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Russian Conscripts Are Dying in Kursk. How Will the Kremlin Control the Narrative?
Russian Conscripts Are Dying in Kursk. How Will the Kremlin Control the Narrative? | National Review
Putin’s war may unleash forces he’d prefer to remain contained.
www.nationalreview.com
A notable outcome of Ukraine’s surprise invasion of the Russian province of Kursk — now stretching into its third week — is the Russian army’s reliance on thousands of unprepared, under-equipped, and poorly led conscripts in its attempt to repel the invasion.
It’s often under-appreciated in the West just how unpopular and politically sensitive the draft is in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The use of conscripts in Afghanistan and Chechnya (and their deaths in their thousands) was a huge part of the unpopularity of those wars inside Russia. In those years, the draft set off protests and a Russian “mothers’ movement” that elicited concessions from the Kremlin.
And one of the big concessions that the Kremlin has made during its “special military operation” in Ukraine is that Russian conscripts — usually drafted for one-year terms — would not be used outside sovereign Russian territory, i.e., they wouldn’t be used in Ukraine. Instead, the war would only be fought by “contract soldiers,” volunteers who have signed on to fight, usually after being offered significant financial incentives from the Russian state, as well as large numbers of former convicts, offered their freedom should they survive the meat grinder.
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Indeed, according to Luxmoore, “Russia’s VK social network was full of posts from mothers searching for information about conscript sons who had gone missing since Aug. 6. A VK page dedicated to the search for missing soldiers, which has 59,000 subscribers, was receiving several posts a day.”
Obituaries of dead conscripts were also being published on local news sites across Russia, on the social-media profiles of the karate and boxing clubs they fought in and in local church pages. The young men confirmed dead or reported missing were described as teenagers who hadn’t had a chance to live life yet and weren’t ready for war.
Of course, this being Russia, where it’s almost tradition for the state to not give a damn about its dead young soldiers, one perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised when someone turns an already volatile situation up to eleven.According to the Telegraph, Apti Alaudinov — a lieutenant of the brutal Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, a Putin ally — has been busy mocking the “sobs” of the mothers of Russian conscripts.
Commentary:
It's estimated that Ukrainian forces have taken nearly 1,000 KM since the start of the counter-offensive.
Putin has thrown thousands of draftee's (conscripts) into the fight and now is losing more than 1,000 a day dead and captured.
Putin could care less about Russia, the loss of land or the loss of men. Putin wants the 500,000 tons of Lithium that was discovered in Eastern Ukraine a few months before his surprise attack. Putin doesn't care if millions die. This war is about greed. Money.
So far according to reports, 600,000 dead and maimed for life Russian soldiers and over 3,000 wrecked tanks, BTR's and several ships including a submarine..
Putin doesn't have any other option while trying to keep his persona as Russia's protector. In order to mount an effective counterattack, he's going to need a force of trained troops or risk losing untrained ones on the same scale as he's losing men and material in Ukraine.
Announcing a second conscription of 500,000 civilians would be troublesome, at best, and end his reign at the worst. Besides, in the time it would take to train them, it could take even more troops to expel the Ukrainians an continue the war he's already got.
For a small fraction of our annual DOD budget, the US and NATO have enabled Ukraine to literally destroy half the Russian army. Now add to that major ships, submarines, strategic air assets, and critical infrastructure. Finally, we will force Russia to pay the cost of rebuilding and rearming Ukraine so this never happens again... The seized $300 billion is a good start. Slava Ukraine for paying the price of liberty in blood, just like we did.
