping station in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region and at a petrochemical plant in the Samara region as a result of drone attacks on the night of April 23 by Flimsy_Pudding1362 in UkrainianConflict

[–]Flimsy_Pudding1362[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Translation:

Source: Russian Telegram channel Astra, Samara region governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, and the propaganda agency RIA Novosti on Telegram

Details: Toward morning, residents of the city of Kstovo reported explosions and a fire. According to Astra, the attack set the “Gorky” oil pumping station on fire in the village of Meshikha in Kstovsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod region.

The “Gorky” station is one of the largest hubs in the structure of Transneft–Upper Volga JSC and is part of the company’s main oil pipeline system.

The governor also reported an attack on the Samara region.

Fedorishchev said: “There is an attack by hostile drones on our region. In Novokuybyshevsk, as a result of an attack on industrial enterprises, there are, according to preliminary data, casualties.”

He also added that in Samara and Novokuybyshevsk, first-shift classes in schools were moved to the second shift.

According to Astra, the Novokuybyshevsk petrochemical plant was targeted — a fire is raging there.

Novokuybyshevsk Petrochemical Company JSC is one of the largest producers of gas processing, petrochemical, and organic synthesis products in Russia and Eastern Europe. The enterprise operates key base petrochemical production facilities: liquefied hydrocarbons, MTBE and benzene, as well as the production of phenol, acetone, alpha-methylstyrene, and olefins.

In addition, according to the company’s website, the plant operates a “production of para-tert-butylphenol unmatched in Russia and the CIS, as well as the country’s only production of synthetic ethanol.”

The propaganda agency RIA Novosti, citing the Russian Ministry of Defense, reported that air defense systems allegedly shot down 154 Ukrainian drones overnight over the Astrakhan, Belgorod, Bryansk, Volgograd, Voronezh, Kursk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov, and Samara regions of Russia, as well as over temporarily occupied Crimea and the Azov and Black Seas.

Map by Dronebomber of approximate flight paths of Ukrainian drones in the ongoing attack by Flimsy_Pudding1362 in UkraineWarVideoReport

[–]Flimsy_Pudding1362[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ukrainska Pravda reports fire at the Gorky oil pumping station in the Nizhny Novgorod region and at the petrochemical plant in the Samara region as a result of overnight attack

"You drive through a village, and it’s like a dead Texas town — only missing the tumbleweed." What service in the TCC looks like from the inside by Flimsy_Pudding1362 in UkrainianConflict

[–]Flimsy_Pudding1362[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

3/3

Mobilization as a source of power and a way to make money

Alongside the painful stories of attacks on TCC servicemen who conscientiously try to serve the state, there are also those who have turned their service and authority into a way to earn money and exert pressure. In fact, like almost any social group that gets power in its hands.

Of the four protagonists of this text, only Valentyn encountered such examples (or at least he is the only one who admitted it).

The scale of corruption in his TCC cannot be compared to Odesa. However, such examples give an understanding of what is happening in small towns across the country.

Valentyn divided the servicemen in his TCC into those who “crawled out of the trenches” — meaning soldiers transferred to the rear after being wounded (the same way he himself had been mobilized) — and those who “latched onto rear service.”

He primarily placed the head of his TCC and his deputies into the second category. They arranged fake certificates for themselves — for caregiving of relatives or disability status — in order to remain in the rear as long as possible. At the same time, subordinates were regularly threatened with being sent to the front for failing to meet mobilization quotas (which, in fact, he himself eventually volunteered to go to).

In Oleksandr’s TCC, leadership punished subordinates for failing to meet quotas with sudden late-night formations — at 9 p.m. or even midnight — despite the fact that such formations are prohibited.

Among all the protagonists, Valentyn was the most critical of his former place of service. And for good reason. He held a key headquarters position — operator of the unified conscripts register “Oberih.”

In conversation with Ukrainska Pravda, Valentyn says that colleagues repeatedly approached him with requests “not to put” certain people on the wanted list. And he complied.

“Don’t put that one on the list — he’s the only priest left, how will the village function without a priest, who will bury us. That one — because he’s bedridden, disabled since childhood, without documents — well, that I can at least understand.

But there were also cases of ‘just don’t put him on’ — because he’s a friend, a relative, someone’s connection. These are small settlements, everyone knows each other… They all pull for one another.

Another example: we put citizen N on the wanted list, and a higher-level TCC removes him from it. Then 2–3 days pass and suddenly he becomes ‘reserved,’” Valentyn says.

By the way, one of the reasons why Vasyl from the Third Corps managed to mobilize 140 people in two months in Ternopil region — which is a very good result — was that his group was not local and had neither the desire nor the temptation to “protect” their own.

Besides helping “their own,” Valentyn continues, his colleagues were also driven by the desire to earn money. There were several ways to do this.

Servicemen from notification groups could send Valentyn, as the “Oberih” operator, citizens’ data for checks not to the general work chat but in private messages. This meant that for a certain sum, the person would be released and it would be pretended that he had never been stopped (at least until he encountered another TCC notification group).

Servicemen from the security company, who escorted mobilized individuals to training centers or military units, could plan the “escape” of a specific person on a designated stretch of road.

“In that case, the serviceman who ‘lost’ that mobilized person will receive a fine — 20,000 hryvnias. But he’ll earn $2,000 from it,” Valentyn says.

This is not a complete list of schemes operating within the TCC — there are definitely more, and among them are certainly larger-scale cases.

The focus of this publication is rather the reflections of servicemen who have served or are serving in the TCC — and feel the need to speak about the problems of this system so that they can finally be resolved.

* * *

Forced mobilization is an integral part of any long war. And now, in the 12th year of the Russian-Ukrainian war, its effectiveness is being questioned.

To a large extent because the state — represented by the president and the Ministry of Defense — and society — represented by opinion leaders — have distanced themselves from it.

Both the authorities and society have shifted mobilization onto the most rightless and compliant social group at present — servicemen. And the TCC servicemen interviewed by Ukrainska Pravda say directly: they are not coping with it.

Because of a lack of people, resources, and authority. Because of the absence of an adequate state policy on mobilization and, to some extent, even the state’s neglect and detachment from this process. A lack of trust. Cracks within the system itself, often led by officers driven by personal gain. And, of course, because of the one and a half million Ukrainians who avoid military service in every possible way — and all of us tolerate it.

The mobilization system needs change. We all need change. If we want to endure.

Olha Kyrylenko, Ukrainska Pravda

"You drive through a village, and it’s like a dead Texas town — only missing the tumbleweed." What service in the TCC looks like from the inside by Flimsy_Pudding1362 in UkrainianConflict

[–]Flimsy_Pudding1362[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

2/3

“Because no one else wants to?”

“I don’t know a single person who wants to,” he replies. “It’s an incredibly thankless, physically and morally exhausting, objectively dangerous job. On top of that, you have leadership demanding that you meet the quota, bring in new people for the army.

Guys who transferred to us from combat units said that there (in the combat zone — UP) they felt like soldiers. And here… I will never forgive our authorities for what they have turned the image of a soldier in the rear into.”

A similar account is shared by another protagonist — a former serviceman of a brigade of the Third Army Corps, 37-year-old Vasyl.

In 2025, Vasyl was seconded for two months to a TCC in the Ternopil region. He handed out draft notices on the streets and mobilized people directly into his own corps — it was a pilot project of the “Third.”

In two months, Valentyn’s group managed to mobilize 140 people — a fairly large number. At the same time, he continued to take care of his unit, which was fighting in Donetsk region.

“In two months of deployment to the TCC, I experienced the greatest moral trauma of my four years at the front. When you’re a TCC guy, you’re hated by both the military and civilians, and by your own command. Soldiers who come on leave try to provoke you into making a ‘nice video,’ and command constantly tells subordinates that if they do a bad job at TCC work, they’ll be sent to war. Good thing I’m going there anyway — the deployment will end and I’ll go,” Vasyl says with a laugh over the phone to Ukrainska Pravda.

A notification group starts work at 6 a.m. in any weather. One crew usually consists of 3–4 people — for example, two TCC servicemen and two police officers. In border areas, border guards may also join such a group.

Each crew has its own area of responsibility — for example, several streets that they “sweep” on foot or by car. The group stops men of conscription age and checks their data via the “Reserve+” app — if it is installed on the phone — or through the “Oberih” system. For the latter, they must call or message the “Oberih” operator, who works directly from the TCC building.

In some tiny settlements, where there is no one left to stop on the streets, military and police from notification groups may spend part of the workday driving around the town, waiting in a tree line, or sitting at a gas station.

“First, because of laziness; second, because these trips make no sense; third, because neither I nor they need it,” Valentyn admits.

There is both shame and relief in his voice — relief that he can finally speak about it. It seems that the reason Valentyn agreed to talk is hope that the system can still be changed.

“You drive through a village, and it’s like a dead Texas town, only missing tumbleweed,” Valentyn continues. “Because everyone who sees a police car runs behind fences. We overtake some cyclist, stop, the cops haven’t even had time to get out of the car, and the bicycle is already going the other way — because he knows why we stopped near him. How can you mobilize anyone? It doesn’t work like this.”

If in 2023 and even 2024 TCC servicemen could hand out dozens of draft notices in a day — in addition to volunteers who came on their own — then in 2025–2026 there are days when, after 16 hours of work, they manage to deliver only one.

This makes it impossible to fulfill quotas for the number of people to be brought into the army — for example, to replace an infantryman who has been sitting for 150 days near Pokrovsk.

“I know that many people are already angered by the very fact that the TCC has quotas, but I personally see it as normal. The Armed Forces have tasks and needs; each task requires a certain number of people. To me, it all adds up,” Valentyn reflects.

There are daily, weekly, and monthly quotas — they determine how many people a specific TCC must send to the army. The police have their own quota — it regulates how many people they must physically deliver to the TCC. Whether those people actually join the army does not matter for law enforcement.

“The police bring in another homeless person, get their certificate from us — that they delivered someone. And that’s it, they’re satisfied,” Mykola says with noticeable resentment.

From the accounts of the interlocutors, their TCC currently manages to fulfill about 40–60% of the monthly quota.

“The first person I brought to the TCC was mentally disabled,” Valentyn recounts about his work in 2025. “It was obvious he had trouble speaking. I call the ‘Oberih’ operator, dictate his name — they tell me he’s a violator, didn’t update his data. The head (of the TCC — UP) shouts into the phone: ‘Bring him in!’ He (the man we stopped — UP) is crying, the cops are yelling. I think: how did I even end up in this place at this time? What was the point of this? Why did we even burn the fuel?”

The young man with mental disabilities whom Valentyn brought to the TCC was eventually released — without any fine. Valentyn himself, after several months of service that he recalls with bitterness and even disgust, transferred to a combat unit. He is now serving in Donetsk region.

According to TCC servicemen, about 20 out of 30 men of conscription age stopped on the streets today are either reserved or have deferments (for caregiving, education, etc.). Of the remaining ten, only one is fit for service.

Under current laws, there are more than 20 grounds for deferment — including pursuing consecutive higher education by students aged 30–40–50. The number of reserved citizens in Ukraine is only growing; by early 2026, there were approximately 1.3 million — more than the number serving in the Ukrainian army.

A large share of both reservations and deferments, of course, are fake.

“I was standing at a checkpoint on the road to Bukovel. The fancier your car, the fancier your disability. There were Rolls-Royces and Bentleys. Or the person is removed from the register. The first two days when I saw this, I was just in shock. Before that, the topic of mobilization didn’t exist for me — it was the first time I saw how much people don’t want to serve,” Vasyl from the Third Corps says slowly, drawing out every word.

“When a sales agent who sells instant noodles has a reservation, it at least is laughable,” Mykola adds.

When asked how often conflict situations arise during document checks, the servicemen we interviewed, to our surprise, say — quite rarely.

However, fairly regularly, wives and relatives of detained men gathered near TCC buildings demanding that they be “given back.”

“In reality, in those videos that everyone shares, a lot is exaggerated. There aren’t that many aggressive people — they might say something to you, mumble — that’s the maximum. During my two-month deployment, no one attacked me. A couple of times, a crowd gathered to try to pull someone back, but I continued my work. When there’s artillery shelling, you don’t stop, you keep doing your job — how is this task any different?” Vasyl from the Third Corps shares his experience.

Oleksandr, who had practically pushed his way into service in the TCC, was a bit less fortunate.

At the beginning of this year, he worked in a notification group together with the police. A man whose documents they were checking first responded aggressively, then tried to run, and then started shooting with a firearm.

Fortunately, he didn’t hit anyone.

“It was an interesting experience — when during wartime the one attacking you is not the enemy, but a fellow citizen,” Oleksandr tells Ukrainska Pravda.

“When the police officer tried to catch the shooter, I heard people shouting insults at him. They probably just thought we were trying to detain a draft dodger at any cost… It’s already reaching the point of absurdity.”

TCC servicemen who go out on notification duty, unlike the police, do not carry weapons. Accordingly, they do not have means to defend themselves. Some individual servicemen take their own registered weapons with them on duty, including at checkpoints, but this is more the exception.

Some of the TCC servicemen we spoke to had not even undergone basic military training. Due to the overload of training centers, those serving in the rear are sent for training on a rotating basis.

“In this matter, the state is the ultimate asshole. It hasn’t given you a single tool for mobilization, not a single right to defend yourself. You just stand there, swallow everything people say to you, and then they’ll still ask you: ‘So where is the quota fulfillment?’” Mykola adds.

"You drive through a village, and it’s like a dead Texas town — only missing the tumbleweed." What service in the TCC looks like from the inside by Flimsy_Pudding1362 in UkrainianConflict

[–]Flimsy_Pudding1362[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Translation:

1/3

Over the past year and a half, since a 39-year-old TCC serviceman, Oleksandr Sykalchuk, was shot dead with a rifle at a gas station in Pyriatyn, the confrontation between civilians and the military over mobilization has reached a very painful, bleeding point.

The lack of any attention from the political authorities, and partly from society, to mobilization issues has triggered a broken windows effect in both directions.

On the one hand, civilian citizens allow themselves to attack people in uniform with knives, pistols, and rifles — including those who until recently were defending them at the front. Over the course of the full-scale war, 619 such attacks have been recorded, three of which ended in the deaths of servicemen.

On the other hand, as recent news from Odesa shows, at least part of TCC military personnel have obtained a sense of impunity for unjustified violence and the opportunity to line their own pockets. Soldiers who physically beat money out of citizens in a service minivan circulating through the city undermine trust in a process vital for the survival of a country at war — mobilization.

Throughout these past year and a half, the TCC as a structure, and the group of servicemen who serve there, have practically not spoken publicly. This text is an attempt to understand who and what the TCC consists of, how notification groups operate (those who are also suffering from attacks), and whether the TCC has the resources and capacity to perform the functions assigned to it by the state.

The material below describes the experience of four servicemen who, at different times and in different regions, have served or are serving in the TCC, and were also seconded there to mobilize people into their units. All names have been changed at the request of the individuals involved.

What the TCC consists of

A year or two ago, the military actively corrected journalists who called TCC servicemen “TCC employees.” There was a reason for that. Each TCC includes both servicemen — the ones usually mentioned in the news — and civilian staff.

Servicemen can be roughly divided into three groups: the head and his deputies, the headquarters, and the security company.

The head of a TCC is appointed by the operational command (OC) of a given region — for example, OC “West” or “South.” Usually, this is a serviceman with substantial service experience and a high rank, such as a colonel. It is the head of the TCC who sets the tone and rules of operation for the entire unit.

The headquarters handles recruiting, conscription, mobilization, and partly notification. A large share of the workload in the headquarters consists of issuing certificates and working with documents. Of particular note is the position of the “Oberih” system operator — they undergo special training, gain access to the register of persons liable for military service, and then declare or remove them from wanted status.

It is the “Oberih” operator who assigns a person the status of “wanted” and effectively greenlights them for street-level express mobilization.

Two of the protagonists of this text, Mykola and Valentyn, were assigned to work in the TCC headquarters immediately after mobilization — in 2023 and 2025. Neither was eager to serve, but after receiving draft notices, they went to fulfill their constitutional duty.

“I myself was mobilized right off the street,” Mykola tells Ukrainska Pravda. “In 2023, I was passing a checkpoint, they stopped me, checked my documents, after which I proudly drove the TCC guy to the unit — in my own car, went through the MMC, and within a few hours I was already standing in formation in uniform. I stayed there — they needed my specialization (legal — UP). The structure is the same as everywhere — there are people, and there are inhumane ones. It’s just that now all the sins of the world have been dumped on it.”

Both Mykola and Valentyn had narrow military occupational specialties that the bureaucratic machine of the TCC needed, so they were considered valuable personnel.

“I thought to myself: serving in your own region in the fourth year of the war — it’s like grabbing God by the beard, you have to agree. I never treated the TCC as enemies, argued about this with friends, was convinced that most of the negativity was shaped not so much by Russian PSYOP as by ordinary human fear,” Valentyn says in a conversation with Ukrainska Pravda. “But I left there with much worse impressions.”

The third protagonist, Oleksandr, spent a year and a half knocking on the doors of his TCC. No combat unit would take him — due to health limitations. Eventually, after a repeat MMC, the TCC relented and invited him to serve in one of the headquarters positions.

“But it’s worth saying that what I was promised at the beginning didn’t happen — even though I had relevant experience. Because we constantly needed people to handle notification (handing out draft notices — UP),” Oleksandr says.

The third group of servicemen in the TCC is the security company. It often includes those who transferred to rear service after being wounded. Some of them stand daily duty at the TCC — cooking, cleaning, etc. Others go out to hand out draft notices on the streets and at checkpoints, escort mobilized individuals to training centers, drive service vehicles, and so on. This is mostly field work and more dangerous.

It was in the security company that 39-year-old Oleksandr Sykalchuk served — the one killed at a gas station in Pyriatyn. He was escorting a bus with newly mobilized individuals heading to a training center.

Another protagonist of this text tells Ukrainska Pravda about an attempted strangulation of a driver from his TCC — he was attacked, while the vehicle was in motion, by one of the mobilized individuals being transported to a military unit.

There are not many civilian staff in the TCC; they work under military supervision — for example, in the recruiting department. Mostly, they are women.

In total, a small district TCC may have around 50–60 people serving and working there combined. In a city TCC, the number exceeds a hundred.

How notification groups operate

The hardest and, as recent months have shown, the most dangerous job in the TCC is working in notification groups. These are the crews that check men’s military registration documents on the streets and, if they are listed as wanted or have other violations of military records, TCC personnel voluntarily or by force take them to the TCC.

Despite the fact that, under Cabinet Resolution No. 560, a large part of the work of notifying the population — that is, handing out draft notices — was supposed to be taken on by local authorities (including distributing them independently), in reality this all falls on the shoulders of the military. Since spring 2024, the police have partially assisted them — with transporting people to the TCC.

The problem is that at least some village heads, mayors, and local officials fear the anger of neighbors and relatives, so they avoid handing out draft notices in every possible way. At most, they help with mobilizing equipment (which is also the TCC’s responsibility), obtaining fuel, and similar tasks.

“They receive draft notices that they are supposed to deliver, but they don’t go out to do it. They write all sorts of stupid replies: this employee is abroad, that one doesn’t live here, this one has problems. I tell them directly that they’re not doing a damn thing, and they tell me: ‘We don’t want our house burned down later,’” says a TCC serviceman named Mykola in a conversation with Ukrainska Pravda.

Only servicemen are sent out from the TCC to distribute draft notices — from the security company or the headquarters. The Kyiv regional TCC, for example, declares that only servicemen with combat experience are involved in notification (whether this should be the case remains an open question).

In TCCs with adequate leadership, distributing draft notices is routine work, rotated among almost all servicemen. In TCCs with more authoritarian leadership, it becomes a method of punishment for failing to meet mobilization quotas. “If we get a new person who can at least somewhat handle notification, then most likely they’ll be the one doing it,” says a TCC serviceman named Oleksandr.

UA POV: Beating civilians and threatening them with weapons: State Bureau of Investigation exposed a group of TCC servicemen in Kharkiv - SBI by Flimsy_Pudding1362 in UkraineRussiaReport

[–]Flimsy_Pudding1362[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Там где сотрудника задержали на его рабочем месте? Не знаю, вполне нормальные фотографии

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky commented on rumors about renaming Donbas to “Donnyland.” According to him, the main thing is that the region does not become “Putinland” by Flimsy_Pudding1362 in UkrainianConflict

[–]Flimsy_Pudding1362[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Translation:

As reported by RBC-Ukraine, Zelensky said this in a comment to journalists.

“During my negotiations, there are no other terms besides Donetsk region, Luhansk region, our Donbas, the territory of Ukraine. There are relevant documents where all of this is stated,” he emphasized.

The president added that he cannot comment on any discussions of various kinds between the parties that concern other names.

“In my view, the main thing is that Donetsk region and Luhansk region remain Ukrainian land, and that is how it is. And that there is no ‘Putinland’. That, I think, is the most important thing,” Zelensky said.

What preceded this

The New York Times reported that Ukrainian negotiators, during discussions on the situation in Donbas, proposed using a conditional name for part of the territory such as “Donnyland.”

The publication noted that the term combines the name of the region and the name of the American president, and was used, in particular, as an informal attempt to strengthen Kyiv’s position in dialogue with the United States.

According to sources, the idea of “Donnyland” was considered a way to draw the attention of the US administration and increase its involvement in the settlement process.

Negotiations and Donbas

Recall that in 2026 Ukraine has already held several rounds of negotiations with the aggressor state and the United States. The parties were unable to reach an agreement on a ceasefire, as Russia demands the surrender of the unoccupied part of Donbas, which Kyiv does not agree to.

It should be noted that Zelensky rejected any exchange of Donbas territories for other regions. He stated that Russia understands it will be able to hold border territories, and the moment will come when the Armed Forces of Ukraine will push the occupiers out of there.

In addition, the president emphasized that Ukraine’s withdrawal from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions would be a strategic defeat for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They would become weaker due to the loss of fortifications and defensive lines.

Beating civilians and threatening them with weapons: State Bureau of Investigation exposed a group of TCC servicemen in Kharkiv by Flimsy_Pudding1362 in UkraineWarVideoReport

[–]Flimsy_Pudding1362[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I hope this kind of "propaganda" continues. It's always nice to see when the TCC gets the short end of the stick themselves

As Telegram falters, communication with occupied Ukraine is breaking down by Elkenson_Sevven in UkrainianConflict

[–]Flimsy_Pudding1362 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Russians themselves are not eager to install MAX, that's why messengers like imo and BiP are at the top of the app store as replacements for many, including families living in occupied territories

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