Putin And The Illegal Use Of Russian Conscripts In Combat Operations

Putin made a big promise when he launched his war on Ukraine on February 2022: Russian conscripts would not be involved in combat. On March 5, 2022, Putin again stated that only professional military personnel (officers and contract soldiers) are allegedly participating in the war, and conscripts are “not involved.”

But as Moscow struggles to contain Ukrainian advances deeper into its territory, families of young soldiers are raising the alarm about their loved ones.

Already in the first hours of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Ukrainian intelligence established that there were many conscripts in the front lines of the Russian army.

From the very first days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army began to suffer significant losses. For example, at least 14 conscript sailors died in the sinking of the missile cruiser Moskva. However, in order to recognize them as dead and confirm that they died during the fighting, relatives had to go to a Russian court.

Last year, Putin ordered the conscription age to increase by three years to 30, so that anyone between the ages of 18 and 30 could be drafted.

Unlike professional soldiers, conscripts receive only limited training before they are sent to their posts, as the law prohibits their deployment overseas and they are not meant to participate in combat operations.

Instead, the Russia has often stationed conscripts along its long borders, not expecting them to ever come under attack. But when Ukraine launched its recent surprise incursion, these conscripts suddenly found themselves on the frontline, completely unprepared to defend themselves.

The Russian government is doing everything it can to avoid disclosing data on the deaths of Russian conscripts in the war against Ukraine. Relatives of many of the dead Russian conscripts have been searching for the bodies of their loved ones for years.

According to human rights activists, since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has lost at least 1,426 soldiers under the age of 20. Among the dead are at least 159 Russian conscripts. These are only 100% confirmed names.

According to the same data, the vast majority of deceased conscripts were drafted from villages and small towns.

Instead, the Russia has often stationed conscripts along its long borders, not expecting them to ever come under attack. Most conscripts ended up in Ukraine without signing a contract for military service: their signatures on documents were forged. For example, three conscripts from the Sakhalin Oblast of the Russian Federation died in the war in Ukraine, who sued the Russian Ministry of Defense over forged signatures on contracts. These are Viktor Baturin, Nikita Molochkovsky, and Nikita Borisov. They served together in military unit No. 71435 in the Sakhalin village of Lagunnoe since November 2023. In April 2024, 300 thousand rubles were credited to their accounts. The conscripts filed lawsuits against the Russian Ministry of Defense over the forgery of their signatures on contracts, but they were quickly sent to combat missions where they died.

In August 2024, during a large-scale breakthrough of the Ukrainian armed forces into the territory of the Kursk region of Russia, conscript soldiers, together with border guard units, found themselves on the first line of Russian defense.

As a result of the fighting in the Kursk region of Russia, dozens of servicemen of the armed forces of the Russian Federation were captured by Ukrainian forces. A significant number of them are conscripts.

The above facts confirm that the military-political leadership of the Russian Federation, in order to satisfy its aggressive goals against Ukraine, disregards the lives and rights of its citizens. The Kremlin is waging a war against Ukraine to destroy not only Ukrainians, but also its own people.