Two draftees opened fire at a Russian military training ground near the Ukraine border, killing 11 and wounding 15. The shootings happened during a live-fire training exercise. The trainees opened fire with small arms before they were fatally shot.
The Russians say it was a terrorist attack. The two recruits were from one of the Commonwealth of the Independent States of former Soviet republics. Other than that, TASS has been close-mouthed about the suspects.
No motive for the attack was immediately given, although some ethnic minorities have become extremely resentful of Moscow because they believe the draft is falling disproportionately on their shoulders.
Resistance against the mobilization has become violent at times, with recruitment centers coming under attack. Last month, a Russian man opened fire at a military-recruiting station in Siberia, critically wounding its commander, hours after another man rammed a car into the entrance of a different recruitment center and then set it afire with Molotov cocktails.
The mobilization order has exposed resentment in Russia’s far-flung poorer regions which have been targets of recruitment drives and provided many of the front-line soldiers for the war, now in its eighth month.
Putin says the mobilization of 300,000 troops will be completed in two weeks and that 16,000 are already “performing combat missions.” I’m sure they make splendid targets for Ukrainian sharpshooters.
Kherson region: Newly mobilized Russian soldiers shot their commander, took all the weapons and surrended. Great example to follow for those who don't want to come back home in a black plastic bag… pic.twitter.com/xCVP3QUbgh
— Giuseppe Menefrego (@menefr1) October 13, 2022
The Russian president’s claims about the number of draftees are probably a little exaggerated. There are reports of press gangs sweeping young men off the street and forcing them to join the army.
Police and military officers swooped down on a Moscow business center this week unannounced. They were looking for men to fight in Ukraine — and they seized nearly every one they saw. Some musicians, rehearsing. A courier there to deliver a parcel. A man from a Moscow service agency, very drunk, in his mid-50s, with a walking disability.
I have no idea why they took him,” said Alexei, who, like dozens of others in the office complex, was rounded up and taken to the nearest military enlistment office, part of a harsh new phase in the Russian drive.
In cities and towns across Russia, men of fighting age are going into hiding to avoid the officials who are seizing them and sending them to fight in Ukraine.
Ukraine has become a meatgrinder, and it appears that the Russian military is giving these kids minimal military training before shipping them off to the front.
With the violence at recruiting centers and on the training grounds, deep divisions have been exposed in Russia as a result of forced conscription. And the harder the Russian authorities push, the more resistance they are likely to see.
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