Andrey, a young auto mechanic, was walking through the separatist-controlled city of Horlivka in eastern Ukraine with his friend Elena in late March when he was stopped by a military service officer who was handing papers. enlisted into his hands.
Within a week, Andrey, who had no military experience, was on the front lines fighting with the Russian army in the confrontation between Moscow and Ukraine. “I don’t know where he is,” Elena said. “I don’t even know the unit number. He rarely calls. . . no more contact with him after that”.
Russia has not mobilized the masses of men of combat age since its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, as it has not yet officially declared war on the neighboring country. But the tie-up is already in effect in Ukraine’s pro-Russian separatist regions, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in the southeast. Donbass region, since the start of what Moscow calls a “special military operation”. Previously, only a handful of men were called up to the army, with many being exempted.
Some analysts say that Russia appears to be heavily reliant on conscripts from breakaway regions in the absence of adequate mobilization of its own.
In recent weeks, the separatist government is said to have stepped up calls, with residents saying that men with no military experience are regularly kicked off the streets and immediately sent to the front. battle. The escalation and rising casualty rates have begun to fuel anger even among pro-Russian communities.
Some videos posted online purportedly show the wives of conscripts in Donetsk and Luhansk asking to support their husbands and asking why men with no military background are sent to fight. .
Russian troops prepare for an operation in Donetsk. Their numbers are being bolstered by local conscripts, who are said to have no combat experience © AP
“They’re not conscripts, so how did they get there?” A woman could be heard asking an official who was blocked by a group of women. “Without even a medical examination, the sick men were taken away!” someone else said.
At least one chat group on messaging app Telegram shares tips on the location of mobile patrols so people can avoid them. Men advise each other to stay at home as much as possible.
A mother living in Donetsk said in an interview that her son initially avoided enlisting because he had previously completed his military service.
“He’s not the fighting type,” she said, recalling him saying to her, “Mom, I can’t kill a person.” But in April, she said, he was picked up from the street, put on a bus and taken to the duty office, with time just to call his mother and ask her to bring him some personal belongings. . “They drove him to the conscription office, changed his clothes, changed his shoes and drove him to base and then to the skirmish,” she said.
He was killed a few weeks later. “I think in the end he probably didn’t kill anyone,” she added. “He doesn’t understand time.”
The center of the fighting has shifted to the eastern Donbas since Russia withdrew its forces back from northern Ukraine and Kyiv in April to focus on strengthen its occupation to the southeast of the country. Separatist forces were heavily deployed.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the US-based Institute for Foreign Policy Studies, said Russia appears to be looking for conscripts in Donetsk and Luhansk to make up for some of its personnel limitations, due to them. unable to mobilize their own forces.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the current phase of the war as one aimed at “liberating” Donbas from the “Kyiv regime”. However, the high level of casualties between fighters from Luhansk and Donetsk may raise questions about Moscow’s motives, Lee said.
“How much is this about taking care of Donbas and how much is it, in fact, a case set [the breakaway regions] Is there a lot of risk to achieving a Russian foreign policy goal, at their expense? ” he say.
At least two videos have emerged showing separatist army units confronting their leaders and refusing to fight. The videos show commanders apparently blaming their reluctance on the fact that many of the soldiers are inexperienced conscripts, although the Financial Times was unable to confirm the authenticity of the footage.
“More than 90% of the people here are not fighting at all. . . It was the first time they saw a Kalashnikov,” said an apparent Donetsk unit leader.
“For three months we lived like an asshole with a submachine gun, and now they want to throw us back in the meat grinder,” he added, emphasizing that he and more than 200 other soldiers refused.” go slaughter.”
Russia has sought to minimize the amount of public information about its military casualties in Ukraine. Regional media had previously released details of casualties from their own communities. But last week, a Russian court ruled that disclosing any information about the country’s military losses, including the names and personal information of soldiers killed in battle, would be considered a crime. illegal.
The Russian Defense Ministry last announced the death toll at the end of March. At the time, the official number was 1,351, but local activists, who say they have counted independently, maintain the real number is at least two and a half times higher. The UK Ministry of Defense puts the current number up to 20,000.
The death toll in Donetsk and Luhansk remains unclear. “For me, the fate of these people is the most tragic,” said one activist, who asked not to be named. “No one remembers them [officially] at all, no one counted them. ”
On several social media groups in Donetsk and Luhansk, relatives have been urged to search for information about the missing person, to share photos and details of identification. Occasionally, handwritten lists were posted with the names of soldiers wounded in the hospital.
The posts contain cryptic comments. “He’s dead . . . I served with him,” one man wrote below a photo of a missing Donetsk boxer posted by his sister.
“Everyone is being woken up, we have no future,” someone wrote under a post commemorating a former karate teacher killed last week. Another wrote: “Teachers are dying, sports coaches, tractor drivers. “What will our future look like? Rest in peace.”
