Drunken Mass Brawl Breaks Out Among Russian Troops, Video Shows

A drunken mass brawl broke out among Russian troops at a training center in Yurga, Siberia a video circulating on social media appears to show.

A large group of men drafted as part of President Vladimir Putin's recent mobilization decree, were filmed at the base in the Kemerovo region.

Lyubov Eduardovna Sobol, a Russian opposition politician, lawyer and member of the Russian Opposition Coordination Council, shared the clip on her Telegram account at the end of October, saying that regular soldiers of the 74th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade at the base were indignant at the "endemic drunkenness" among the mobilized troops.

They "dragged the drunks" and "beat them," wrote Sobol, who produces opposition figure Alexei Navalny's YouTube channel "Navalny Live."

The video shows military officers dragging unconscious soldiers away from the scene of the brawl.

On Friday, the governor of the Kemerovo region, Sergei Tsivilev, announced that mobilized men are now prohibited from leaving the training center because of the mass brawl.

He made the announcement in a statement on his Telegram channel after visiting the 74th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade.

After seemingly trying to downplay the incident by saying that in isolated cases men had left the training center to buy alcohol he said there would be no repetition.

"My decision is a complete ban on leaving the territory of the unit," the governor said.

"Discipline has been strengthened in the training center: it is absolutely forbidden to leave it, with certain exceptions," he wrote.

Tsivilev said a maximum of one day's leave would only be possible if the unit commander permitted it in the event of family visits.

The governor also commented on the brawl at the training center.

"I met with those who were involved…They gave [their word] to all the officers and veterans who are here that there will be no repetition and they will not violate military discipline," he said.

The incident comes as reports emerge of low morale and drunkeness among newly moblized recruits.

Since Putin's September 21 mobilization decree, chaotic scenes have been shared on social media.

One video shows a drunken man staggering on the tarmac of an air base before he boards what is believed to be a mobilization flight.

"A group of not-necessarily-sober Russian conscripts on the territory of the Dolinsk-Sokol air base located in Sakhalin Oblast, Russian Far East," tweeted the account of Status-6, which covers armed conflicts.

Francis Scarr, from the BBC's Russian state television monitoring service, also shared the video, adding the message, "absolute scenes at an airfield in Russia's Far East where one man mobilized to fight in Ukraine was so drunk that he reportedly fell asleep in the long grass next to the runway."

Russian defense officials said Putin's mobilization order would affect a total of 300,000 people with military experience, but mistakes have been made and ineligible men have been called up for service.

Protests have erupted nationwide, military enlistment offices have been targeted and hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled the country to avoid conscription.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's foreign ministry for comment.