115 Russian National Guardsmen refuse to go to war against Ukraine - dismissal follows

Created: 05/27/2022, 09:43 am

Picture taken on May 18: a Russian soldier, here in Mariupol © OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP

Putin's army in the Ukraine war has a high proportion of young men who come from the particularly poor regions of Russia.

Many of them didn't want to fight now.

Nalchik - In the Russian North Caucasus, 115 national guards have refused to be deployed in the war against Ukraine.

However, this earned them a dismissal, which a military court, according to information from May 26, declared lawful.

This was reported by the Interfax agency from Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkaria republic.

The National Guards reportedly refused to obey orders and returned to their barracks.

When their contracts were subsequently terminated, they sued, but lost the case.

The verdict is not yet legally binding.

According to media reports, 15 members of the OMON police unit have also lost their jobs in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar.

They had been on an exercise in Crimea in February and had refused to be deployed in the escalating Ukraine conflict.

Ukraine War: Many young, destitute men in Putin's army

In addition to the regular army, the Russian leadership under President Vladimir Putin is also sending units of the National Guard into the "military special operation", as the war is officially called.

In all units there is a high proportion of young men from the particularly poor regions of Russia.

This also includes Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan in the Caucasus or Buryatia in Siberia.

For these men, the army or the police are often the only prospect of a job.

According to experts, these peripheral republics are also disproportionately affected by the Russian dead and wounded in the Ukraine war.