They multiply in Russia, the attacks on military departments across the country. Namely, the Russian Federation requires all male citizens between the ages of 18 and 27 to enlist for one year before being transferred to the army’s mandatory reserve status, in order to meet the goal of enlisting 134,500 men by age 15 recruit July. However, some very young recruits – especially from the most remote areas of Russia – do not intend to go for fear of being thrown into the Donbass, perhaps at the forefront of the war against Ukrainian troops. It signals that some dissatisfaction with the war on the part of younger generations is real, even if the majority of Russians appear to approve of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s work.
It has been a few days since the last attack on the recruitment centers: According to the English-language opposition newspaper Moscow Times, two men fled after attacking a military service office West Siberia with Molotov cocktails. In a video shared by the Telegram Baza channel in recent days, the couple were seen throwing at least seven Molotov cocktails into the window of a design office in the city of Nizhnevartovsk. The flames can be seen in the footage both inside the building and in the lobby. It is believed that no one was injured in the attack, which allegedly took place in the early morning of May 4th.
More Molotov cocktails against conscripts in Russia
With that of Nizhnevartovsk, Molotov cocktails against high-level conscription centers across the Russian Federation rise to six. At the end of April, a bomb attack was registered in the remote region of Mordovia. Molotov cocktails destroyed several computers and a database of conscripts in the settlement Subova Polyana. In March, local residents damaged military posts in the Voronezh, Sverdlovsk and Ivanovo regions, again using Molotov cocktails. The young perpetrators of the Sverdlovsk and Ivanovo attacks said they tried to stop the recruitment drive to protest the war in Ukraine. According to the Moscow Times, four days after Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 28, a 21-year-old man set fire to the recruiting office in the Moscow region town of Luchovitsy. He later stated that his aim was to destroy the archives to prevent conscripts from being mobilized. The arrested youths face criminal charges ranging from damage to property and attempted murder to serious allegations of terrorism.
Schoigu’s assurances. But there is a problem
Speaking of the “second phase” of the conflict in Ukraine at the end of March, the Russian defense minister said Sergei ShoiguHe wanted to assure the population that “Russian conscripts will not be deployed in combat zones.” As reported by InsideOver, on March 9 the Defense Ministry had to admit that some of them had been sent to Ukraine, after Putin repeatedly denied this, arguing that only professional soldiers and officers had been sent. However, there is one problem the Kremlin will soon have to face, despite the general’s assurances, the military analyst notes Rob Lee high TwitterIn fact, President Putin has to make a decision about mobilization.
Russia has deployed 80% of its BTGs – tactical battalion groups – to this war and does not have enough contracted ground units for a sustained rotation. This does not necessarily mean that Russia will carry out a full mobilization, but it could authorize the deployment of conscripts, especially in Ukraine. Without deploying these conscript battalions, which are inferior in quality to professional BTGs, Lee said, Russia could struggle to hold the territory it currently controls in Ukraine in the coming months.