Russia is forcing Ukrainian conscripts into battle
Locals are trying to help them escape
Sasha mostly kept to himself. The 18-year-old engineering student from Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine controlled since 2014 by Kremlin-backed separatists, had no patience for politics. “We were not for Russia, and we were not for Ukraine,” says his mother, Natalya. “We were never interested in the war.” Yet on February 23rd—the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—officials from an army recruitment centre turned up at Sasha’s university. They ordered him to report for duty the next day.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Putin’s disposables”
Europe August 13th 2022
- What would push the West and Russia to nuclear war?
- Wrecked planes smoulder at Russia’s Saky airbase in Crimea
- Russia is forcing Ukrainian conscripts into battle
- Ukraine is on the edge of nervous breakdown
- Can anything stop Italy’s radical right?
- The mysterious French mustard shortage
- A changing climate is bad news for a continent that doesn’t like change
From the August 13th 2022 edition
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