Deployment of russian draftees in combat operations has been known since the very first hours of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched by the russian federation on February 24, 2022. Initially, Moscow authorities stubbornly denied the presence of conscripts in the front lines of the russian army, take Putin's statement on March 5 of the same year for example.
However, they eventually had to admit the obvious, as social media were quickly flooded with videos of young killers all claiming they were promised just a "training," not war when they marched into the neighboring independent state.
Read more: The UK Defense Intelligence: russian Conscripts May Be Facing Deployment to Combat Zones as Military Pressures Increase
The russian Ministry of Defense soon announced that it had withdrawn more than 600 conscripts from the territory of Ukraine. However, news of the draftees' deaths continued. At least 14 conscript sailors died during the sinking of the Moskva missile cruiser in April. Even recently, the body of 19-year-old Kirill Chistyakov, who died in the first days of the invasion, was brought home only in March 2024.
For obvious reasons, the russian authorities are doing their best to avoid any disclosure of data on the conscripts' casualties in the war against Ukraine. Many have had to search for the bodies of their deceased relatives for years. In the case of the mentioned sailors, the families had to prove through the courts that their children died during hostilities, and not "went missing."
According to human rights activists, since the beginning 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 data, the real death toll might be times higher.
Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the dead conscripts were drafted from villages and small towns. Earlier, Defense Express had already drawn attention to the fact that most of the funerals in general statistics fall precisely on the depressed areas of russia.
Most of the drafted soldiers ended up in Ukraine without signing a contract for military service: their signatures on the documents were forged. For example, three conscripts from the Sakhalin region of russia died in the war in Ukraine, who sued the russian defense ministry over forged signatures on the documents. These were Viktor Baturin, Nikita Molochkovsky, and Nikita Borisov.
All three served together in military unit No. 71435 in the Sakhalin village of Lagunnoye since November 2023. In April 2024, 300,000 rubles (~3,300 USD at the time) were credited to their bank accounts. They filed lawsuits against the russian Ministry of Defense for forging their signatures in contracts, but they were quickly sent on combat missions to never return from.
Overall, relatives of conscripts often claim that their drafted family members were not prepared for combat operations at all, instead were only forced to march, build, and constantly clean the parade ground. In addition, many recruits had not even seen weapons until they arrived at their respective units on the border with Ukraine.
"What were they taught in the army? To paint, plaster, and march in formation. My son held an automatic rifle twice during his entire service. One of those times to take a picture. Who sent him to war? Who will be held accountable for this? There is still no answer," said Lyudmila Khanygina, mother of the deceased conscript Maxim Khanygin. The soldiers were also not provided with the necessary uniforms and personal protective equipment on time and in sufficient quantities.
Moreover, a year ago, Moscow officially adopted a new strategy relying on rookie replenishments, tripling the draft through the 2023–2026 period. Whereas in 2021, the number of conscripts was approximately 250,000, now they want to recruit 800,000, while simultaneously increasing the duration of conscription to two years and changing the age limit from 18–27 to 21–30 years.
In August 2024, during a massive breakthrough of the Ukrainian Armed Forces into the territory of the Kursk region of russia, it was conscript soldiers together with border guards who found themselves on the first line of russian defense. As a result of this fighting, dozens of russian military personnel were captured by Ukrainian forces. A lion's share of them were draftees.
Of course, it's not the first time for the Kremlin to neglect the lives and rights of its citizens in order to satisfy its geopolitical appetites. Just remember the systematic instances of "extraordinary release of aircraft munitions" on the heads of Belgorod residents or russia's extermination of its own ethnic minorities by sending them to war in Ukraine.
The problem of conscripts is one of those aspects that should not to be forgotten when considering the hidden mobilization policies in the russian federation and their long-term consequences.
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