A social time bomb? Think tank believes most Russians fighting in Kursk are conscripts
The US-based Institute for the Study of War says the use of conscripts in Kursk is a domestic 'vulnerability' for the Russian president.
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00:00These are some of the approximately 600 soldiers Ukraine says its troops have captured since
00:07the start of its cross-border incursion into Russia's Kursk region three weeks ago.
00:13It's believed that most of these prisoners of war are conscripts, young and relatively
00:17inexperienced soldiers who probably thought they would not see any real fighting in their
00:22mandatory year-long military service.
00:25They would certainly not have expected combat on Russian territory.
00:30Conscripts currently are a large bulk of the defending force in Kursk Oblast right now.
00:36They're the ones being captured, they're the ones being encircled.
00:40And this has been a vulnerability for Putin in terms of his domestic perception.
00:44And as long as he continues to prove himself kind of not super interested in protecting
00:50conscripts in Kursk and using them as the main defensive line, I anticipate that that
00:54will have social effects in the future.
00:58Conscripts arriving in the Moscow region after a prisoner exchange.
01:01The NGO Get Lost supports Russians trying to avoid conscription and escape the war.
01:07It says that since the beginning of the Kursk incursion, hundreds from the border region
01:11have contacted them for help.
01:24But he said things changed when more conscripts needed to be sent from regions further away
01:37from the border.
01:38Logistically, it takes more time to transport them.
01:54The next conscription starts on the 1st of October.
02:08The law says new conscripts must have served for four months and have a military service
02:13speciality to participate in the so-called counter-terrorism operation.
02:17This means this new batch shouldn't be sent anywhere before February 2025.
02:23And as with the Kursk conscripts, they might see their first combat sooner than that.