If three weeks ago, we estimated at 20,000 the number of Russian soldiers killed since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine On February 24, this Wednesday, the British defense secretary, Ben Wallace, affirmed that the figure had risen to 25,000. Following the usual calculation by which the number of wounded and captured is usually three times the number of dead, Russia would have already lost 100,000 men in just over four months. Everything, to advance just a few dozen kilometers to the east from the Minsk treaty positions, and seize the Sea of Azov and Black Sea ports that are now the target of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
This high number of casualties (remember that, at the beginning of the war, Russia wanted to amaze the world by gathering between 150,000 and 200,000 men on the border with Ukraine) is causing the need to find replacements wherever. Though Vladimir Putin is reluctant to general mobilization, and even less in Moscow or Saint Petersburg, where this measure may find more resistance among the country’s upper-middle classes, the army tries to make voluntary recruitment as attractive as possible with immediate contracts and aid to the familiars. It is estimated that the salary for those assigned to Ukraine can be around 3,000 dollars.
The problem is that it doesn’t seem to be working. To conquer Donbas and hold onto the south, Russia may have enough with what it has. If he wants to push at least as far as the natural border of the Dnieper River and take the key city of Kharkiv in the north, he needs a lot more men… and even the recruits don’t seem to want to partake in this madness no matter how much money they’re offered. The fact that the Duma is shortly going to change the law in order to be able to immediately send new recruits to the front, thus speeding up training times, is producing a boomerang effect across the country.
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As in the old days of the Soviet Union, families are doing their best to hide their children of military service age, paying bribes, even where it is necessary. The American specialist of the Rand Corporation, Dara Massicot, affirmed this Wednesday on Twitter that the price for getting rid of the call-up could be around 14,000 rubles (250 euros), what certain authorities would charge for issuing exemption certificates for invented physical or mental issues.
The rebellious wives of Buryatia
It is not only mothers who care about their children. After four months, the restlessness of the wives of those sent to the front begins to be noticed. Let us remember that, in many cases, they thought that they were only going to maneuvers on the border or to special exercises in Belarus and they have found themselves in the front row of one of the bloodiest wars of the 21st century so far.
In the absence of newsRussia often hides deaths, disguises them as disappearances or does not report them altogether despite requests from families– Sixteen women and a child from Buryatia (Siberia) have decided to record a video denouncing the unfairness of the war and the absolute lack of information regarding their husbands, parents and children. The women identified themselves, according to the Washington Post, as relatives of some of those assigned to the Fifth Tatsin Armored Brigade, military unit 46108.
The same newspaper warns that at least thirty soldiers from that unit – it does not reveal the names or whether they are relatives of the complainants – have died throughout the war. It is estimated that at least 206 soldiers from the Buryatia republic, one of the poorest in the Russian Federation, have been killed in the conflict so far. Initially, the funerals were official and were attended by Governor Alexei Tsidenov, but Tsidenov has not been seen in public for a long time and certainly not at such events.
The background of the “Movska mothers”
The Kremlin threatens anyone who “produces or spreads false news about the special military operation in Ukraine” with sentences of up to fifteen years in prison. The risk for these sixteen women is enormous, considering that they are easily identifiable. This, probably, is the reason why the administrator of the group’s social networks, Vera Partilkhaeva, who had denounced the lack of a legal shield according to the situation, has decided to delete the video from their profiles and has subsequently deleted said profiles. . It is also not available to the press.
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The episode reminds the protests of the families of the crew of the Movska, the battleship sunk by Ukrainian missiles in mid-April. Then, social networks were also filled with protests from the relatives of the soldiers, including recruits who had been sent to the area despite not having sufficient training. Last week, the Committee of Mothers of Soldiers, very active in the Chechen wars of the 1990s and 2000s and totally silenced on this occasion, denounced that several of the survivors of the sinking had been called up again for just two months after having saved his life in extremis.
Before the inability to access free and truthful informationRussian citizens rely on social movements to find out something as basic as whether a relative is dead or still alive. Often not even the Russian Defense Ministry knows this, as bodies are left unidentified in retreats. In short, the status of “missing in action” remains, the greatest nightmare for a family, thus condemned to live in uncertainty without even the possibility of resorting to protest… unless they are willing to accept the consequences, of course.
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