Six months after the war began, Russia is urgently looking for new fighters. When it comes to recruiting, Moscow is anything but squeamish, says Markus Ackeret. It’s not always without coercion.
“NZZ Akzent”: Russia is running out of soldiers
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David Vogel and Sebastian Panholzer
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Konstantin Tulinov is hailed as a war hero on Russian state television. To save his comrades, he blew himself up with a grenade and made up for his past sins, according to a television report. Just a few months earlier, Tulinov was still in a Russian penal colony for attempted murder. There he was recruited with great promises for the war in Ukraine. Shortly afterwards he was at the front.
Konstantin Tulinov is one of hundreds of prisoners recruited for the “military special operation”. For several months, Russia has been desperately looking for new fighters for its army in various ways, says Russia correspondent Markus Ackeret in the new episode of “NZZ-Akzent”. Because the campaign in the Ukraine is costly and tough.
One way of recruiting takes the recruiters to penal colonies, where they look specifically for serious criminals. But the unemployed are also recruited. However, not all tenders are officially related to the “special operation”, says Ackeret. Many only realize afterwards that they were recruited for the war.
Russia is also looking for new soldiers in the Donbass. Recruitment is different, however: for several weeks now, men have been disappearing off the streets without a trace. They are forcibly recruited for the war and sent to the front with no training and poor equipment.
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