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UKRAINE'S KURSK INCURSION TESTS YOUNG RUSSIAN CONSCRIPTS' METTLE

By Lucy Papachristou, Mark Trevelyan and Filipp Lebedev
August 29, 202412:10 PM GMT+2Updated a day ago
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Russian conscripts called up for military service line up before departure for
garrisons from a recruitment centre, amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict,
in Bataysk, Rostov region, Russia May 16, 2024. REUTERS/Sergey Pivovarov/File
Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
 * Summary

 * Raw conscripts overwhelmed as Ukraine pierced border
 * Some killed, others captured in Aug. 6 incursion
 * Debate reopens on whether conscripts fit for war zone
 * Some seek legal advice to avoid being sent into battle

LONDON, Aug 29 (Reuters) - The last time Liana spoke to her husband Husain
before he was captured by Ukrainian troops, he said what he always told her:
"Everything is fine."
Husain, a 21-year-old conscripted soldier, was dispatched with his Russian army
unit in mid-July to a base in the western Kursk region that he said was nine
miles (15 km) from the frontier with Ukraine.
When Husain phoned his wife on Aug. 4, he said the situation there seemed calm,
Liana told Reuters. The only sign of the war in Ukraine was the buzz of drones
overhead, protecting soldiers as they slept.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Two days later, thousands of Ukrainian troops smashed through the border into
Kursk in a lightning attack that took Moscow by surprise.
For about three weeks, Liana heard nothing from Husain. Then, on Sunday, he
called her from a Moscow hospital and said he had been released with more than
100 other Russian prisoners of war who had been captured in Kursk.
Husain told her his unit had come under heavy Ukrainian shelling, and that he
and two other conscripts were the unit's only survivors.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue

Reuters could not independently verify Husain's account.
"He thought he was going to die," said Liana, 19, who spoke on condition that
the couple's surnames not be used for fear of recriminations.
Liana is relieved that Husain, with whom she has an 18-month-old son, is alive.
But she fears that her husband, who worked as a builder, will be sent back to
fight in Kursk.
"He is still young, he just started to live," she said.



SENSITIVE ISSUE

Russian men are required to complete a year of military service before the age
of 30, with about 280,000 called up each year. Ukraine's incursion has reopened
public debate about whether raw and untested recruits should be thrown into
battle.
Less than two weeks after sending troops into Ukraine in 2022, President
Vladimir Putin said: "I emphasise that conscript soldiers are not participating
in hostilities and will not participate in them."

The following day, Russia's defence ministry acknowledged some conscripts were
fighting in Ukraine. Putin ordered an investigation and promised to punish the
officials responsible.
Over two years later, investigations by the BBC Russian Service and independent
Russian outlet Important Stories show hundreds of conscripts have been sent to
Kursk to defend against Ukraine's advance. Dozens have gone missing or were
captured.

Reuters confirmed the deaths of two conscripts from accounts posted by their
families on social media.
Artyom Dobrodumsky won medals in children's karate competitions in the southern
Rostov region, and graduated from a cadet school. He was 22 when he died in
Kursk.
Daniil Rubtsov, who was raised in northwest Russia, received his army notice in
December 2023. He hoped to become a police investigator, his mother told Russian
newspaper Novaya Gazeta. He died in the Kursk region on Aug. 7, aged 18.
Russian civil society groups that advise men on how to avoid military service
say they are concerned about pressure on conscripts to sign contracts to become
professional soldiers.
Alexei Tabalov, founder of legal support group Shkola Priziyvnika (Conscript
School), said conscripts, many of them teenagers, are highly susceptible to such
coercion.
"It's easy to fool them, manipulate them, blackmail them. You can threaten them
and use physical force against them without any real consequences," Tabalov said
by telephone.
He said many conscripted soldiers in Kursk had received little military
training, and were treated like "service personnel" tasked with maintenance and
other low-level tasks.
"Many say they didn't even have access to weapons, which confirms that they
weren't considered to be participants in possible hostilities, or defending
something," Tabalov said.
In recent days, he said, conscripts from areas including the far east and
Bashkortostan near the Ural Mountains have sought his advice, saying they have
been told they will be deployed to Kursk or the adjacent border regions of
Bryansk and Belgorod.
Reuters was not able to determine how many conscripts have been sent to fight in
those regions since Ukraine's incursion.
Asked about media reports that conscripts are being sent to Kursk and pressured
to sign military contracts, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "Most often
such reports are an absolute distortion of reality. We do not consider it
necessary to comment".


EVERYONE 'MUST STAND IN FORMATION'

Following the incursion, a Russian military commander in Kursk dismissed
parents' concerns that their sons may be too young or inexperienced to see
battle.
"We should not turn 18-year-old conscripts, who are men, into children who have
to be given a pacifier and sent off to bed," Major General Apti Alaudinov,
commander of Chechnya's Akhmat special forces, said in a video message posted on
Telegram. "Everyone in our country today, from the smallest to the greatest,
must stand in formation."
Russian military analysts say it is unlikely that conscripts fighting in Kursk
are prepared to meet battle-tested Ukrainian units.
Some of those captured were drafted in May or June and may have had only the
minimum 45 days of training, said Pavel Luzin of the Center for European Policy
Analysis (CEPA), a U.S. think-tank.
"The best thing the Russian conscripts can do is to turn themselves in to the
Ukrainians immediately," said Nico Lange, a defence expert at CEPA. "They will
not survive this."

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your day. Sign up here.

Reporting by Lucy Papachristou, Mark Trevelyan and Filipp Lebedev in London,
Writing by Lucy Papachristou, Editing by Timothy Heritage

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Mark Trevelyan

Thomson Reuters

Chief writer on Russia and CIS. Worked as a journalist on 7 continents and
reported from 40+ countries, with postings in London, Wellington, Brussels,
Warsaw, Moscow and Berlin. Covered the break-up of the Soviet Union in the
1990s. Security correspondent from 2003 to 2008. Speaks French, Russian and
(rusty) German and Polish.

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