About 300,000 young men are called up annually, half in the spring and half in the fall.
In addition, the draconian jail sentences meted out to critics of the Ukraine conflict have largely neutered parent groups.
Dozens of mothers who raised questions in online forums about the use of conscripts declined to answer any questions for this article. One who did, a woman named Elmira, said her son, 22, a former medical student, was drafted last December. He belonged in the barracks, not in the trenches, she said in an interview, but would do his “duty” without complaint.
Conscript numbers from Kursk are largely opaque. Russia has not released any. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top military commander, said Tuesday that Ukraine had captured nearly 600 troops in the region. That number could not be independently verified, and it is unclear how many are conscripts.
Last Saturday, Ukraine traded 115 Russian conscripts, some captured in Kursk, for 115 Ukrainian conscripts, according to officials in both countries.
