NYT WORLD: He Heeded Russia’s Call to Enlist. Five Months Later, He Was Dead.
By Neil MacFarquhar and Milana Mazaeva
Section: World
Source: New York Times
Published Date: March 6, 2023 at 02:00AM
“I am recording everything right,” he said, grinning before shouting a warning, “Mortar!” The clip was meant to reassure relatives back in Russia that his sudden transition to frontline artilleryman was coming along just fine.
Until it wasn’t.
Last September, President Vladimir V. Putin ordered the mobilization of 300,000 men to bolster sagging Russian defenses in Ukraine. At the time, the hordes of men who fled Russia to avoid conscription attracted the most attention. Yet hundreds of thousands of Russians like Private Ovlashenko — factory laborers and electricians, medical orderlies and basketball players, tractor drivers and school workers — went off to war.
The promise of payouts of $3,000 or $4,000 a month proved a huge incentive, along with appeals to machismo and the defense of the motherland. “What am I, not a man?” Mr. Ovlashenko told two women, his sister and his former wife. “I need to protect my country, my daughter.”
By Neil MacFarquhar and Milana Mazaeva
Section: World
Source: New York Times
Published Date: March 6, 2023 at 02:00AM
Pvt. Ivan Ovlashenko was one of at least 16,000 Russians who have died in Ukraine, more than in the Soviets’ Afghan war. It’s getting hard for the Kremlin to cover that up.
Soon after he deployed to Ukraine last fall, Pvt. Ivan A. Ovlashenko filmed a short video of himself wearing camouflage fatigues and an olive green fleece hat, sitting in a woods flecked with yellowing leaves while fellow soldiers nearby readied an artillery round to fire toward the Ukrainian lines.“I am recording everything right,” he said, grinning before shouting a warning, “Mortar!” The clip was meant to reassure relatives back in Russia that his sudden transition to frontline artilleryman was coming along just fine.
Until it wasn’t.
Last September, President Vladimir V. Putin ordered the mobilization of 300,000 men to bolster sagging Russian defenses in Ukraine. At the time, the hordes of men who fled Russia to avoid conscription attracted the most attention. Yet hundreds of thousands of Russians like Private Ovlashenko — factory laborers and electricians, medical orderlies and basketball players, tractor drivers and school workers — went off to war.
The promise of payouts of $3,000 or $4,000 a month proved a huge incentive, along with appeals to machismo and the defense of the motherland. “What am I, not a man?” Mr. Ovlashenko told two women, his sister and his former wife. “I need to protect my country, my daughter.”
Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/world/europe/russia-soldier-casualties.html
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