Telegram Messages Reveal: Was Russia Well-Prepared for the Ukrainian Attack and Border Incursion?

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Messages exchanged on Russian Telegram channels and other social media platforms in recent days have exposed Moscow’s lack of preparation for the Ukrainian attack and the incursion on Russian territory, including the fact that its army left poorly trained conscripts in charge of defending the border with Ukraine, as reported by CNN.

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Shocking Messages

One of the messages shared on Telegram by a woman, who identified herself as the mother of a conscripted soldier in Kursk, a border region that Ukrainian forces crossed last week, stated: “When the border was attacked at 3 AM by tanks, only young conscripts were there to defend themselves.”

The woman, known only as Olga, added: “They didn’t see a single soldier, not a single contractor – they didn’t see anyone at all. My son later called and said, ‘Mom, we’re in shock.'”

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The deployment of young conscripts to the front lines is a sensitive issue in Russia, partly due to Putin’s repeated promises not to send them into combat, but also because the mothers and wives of soldiers have traditionally been an influential voice within the country, where opposition is now almost non-existent – and many are expressing their anger.

The independent Russian news agency Verstka published an interview with Natalia Abel, the grandmother of a Russian conscript who was serving in Kursk and is now missing. She said that her grandson Vladislav was stationed – without any weapons – in a village about 500 meters from the border. She was quoted as saying: “What could the boys do? Go against [the Ukrainian soldiers] with a shovel?”

 

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Demands for Putin

The American network confirmed that a petition demanding that Putin remove young conscripts from the region had been circulated online, and dozens of messages from people claiming to be relatives of Russian conscripts who went missing in the Kursk area were posted on various social media platforms, including the Russian VKontakte network.

It is likely that Russia’s reliance on conscripts to defend its borders is the reason why Ukrainian forces were able to advance into Russian territory with such apparent ease when they launched the incursion for the first time last Tuesday.

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The Chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army, Oleksandr Syrskyi, stated that Ukrainian forces had advanced 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) through Russian defenses since the incursion began.

He added: “We have taken control of 1,150 square kilometers of territory and 82 settlements,” during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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A source in the Ukrainian Security Service said that the capture of Russian soldiers was the largest single capture operation carried out by Kyiv against Moscow’s forces.

A video captured by Agence France-Presse near the border showed a Ukrainian military truck carrying a group of blindfolded men wearing what appeared to be Russian military uniforms.

But while there seems to be anger over their deployment, this is not the first time young Russian conscripts have been found fighting in Putin‘s war on Ukraine.