Young men were reportedly tricked into joining the Russian Army and reassured that they would only be conducting practice drills in Ukraine.
Following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a full-blown war erupted between the neighboring nations with major world leaders condemning Russia and accusing its president of war crimes.
Now, an independent Russian committee has also made shocking allegations concerning the recruitment of young men into the Russian Army.
The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, a non-government group that was founded in 1989, on Thursday revealed that many young men were tricked into joining the army shortly before the invasion.
According to the disturbing report, numerous soldiers were deceived by being told that they would be conducting practice drills in Ukraine rather than fighting a war. Meanwhile, some allegedly tried to back out of their contracts only to be beaten into submission.
“We’ve had a flurry of calls from scared mothers all over Russia,” the committee’s deputy chairman, Andrei Kurochkin, said in an interview with Russian site Takie Del.
“They are crying, they don’t know if their children are alive or healthy. If there is a war, then professionals should deal with it, not untrained green guys.”
He added: “They are switching entire regiments to contract [soldiers] although the guys did not submit any formal requests for this, and took no such initiative.
“There are instances of physical violence, and beatings of those who refuse to become contract soldiers. And after that it’s completely unknown [what happens to them], because they take away their phones.”
As Kurochkin insisted, the group is currently getting ready to file a complaint with the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office.
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