Yabloko MPs Call for End to Conscript Deployment in Kursk Region

Lawmakers from the liberal opposition party Yabloko have called on Russia’s Defense Ministry to stop deploying conscripts in the southwestern Kursk region as the Russian military struggles to halt Ukraine’s assault near the border.

Conscripted soldiers were sent to Russia’s border regions, including Kursk, early in Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, despite President Vladimir Putin’s promise that they would not see combat. The Kremlin dismissed reports about conscripts being deployed on the battlefield as “absolute distortions of reality,” but The Moscow Times spoke with eight conscripted Russian soldiers being held as prisoners of war in a Ukrainian prison.

The Yabloko party members have openly called for a ceasefire in Russia’s war against Ukraine, advocating for a pro-peace platform. Candidates from the party were recently barred from running for local office in St. Petersburg’s municipal elections. Some conscripts captured during Ukraine’s Kursk offensive were exchanged in a Russian-Ukrainian prisoner swap over the weekend.