Conscripts leave Siberian city of tears
IN the small Russian city of Yakutsk, close to the Arctic Circle in Siberia, conscripts who will be sent to fight against the Natotrained Ukrainian army began their journey to the frontline.
Groups of men looked ashenfaced as they hugged and kissed their loved ones, unsure when or if they would ever return, before boarding buses headed for Russian military bases to train for the battlefield.
One young boy was held up to a vehicle to say goodbye to his father possibly for the last time. The city is 2,800 miles from the border with Ukraine, the equivalent of London to Damascus.
In Dalnegorsk, in the eastern Primorsky Krai region, video footage showed mobilised reservists on a bus as officers took a roll call.
A haunting video also showed a group from Stary Oskol, in the Belgorod region, being taken away. One child was heard shouting: ‘Papa… Please come back.’