1/ Russian conscripts are now fighting, dying and being captured in large numbers in Ukraine's Kursk offensive. As this is the first time that conscripts have been a significant factor in the war, let's look at who the conscripts are and why so many have surrendered. ⬇️
2/ Russia's armed forces are currently made up of four principal groupings: professional ("contract") soldiers, who join voluntarily; mobilised soldiers ("mobiks"), recruited compulsorily; convicts, who sign up in exchange for a pardon; and conscripts, who serve for one year.
3/ Mobiks differ from conscripts in that they are principally older men (and sometimes women) in Russia's reserves who have previously served in the armed forces as contract soldiers or as conscripts. There were estimated to be around 2 million people in this category.
4/ All males from 18-30 are subject to conscription, with all three parts of the Russian armed forces (army, navy and air force) taking conscripts. Exceptions are made for health and other reasons. Evading conscription is punishable with up to 18 months of imprisonment.
5/ Conscription is very undesirable (for reasons which we'll cover shortly). As many as 70% of those eligible for conscription buy their way out of it by bribing a doctor or recruiting officer. The 'fee' was reportedly between $5,000-$10,000 in 2007.
6/ This drastically skews the demographics of conscription, with the armed forces being left with the poorest and least healthy men to serve as conscripts. This leaves the Russian military with chronic problems of fitness and efficiency.
7/ In 2007, the Russian Air Force reported that 30 percent of the 11,000 men it conscripted annually were "mentally unstable," 10 percent suffered from alcohol and drug abuse, and 15 percent were ill or malnourished.
8/ Conscripts are paid a pittance – those currently fighting in Kursk are reportedly being paid $0.75 a day – and as the lowest-ranking soldiers, they are ruthlessly exploited by those above them. This includes older soldiers (dyedi or 'grandfathers') and officers.
9/ For decades, conscripts have been subject to extreme and often lethal forms of hazing and abuse, known as 'dedovshchina' (literally 'reign of the grandfathers'). In 2006, at least 292 Russian soldiers were killed by dedovshchina. 341 soldiers died by suicide in 2007.
10/ This has occasionally led to lethal retaliation. In October 2019, 20-year-old conscript Ramil Shamsutdinov shot 10 of his colleagues, killing 8 of them, after being forced to stay awake for days at a time and suffering other forms of abuse. Such torture is frequent.
11/ One video shows a young soldier stripped, beaten and then repeatedly pushed, face down, into a toilet. Later, he is show with new iron burns over his back. His tormentors urinate on him. In 2005, a conscript had to have his legs and genitals amputated after being tortured.
12/ Other forms of abuse include doing unpaid labour, being made to sell blood to earn money for the abusers, or being forced into prostitution. Conscripts in St Petersburg were forced by the dyedi to perform sexual services for influential middle-aged clients or face torture.
13/ Conscripts receive little or no military training, making them of little use as a fighting force. The mothers of conscripts in the Kursk region have complained that instead of getting any training, their sons were simply used as labour – carrying shells or digging trenches.
14/ A fairly common form of corruption among officers is to use conscripts as unpaid labour to build or maintain their dachas (holiday homes), or hiring them out to businessmen work in building sites, fields or factories – for which the conscripts get no compensation.
15/ Russian law forbids conscripts from fighting abroad, but officers have found ways around this. During the Ukraine war, officers have forced conscripts to sign contracts against their wishes by beating them until they gave in.
16/ One officer recalled what he was told by another officer who forcibly recruited conscripts: "Our officers 'reeled in' guys who were conscripted. The officer says before lights out, we have to 'give birth to a contract soldier', and asks who wants to sign a contract.
17/ Nobody wants to, and the guys start swinging until somebody gives up and signs it."
Similarly, conscripts in the Kursk region have reportedly been threatened with being sent to a penal battalion for 7 years unless they sign a contract.
18/ Even without the abuse, conscripts face terrible living conditions. In the Russian Navy's training centre located in Lomonosov, Leningrad Region, conscripts reportedly faced worse conditions than convicts and had to live in abandoned barracks buildings.
19/ "The guys were shoved into an abandoned part where there is no canteen. Imported food is disgusting. There is no hot water. There is mould, dampness and one dryer for 180 people in the barracks."
20/ "Drying socks on radiators is not allowed, everyone wears wet clothes and gets sick. At the same time, there are no medicines, and the paramedic gives only soda and salt to gargle."
21/ Engineering conscripts in Volgograd faced similar conditions: "There are no elementary medicines in the unit's medical centre, and what parents bring must be hidden from the officers (if it is not taken away immediately after receiving the package)."
22/ The collapse of Russia's defences in Kursk is no surprise, as something very similar happened in the Graivoron district of the Belgorod region when the Russian Volunteer Corps briefly invaded in May 2023. It was guarded only by 23 conscripts with one officer and one mobik.
23/ The defenders were routed almost immediately. According to the conscripts, they were not even given brushes and liquids to clean their rifles, radios and other equipment. Those serving on the border were given rifles but no ammunition.
24/ Their mothers said that in six months of service, the conscripts only went to the firing range once or twice, while their commanders submitted false reports about daily training. The men were assigned to military professions that did not correspond to their training.
25/ One conscript was made a medic, although he "didn't even know what aspirin and No-Spa [drotaverine] were for". Others were given old grenade launchers and mortars but no training to fire them. Some were not even trained to use their rifles.
26/ Some of the conscripts were not even given food or water by the army. One conscript told his girlfriend that "they were eating earth there. I laughed and then realised it was no joke." Volunteers and parents brought them fresh clothes and food, which they cooked themselves.
27/ The conscripts said they were treated badly by their commanders, who made parents feed them as well the conscripts. According to a girlfriend, the officers "drink and get violent", and take out their frustrations on the conscripts under their command.
28/ The men were in place for months, despite repeatedly having been promised they would be rotated out or withdrawn. This didn't happen, despite appeals to the authorities by their mothers. Many became ill and some contracted pneumonia in the cold, damp dugouts.
29/ Not surprisingly, morale was low even before the attack. One mother says: "At first the boys had an adventure. Then there was the expectation that they would be relieved, they were promised. And now there is devastation. They feel betrayed and abandoned."
30/ Given that these issues were publicised by Russian outlets, the Ukrainians certainly know about them. It's no surprise that when they attacked in Kursk, resistance appears to have collapsed quickly and conscripts surrendered in large numbers. /end
1/ Russian soldiers are stopped from retreating by the use of blocking units, which threaten or if necessary shoot retreaters to discourage others. This is risky work for the blockers too, as the story of a soldier named Ivan, call sign 'Angel', shows. ⬇️
2/ Ivan's story – he is now dead – illustrates the dangers of being assigned to blocking duty. While some dedicated blocking units may exist, his story and that of another man (thread below) suggest that blocking is often done on an ad hoc basis.
3/ Ivan's widow Eva says that he was involved in evacuating the wounded and spent two days bringing a seriously injured colleague from the front line. He was then ordered to go back on combat duty but refused because he was exhausted, and went to sleep.
1/ Russian Railways is reported to have faked a Ukrainian attack to cover up its own culpability for a fatal derailment in the Leningrad region in September 2025, caused when a locomotive was ordered to be driven at over twice the permitted line speed. ⬇️
2/ The crash of a TEP70BS diesel-electric locomotive occurred on 14 September near Semrino station in the Gatchina district of the Leningrad region. The driver was freed after being trapped in the cab, but died in an ambulance.
3/ The crash occurred on the same day as the separate derailment of a locomotive pulling 15 empty tank cars in the Luzhsky district of the Leningrad region. Both crashes were widely suspected to be the work of Ukrainian or anti-Putin partisan sabotage.
1/ Following recent reports that Russia is recruiting alcoholics, drug addicts, and the elderly en masse to fight in Ukraine, a soldier on the front line near the Dobropillia salient reports that "marginalised individuals" are struggling to advance there. ⬇️
2/ Recent reports have highlighted how "homeless and hardened alcoholics" are being sent to the front line, despite their inability to cope with the demands of intense warfare. This is borne out by a new report from the Dobropillia area.
3/ Their influx is likely the result of a bounty scheme under which Russian police officers can earn 10,000-100,000 rubles ($125-$1,250) for sending detainees to the war. They are taking the opportunity to force 'undesirables' to sign army contracts.
1/ A Russian soldier has described how he was ordered by a drunken colonel to shoot his own comrades for retreating from a battle near Klishchiivka in eastern Ukraine. His account highlights the Russian practice of executing soldiers to encourage them not to retreat. ⬇️
2/ The unidentified soldier says that he has been fighting near Klishchiivka, east of the contested Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka. According to his account, he received only three days' training in Vladikavkaz, after which he was immediately sent to the front line.
3/ He says that the men with him were sent to assault Ukrainian positions west of Klishchiivka but were totally unprepared and began to retreat under fire. However, his commander ordered that if they continued with their retreat, they were to be shot by their own side.
1/ 'HELL NO WE WON'T GO', part 4: what can be done to make going to war more attractive for increasingly sceptical Russians? ⬇️
2/ Russian warblogger Alex Kartavykh received thousands of responses to his question of why his followers are "still not storming Pokrovsk". The first thread in this series summarises what respondents gave as their reasons for not joining the army:
1/ 'HELL NO WE WON'T GO', part 3: why many Russians don't want to go to war any more. ⬇️
2/ After Russian warblogger Alex Kartavykh asked his followers on Telegram why "you're ... still fixing a stove in civilian life ... and you're still not storming Pokrovsk", he received no fewer than 4,396 responses. This thread continues a look at what they said.
3/ The first thread in this series summarises what respondents gave as their reasons for not volunteering to go to war: