Russia has resorted to recruiting women from prisons to compensate for heavy losses of troops at the front, according to independent publication The Moscow Times, Ukrainian officials and an independent Russian prison watchdog. On March 8, Vladimir Putin told Russian women that he would not send their husbands and sons to war.
In the March 8 message, Putin spoke of respect for Russian women and assured that he would not send their husbands to fight in Ukraine.
Putin especially thanked “servicewomen who chose the highest mission – defense of the Motherland” and those who work in hospitals and risk their lives to evacuate soldiers from the front lines.
Less than a week later, Putin allegedly sent women recruited from the colonies to eastern Ukraine.
“Last week, a train with sleeping cars for transporting prisoners was spotted moving towards Donetsk region. One of the wagons [avea] convicted women [în el]”, – says the message of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, published on Monday.
Olga Romanova, co-founder of the detainee rights organization Russia Behind Bars, confirmed the ministry’s claims to the independent news outlet iStories, noting that Russia may have used detained women in its offensive against Ukraine since at least late last year.
“They were taken from the colonies of southern Russia. I don’t know them for sure, but they worked in Kushchivka [în sudul regiunii Krasnodar]”, Romanova told iStories.
It is reported that up to 100 women prisoners have been sent to fight in Ukraine so far, although it remains unclear whether the recruitment was voluntary or whether the detainees were forcibly taken into the Russian army, Romanova claims.
In February, representatives of the Ukrainian military said that Russia had recruited up to 50 women from a penal colony in the Russian-occupied city of Snizhne in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
According to them, the women were sent to Russia for “training” before being sent to fight on the front lines in Ukraine.
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Source: Hot News
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