Young Russian conscripts say goodbye to their loved ones in St. Petersburg, May 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANATOLY MALTSEV
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has described media reports of conscripts being forced to sign contracts with the Defence Ministry and sent to Russia’s southwestern Kursk region where a Ukrainian incursion is now well into its fourth week, as an “absolute distortion of reality”.
Peskov told reporters at a press briefing on Wednesday that the Kremlin felt no need to comment on such reports.
Hundreds of Russian conscripts are reported to have gone missing or to have been captured by the Armed Forces in Ukraine (AFU) in August amid Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russian territory, and over 100 have been identified by Russian independent media outlet IStories.
Analysing video evidence shared on social media, The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had captured more than 240 Russian soldiers since the start of the AFU offensive. “Some of the captured troops identify themselves in the videos as conscripts”, The Washington Post said, adding that conscripts were “not generally expected to face battle”.
Reports of Russian Airborne Forces conscripts being deployed to the Kursk region also appeared on Russian social media platform VK on Sunday, though they were promptly deleted by the platform for being “false information”, Russian independent media outlet 7x7 wrote on Wednesday.
The news flies in the face of the repeated assurances given by Vladimir Putin since 2022 that young recruits doing their mandatory military service would not be sent to the front lines.
