Kremlin ‘locking’ conscripts in rooms to force sign-up

RUSSIA is locking conscripts in hot rooms without water until they agree to sign up to fight in Ukraine, a Russian news agency has reported.

The Kremlin has not declared war in Ukraine so only contract soldiers can legally be sent to the front.

The pressure tactics reportedly applied by military recruiters are a sign they are struggling to fill so-called “volunteer battalions”.

“Guys in this military unit, on the orders of the political officer, are gathered in the club in enormous heat and with the windows closed. They don’t let them leave and they don’t let them drink water,” the Ridus news agency quoted a mother of a conscript in the Tver region as saying.

Conscripts, under Russian law, cannot deploy overseas unless war is declared. In reality, though, Russian generals sent thousands of recruits into Ukraine during the initial invasion in February under the pretext of a training exercise.

The Kremlin has launched a recruitment drive to replace an estimated 75,000 soldiers, dead and injured, it has lost in its six-month war in Ukraine, ordering each region to raise battalions of volunteers. Uptake has varied hugely from region to region. The most eager have been regions on the fringe of Russia that have offered large signing-on bonuses to volunteer soldiers.

In St Petersburg and Moscow, areas that have been sheltered from the war, uptake has been far slower.

Analysts have said that the Kremlin has used the pro-war Pravda.ru news outlet to publish negative reports on regional governors whom it considers too slow to raise volunteer battalions.

Some of these volunteer battalions have already seen combat, Russian media has reported, although it is not clear how well they have performed.

According to Telegram reports, Russian criminals recruited from prisons by the Kremlin-linked Wagner mercenary group have also been in action. They are given a two-week training course and then sent to the frontline.

Meanwhile, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, called on the EU to implement a visa ban on all Russian tourists.