The Ukrainian march in Kursk, which earned the respect of the whole world, messed up Putin’s plans and made him take a decision against which all the mothers in Russia rose. Tensions in the federation are growing.
The youngest Russian conscripts find themselves in the middle of a large-scale war. The long-standing practice of avoiding the participation of young conscripts in the Russian army in combat has been broken in the Kursk region, writes The New York Times.
It has become standard practice in Russia not to send recruits to the front line. It is required by law and accepted by all parents who hope to protect their sons from the bloodshed of war. But the lightning invasion of Ukraine in the Kursk region shook this situation.
Moscow was surprised. Suddenly, the war reached the conscripts. Hundreds of them were captured, dozens are considered missing and potentially dead.
Moscow’s decision to send young, untrained soldiers to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Chechnya helped bolster domestic opposition that forced the Kremlin to end those conflicts. So in the first chaotic days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when several hundred newly arrived soldiers appeared to be in units that had crossed the border, Putin ordered military commanders to send them home.
“Only professional servicemen will carry out their assigned tasks,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the time.
However, when Ukraine invaded the Kursk region, Putin did not recall the conscripts. Some new soldiers from remote regions told their families that they were sent to Kursk as reinforcements.
The unexpected danger to conscripts has sparked a fierce online battle between supporters of the war, who accuse fathers of “spoiling” their sons, and parents upset that a long-standing tradition has been broken.
The commander of “Akhmat” Apti Alaudinov recorded an appeal in which he called on parents to stop “crying” that their sons should go to war, adds UNIAN.
The Russians were outraged, criticizing the lack of proper training, poor weaponry and the small number of descendants of elite soldiers serving.
#Putin #unthinkable #Russian #mothers #stood
