A social time bomb? Think tank believes most Russians fighting in Kursk are conscripts

The US-based Institute for the Study of War says the use of conscripts in Kursk is a domestic 'vulnerability' for the Russian president.

Transcript

00:00These are some of the approximately 600 soldiers Ukraine says its troops have captured since

00:07the start of its cross-border incursion into Russia's Kursk region three weeks ago.

00:13It's believed that most of these prisoners of war are conscripts, young and relatively

00:17inexperienced soldiers who probably thought they would not see any real fighting in their

00:22mandatory year-long military service.

00:25They would certainly not have expected combat on Russian territory.

00:30Conscripts currently are a large bulk of the defending force in Kursk Oblast right now.

00:36They're the ones being captured, they're the ones being encircled.

00:40And this has been a vulnerability for Putin in terms of his domestic perception.

00:44And as long as he continues to prove himself kind of not super interested in protecting

00:50conscripts in Kursk and using them as the main defensive line, I anticipate that that

00:54will have social effects in the future.

00:58Conscripts arriving in the Moscow region after a prisoner exchange.

01:01The NGO Get Lost supports Russians trying to avoid conscription and escape the war.

01:07It says that since the beginning of the Kursk incursion, hundreds from the border region

01:11have contacted them for help.

01:24But he said things changed when more conscripts needed to be sent from regions further away

01:37from the border.

01:38Logistically, it takes more time to transport them.

01:54The next conscription starts on the 1st of October.

02:08The law says new conscripts must have served for four months and have a military service

02:13speciality to participate in the so-called counter-terrorism operation.

02:17This means this new batch shouldn't be sent anywhere before February 2025.

02:23And as with the Kursk conscripts, they might see their first combat sooner than that.