"Teenagers Sacrificed for Putin"…Increasing Casualties Among Conscripts Sent to the Battlefield

Official 25 Teenage Warriors
"The Actual Number May Be Higher"

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.
Photo by AP Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Na Ye-eun] As Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues for over a month, the number of teenage Russian soldiers killed in action is also increasing.

Russian paratrooper David Arutyunyan died on the 7th of last month during a clash with Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. He died a day before his birthday and was born in 2003.

The British newspaper The Times reported, "His death shows the harsh reality of a war where innocent conscripts are sacrificed due to Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade."

In fact, news continues to emerge of teenage soldiers like Arutyunyan, who lived ordinary lives unrelated to the military but were suddenly conscripted and died after receiving inadequate training.

Another fallen soldier, Anatoly Tolshnov (19), was undergoing welding training before being conscripted, and Aleksei Martinov (19) was a university student in the Siberian city of Ulan-Ude.

Ilya Kubik (18) and Kushinbai Masharipov (19), who were conscripted and later converted to contract soldiers, also died in combat and were buried in their hometowns.

The media stated, "Officially, 25 teenage soldiers like these have been identified, but the actual number is likely higher," adding, "The Russian military is expected to conscript up to 134,500 personnel in the future. The number of teenage casualties will increase."

Coincidentally, all of them were born after 2000, the year Vladimir Putin came to power and decided on the war. The Times emphasized, "They were born under Putin and died for Putin."

Soldiers with red identification bands tied around their arms and legs are resting in Mykolaivska, Donetsk People's Republic, a pro-Russian region in eastern Ukraine. / Photo by TASS Yonhap News

Meanwhile, cases of Russian soldiers refusing to fight have also been reported recently. On the 1st, Ukrainian forces claimed that two Russian platoon commanders refused combat orders and left the military, indicating a decline in Russian troop morale.

On the 30th of last month, Jeremy Fleming, director of the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a signals intelligence agency, said, "We have obtained evidence of Russian troops refusing orders and even deliberately destroying military supplies."

Russia had previously claimed that conscripts were not deployed to combat zones but only acknowledged on the 9th of last month that some conscripts had been sent to the front lines.

According to The Washington Post (WP), Russian conscripts receive only basic training for four months and, under presidential decree, are not allowed to operate outside Russian borders.

Therefore, many of these conscripts have been continuously pressured or coerced to convert to contract soldiers, and a significant number believed they were participating in military training rather than an actual war, The Times reported.

Valentina Melnikova (76), secretary-general of the Russian Soldiers' Mothers Committee, a Russian military rights advocacy group, said, "Conscripts are told, 'Here are pen and paper; write if you want to convert to contract soldiers.' Some do, some don't, but all are sent somewhere to the front lines."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.