More than 2,000 conscripts ended up in Ukraine in the first days of the war, the former commander of the Russian intelligence group, who fought from February 24 to mid-March, told Important Stories about this. Most of the conscripts did not know that they were being sent to war.
“According to my information, there were more than 2,000 conscripts. When we [our unit] met them, we helped them and immediately organized evacuation, sent them back to Russian territory. We understood that the conscripts had nothing to do there.”
According to the intelligence officer, conscripts were sent due to a shortage of personnel. At the same time, most of them, directly during the hostilities, simply fell into a stupor due to shock – they had no combat experience.
“For the military, especially those who are inexperienced, for example, for these poor conscripts who were shoved there, the first days were a shock. For example, those who are from these regions [border to Ukraine] knew that they were already on the territory of Ukraine. And the rest just drove and did not know where they were going, why. Therefore, the situation turned out, which the soldiers later told the Ukrainians on these videos [interviews of prisoners of war], that “we didn’t know at all where we were going.”
At first, the Russian authorities denied the information that conscripts were involved in the hostilities. President Vladimir Putin assured that only officers and contractors, that is, professional military men, are in the war. According to him, "there are no conscripts" and no one "is going to send conscripts" there.
It quickly became clear that this was not true. A few days later, the Ministry of Defense announced that the conscripts in Ukraine were nevertheless “discovered”, while those who were in the rear were allegedly taken prisoner. How many of them, the department did not specify. There were also no estimates.
The scandal arose already in the first days of the war: the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers announced the transfer of conscripts to the border areas and the loss of contact with them, and the native soldiers raised a panic. The media also wrote about conscripts in connection with the death of the crew of the flagship of the Russian fleet, the cruiser Moskva. One of the first who spoke about the participation of conscripts was Dmitry Shkrebets, the father of sailor Yegor Shkrebets. For months in the fleet denied this fact and the death of the conscript in the war: he was " declared missing in the military unit." Only in June, the crew of the sunken cruiser were recognized as participants in the "special operation". At the same time, the Ministry of Defense, contradicting itself, claimed that the ship itself did not participate in the "special operation".
Conscripts were thrown into the war zone by deception or forcibly, The Insider said . Often the officers who sent the conscripts did not bother signing the contract and simply fabricated the documents.