Russian conscripts’ families ask Putin to send them back to Russia: they don’t want to be cannon fodder

KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO – SATURDAY, 15 OCTOBER 2022, 23:22

The families of conscripts living in Fokino in Bryansk Oblast, Russia, have appealed to the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, asking for their relatives to be sent back to Russia.

Source: Russian Telegram channel SOTA

Details: The women’s relatives had previously passed through the Soloti training ground in Belgorod Oblast, where, according to the Telegram channel, a shooting took place on 15 October.

The women say the conscripts were threatened and officers robbed them, taking away their uniforms.

"The whole organisation of the conscription was wrong from the beginning...  conscripts have been dumped in occupied territories without any training," one of the women says in the appeal to Putin.

"Yesterday, Friday [14 October], it was only three weeks since he [the woman’s son – ed.] was mobilised; today is 15 October. Why has he been in occupied territory for a week already?" says another woman.

"We are ready to defend our territory, but the boys should be trained. It's just a betrayal that they are going there unprepared," says a third woman.

"The officers of the Soloti unit are threatening the conscripts with criminal liability, [but they’re] not refusing to go and defend our Bryansk Oblast. They don't want to be cannon fodder for them," said one of the women.

Moreover, according to SOTA, another 200 conscripts, including some from Bryansk Oblast, have been in occupied territory in Ukraine for over a week, without either food or constant communication and not knowing their exact location. In their rare calls to relatives, they ask them to persuade the military leadership to evacuate them to Russia.

Previously: On 15 October, the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation reported that citizens of "a CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] country" had opened fire on "volunteers" preparing to fight against Ukraine at a training ground of the Western Military District in Belgorod Oblast; 11 people were killed in the attack and 15 were hospitalised.

According to SOTA, 22 people may have been killed and 16 wounded. A source among the mobilised men’s relatives told SOTA that the Belgorod Oblast shooting took place at a training ground in the village of Soloti.

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