A social time bomb? Experts say most of the Russians fighting in Kursk are conscripts

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Ukraine's commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said his forces had captured about 600 Russian soldiers since they began their cross-border incursion into the Kursk region three weeks ago.

It is believed that most of these prisoners of war were conscripts – young and relatively inexperienced soldiers who probably thought that they would not experience any real combat during their one-year compulsory military service.

They certainly did not expect to see fighting on Russian territory. However, analysts believe that they currently make up the majority of the defense forces in the Kursk region.

“They are the ones who are being captured, they are the ones who are being encircled. And that is a weak point for Putin in terms of his domestic perception,” said Karolina Hird, deputy head of the Russia team at the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank.

Is Putin in trouble?

At the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin promised that no conscripts would be used in the fighting.

But with reports of young conscripts dying or being sent to the front, anger is growing among families.

“As long as he continues to demonstrate that he has no real interest in protecting the conscripts in Kursk and using them as the main line of defence, I expect this will have societal implications in the future,” Hird said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the 115 soldiers released last week in the first prisoner exchange since crossing the Ukrainian border on August 6 were captured in Kursk.

The Russian NGO “Get Lost” supports people who want to evade conscription and escape the war.

It says that since the beginning of the Kursk invasion, hundreds of people from the border region have turned to them asking for help.

“That is why the anti-terrorist operation regime was declared, or as Putin calls it – the 'anti-terrorist situation'. Because this regime allows the use of conscripts in the regions where it was declared,” said Ivan Chuvilyaev of the NGO.

However, he says things changed when more conscripts had to be sent from regions further from the border. From a logistical point of view, transporting them was more time-consuming.

“For this reason, the method most commonly used today is not such a one-day delivery, but to force conscripts to sign a contract,” he explained.

“This means that the conscript is not only going to the Kursk region, but that after Kursk he will not return anywhere. He will continue to take part in hostilities either until the end of Putin's life, or until the end of the war, or until the end of his own life.”

The next military draft begins on October 1. The law states that new conscripts must have served for four months and acquired a military specialization in order to participate in the so-called “anti-terrorist operation.”

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This means that soldiers drafted within a month should not be sent anywhere before February 2025. But like the conscripts from Kursk, they could see their first combat deployment sooner.