A Ukrainian truck was spotted carrying what seemed to be blindfolded Russian soldiers. Image: (CNN)
Maria Baloyi
(The Post News)- When Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated the conflict with Ukraine, he gave assurance that conscripts would not participate in combat.
However, as Moscow faces challenges in countering Ukrainian progress, families of young conscript soldiers are expressing concerns about their relatives being sent to the front lines.
Over the past few days, messages on Russian Telegram channels and other social media platforms have exposed Moscow’s lack of readiness for this type of attack.
Among other things, it has been revealed that its military had left untrained conscripts in charge of guarding the border with Ukraine, a nation with which it has been at war for more than ten years.
In one such letter, a woman identified herself as the mother of a conscript soldier in Kursk, the border region where Ukrainian troops crossed last week, wrote, “When the border was attacked at 3 a.m. by tanks, there were only conscripts defending themselves.”
The Russian defence ministry was contacted by CNN for comment, but they have not responded. Conscript deployment is a contentious topic in Russia.
This is partially because of Putin’s repeated assurances that they won’t be deployed to fight, but it’s also because military wives and mothers have historically been powerful voices in a nation where opposition is now essentially non-existent and many are venting their resentment.
An interview with Natalia Appel, the grandmother of a Russian conscript serving in Kursk who is currently missing, was published by the independent Russian news source Verstka.
She expressed concern that her grandson Vladislav, stationed unarmed in a village about 500 meters from the border, might struggle to defend himself against Ukrainian soldiers.
A social media petition asking Putin to evacuate the conscripts from the area has gone viral, and numerous posts on social media, notably the Russian network VKotante, purporting to be family members of Russian conscripts who have vanished in the Kursk region have been posted.
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