The Kremlin said on Friday that Moscow was not sending conscripts to Ukraine, a day after President Vladimir Putin signed a decree ordering 134,500 new conscripts into the army as part of Russia’s annual spring draft.
The issue of conscripts’ involvement in Russia’s military campaign with Ukraine is highly sensitive.
On March 9, the Russian defence ministry acknowledged that some had been sent to Ukraine after Putin had denied this on various occasions, saying only professional soldiers and officers had been sent in.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday said the situation in the south and the Donbas region remained extremely difficult and reiterated that Russia was building up forces near the besieged city of Mariupol.
And in a rare sign of internal dissent, Zelenskiy also said in a video address that he had sacked two senior members of the national security service on the grounds they were traitors.
Zelenskiy, who often uses colourful imagery, said the Russians were so evil and so keen on destruction that they seemed to be from another world, “monsters who burn and plunder, who attack and are bent on murder”.
