Ukraine has claimed that Russia is forcibly recruiting women into its army to top up the tally of human-wave attacks.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in a statement yesterday that Russia this week “recruited about 50 people from the women’s prison colony in the town of Snizhne in the temporarily occupied territory of the Donetsk region.”
“It is also known that they were sent to the territory of the Russian Federation for training.”
The report said: “To make up for the loss of manpower, the enemy is trying to enlist convicted women to take part in the hostilities.”
The Armed Forces of Ukraine previously reported in December that 28 Russian women had been conscripted and sent for training to compensate for unit losses in the 1st Army Corps.
Russia does not typically use women in combat roles.
President Vladimir Putin (pictured) intends to use women in combat roles, according to Intel
“Night Witches”: Women employed by Stalin in World War II from October 1941 in the Soviet Air Force
On Friday, Britain’s Defense Ministry reported that Russia was struggling to keep up its supply of convicts and could no longer rely on “human wave-style attacks”.
A Russian source, likely an insider within the Wagner Group mercenary group, said that as a result of the Wagner Group squads’ suicidal tactics, “casualties are mounting and progressing [slowing] down’.
The Wagner Group is a Russian paramilitary organization first deployed in the 2014 annexation of Crimea and is now a private extension of the Russian army in Ukraine with close ties to Putin.
The Wagner Group and the Russian Army have deployed battalions staffed by ex-convicts – who were promised their freedom for reliable service – since last year.
Pundits and insiders have documented Russia’s approach to sending wave after wave of prisoners who have “nothing to lose” to push the frontline forward.
White House spokesman John Kirby said in January that there were an estimated 50,000 Wagner group fighters currently in Ukraine, of whom about 40,000 are convicts.
The recruitment of women into Russia’s combined armed forces would be a new development in the war as Putin seeks to build numbers.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said Russia is preparing for a “maximum escalation” of the war in the coming weeks.
Ukraine is expecting a three-pronged attack from the country’s north, south and east to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the war on February 24, 2023.
Ukraine’s top general Valery Saluzhny told The Economist last month that Russia was preparing 200,000 fresh troops for a major spring offensive.
In September last year, after months of setbacks in Russia’s campaign, Putin ordered a partial mobilization of troops.
At the time, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia would call up 300,000 reservists to support its military campaign.
This proved difficult. According to Noyava Gazeta Europe, 261,000 men left Russia between the partial mobilization declaration and 26 September.
Russia denied other reports that 700,000 left.
Russia scrambled to refill the lines and reportedly began recruiting homeless people.
Graduates of the Krasnodar Military Aviation Academy in October 2022
Female graduates from the Russian aviation school, the first since World War II, pictured October last year
In October 2022, images (above) released by the Russian Defense Ministry showed female graduates of the Krasnodar Military Aviation Academy.
This was the first time since World War II that women were allowed to fly in the Russian Air Force.
Josef Stalin’s “Night Witches” were the all-female military aviators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment.
They were sent to war in October 1941 following Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June.
The “press ganging” of Russian women in support of the Russian penal battalions in “human wave” attacks has not been previously reported.