Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
MOSCOW — A number of Russian soldiers are being killed or going missing, human rights activists say, amid growing evidence suggesting the casualties are the result of Russian military involvement in neighboring Ukraine.
Sergei Krivenko, of Russia's Presidential Human Rights Council, said a woman reported her son's body was brought to her home last week, with documents saying he died of his wounds, but not where he had died.
"She called other soldiers who served with her son," he said. "They told her he was killed among 100 others" in a rocket attack in Ukraine's Donetsk region, where much of the fighting between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian military has been focused.
Quote:
Sending soldiers to areas of military confrontation and not officially reporting their deaths was a common practice during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and similar incidents occurred during Russia's first military conflict in separatist Chechnya in 1994.
More than 100 Russian soldiers were killed in eastern Ukraine in a single battle this month while helping pro-Russian separatists fight Ukrainian troops, two members of the Russian presidential human rights council said on Thursday, citing accounts from eyewitnesses and relatives of the dead.
How many bodies will it take for Putin to back off his foolish shadow games?
Reportedly hospitals are filled with wounded Russian soldiers. Can't imagine what it must be like for the families, finding out that your loved ones are dying, not even knowing that they had been deployed or that anything in particular was amiss.
I loved the Russian government's claim that any Russians in Ukraine were merely soldiers who decided to spend their vacations fighting over there.
Independent Russian media accounts seem to indicate that many of these soldiers are being pressured or threatened to sign contracts deploying them to Rostov and from there, into various areas of Eastern Ukraine.
"The soldiers serving on contract are given an order, and the columns go across Russia and they stop at a camp, as though part of a training exercise, on the border with Ukraine," said Polyakova.
"They take off all the (identification) numbers or blotch them out, and then cross the border," she said.
Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said on Thursday that active Russian soldiers were fighting with the rebels against Ukrainian troops but were doing so while on vacation.
Polyakova said not one of the soldiers she or her colleagues had spoken to had filled out a form to go on vacation, standard procedure for contract soldiers.
Looks like Putin is looking to do another Afganistan. He would be better off working on his countires economy.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
