On 10 in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the convening of 300 one thousand reservists to increase the war effort in Ukraine, of which 222 thousand had been mobilized by the end of last week.
When Putin made the announcement, the Russian government assured that only reservists who had previously served in the armed forces and who had combat experience or specialized military skills would be called in, and they would still undergo training before being displaced to the battlefield.
However, several reports indicate that this has not been the case and that the Kremlin is sending unprepared young Russians to the front and without adequate equipment.
Last week, the BBC’s Russian service released the story of five soldiers from the Chelyabinsk region recently killed in Ukraine. Three of these soldiers had their names confirmed by the British network: Anton Borisov, Igor Yevseev and Timur Akhmetshin.
According to relatives and close friends of these soldiers, they were recruited in Chelyabinsk between 26 and 29 of September. In early October, they were deployed to fight first in Luhansk and then in Kherson, Ukrainian regions that Russia annexed after referendums denounced as fraudulent by the West and Ukraine.
Na Last week, the families of the five soldiers received information that they had been killed. The Chelyabinsk region recruitment office confirmed the deaths to Russian news agency Tass.
The BBC had access to a recording of a phone call from another soldier from Chelyabinsk, hospitalized in Crimea, in which he described that the five dead soldiers and many others were sent to fight in Ukraine without any training.
“The day we arrived , never having used a weapon, we were allocated an assault group with only two grenade launchers – we were pure cannon fodder. I had to read a manual on how to use them [os lançadores de granadas]”, said the soldier, who claimed to have seen the position where Timur Akhmetshin was being “demolished” and then he was “carried on a stretcher”, before being declared dead.
Also last week, Russian journalist Natalya Loseva, deputy editor-in-chief of state channel RT, reported on Telegram the case of Aleksey Martynov, a citizen of 28 years who had headed a department in the Moscow prefecture and was killed in Ukraine on the last day 10 .
“He was mobilized in 23 September. When he was younger, he had served in the Semyonovsky regiment. He had zero combat experience. He was sent to the front just a few days later. He died heroically in 10 October. Military leaders, now is not the time to lie. You have no right to lie, and now [isso] it is a crime,” wrote Loseva.
Last week, Putin said that due to the various reports that soldiers were being sent to the war in Ukraine without training, would instruct the Security Council to inspect the training of newly deployed reservists. “All citizens called for recruitment must receive training,” he emphasized.
In addition to not being trained, part of the new Russian contingent is also not having access to adequate equipment. for the war. Videos posted on social media showed soldiers receiving rusty weapons and a British Defense Intelligence report highlighted that many are required to buy their own protective gear.
According to the document, one of the missing items is the 6B45 vest, mandatory for combat units. As soldiers are being forced to buy them on their own, high demand is causing the price of the equipment to skyrocket: Russian websites are selling the vest for 40 thousand rubles (approximately Rs. $ 3.4 thousand), while in April it cost 12 thousand rubles (about R$ 1 thousand).
