Russia's Crimea Conscription Plan Is Failing: Ukraine

Moscow is failing to recruit troops from occupied Crimea to fight in the war in Ukraine, according to Kyiv.

Russian forces have faced large losses of troops over the course of the war, in particular following the offensive it launched this month in Avdiivka, Donetsk oblast.

Ukraine's National Resistance Center, created by the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine's Armed Forces, has said that Russian attempts to conscript soldiers from the peninsula it annexed in 2014 to replenish dwindling troop numbers are proving to be unsuccessful.

The center said that residents of Crimea are leaving the peninsula and fleeing mobilization, leading military recruitment centers to inform their leadership "that the plan to recruit local residents to the occupying troops forcibly will not be fulfilled."

Without providing details of how it got its information, the Ukrainian center said that Moscow suspects those in the enlistment offices of sabotage and is planning to instal Russian workers to "clean up the ranks." Newsweek has emailed the Russian Defense Ministry for comment and has not yet substantiated Ukraine's claims.

Before Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, rights groups had said that Russian authorities had been conscripting men in the peninsula it seized in 2014 to serve in the Russian armed forces, in violation of international law.

Ukraine's National Resistance Center said that Russia mobilizing residents in the occupied territory is "an international crime, and everyone responsible for these actions will be held accountable" as it called on residents "to report the enemy or collaborator."

In September 2022, Putin announced a partial mobilization of forces that has not been officially rescinded. This was followed by reports of poor training, command and equipment and added to the exodus of Russians seeking to avoid the draft.

However, Russian lawmakers have made it harder for citizens to avoid being called up to fight after they raised the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30 from 27. Conscripts are also prohibited from leaving the country once the enlistment office has sent them their draft notice.

It comes as The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that Russian military authorities had likely coerced Ukrainian prisoners of war to fight for Moscow in Ukraine in an apparent breach of the Geneva Conventions. The independent U.S.-based think tank added that the "Bogdan Khmelnitsky" battalion consisting of around 70 Ukrainian POWs was documented by Russian state-media outlets.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has accused Russia of executing soldiers who had failed to follow orders and threatened entire units with death if they retreat from Ukrainian fire. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday it was "reprehensible to think that you would execute your own soldiers because they didn't want to follow orders."