Russian conscripts caught unarmed in chaotic border clash

According to Werstka's sources, on August 6, during the invasion of Ukrainian forces into the Kursk region, over 100 conscripts were at the border.

Journalists managed to speak with soldiers who came under fire and spent several days in the forests. According to them, "everyone knew" that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were preparing for an attack, but there were no instructions from the command in this regard.

Several dozen conscripts who were sent to the Kursk region served in, among other places, Kliny in the Bryansk region – in military units 12721 and 91704. From there - at least since May - they began sending them to the border with Ukraine.

According to Julia, the aunt of a missing conscript, one of the deployment locations was an abandoned canning factory. From there, conscripts were sent to "fortresses" to serve one-time shifts for two days. They were served by border guards and contract soldiers.

Alexander, a conscript from St. Petersburg, with whom Werstka managed to speak, says the same. "At that time, over 150 conscripts were in the area. But there were also contract soldiers and border guards from the FSB. We all constantly rotated. It's easier there; there's no dumb army messing with everything. In the morning, we observe drones, and at night we use night vision goggles," he adds.

Julia says the conscript was satisfied with this service because the soldiers "weren't hungry, and the border guards addressed them by name," unlike the commanders in the army, "who had to be bought cigarettes in the city."

When the fighting began on August 6 in the border areas of the Kursk region, contact was lost with many conscripts.

"We have an emergency situation. In short, they broke through. We will now go either to Sudzha or to Goncharovka. Ten people stayed with us because there were no weapons or anything. Shooting began, we were bombarded with mortars. We were there, in the deepest swamp in the world, we didn't have any machine guns, nothing," said conscript Alexei to his mother Olga during a short phone call.

Journalists have a recording of her conversation.

Relatives of residents of border villages ask for help in finding missing relatives:

"My son called from the forest, where he fled with nine comrades during the shelling, taking a machine gun with them. Then contact with him was cut off for four days. On August 10, he contacted us and said that he had spent all these days in trenches and is now with his comrades 30–40 kilometres from the battlefield," says a woman.

Alexander, who also contacted us on August 10, was "on patrol" at a distance of 5–7 kilometres from the border during the shelling.

"There was simply panic; besides the commander, none of us had weapons." he describes the day of the attack. "It was (expletive) chaos, there were no instructions, then the team leader, a contract soldier, ordered us to retreat, the route was bombarded with mortars, so we entered some (expletive) forest. We came under fire there, we scattered, and I was in shock. We lost one (person), we lay in the forest for about an hour," says the Russian conscript.

Alexander says that in the forest they encountered border guards and together reached Sudzha. "From there, we were taken to the hospital," he adds. The conscript did not provide the exact location where he currently is.

"We didn't understand how and where they came from. They managed to escape, and thank God," says conscript Sergei about the shelling. "We were eight kilometres from the border. They ran in and said they had entered. Coming out of the dugout, we heard gunshots. As it turned out later, it was enemy sabotage groups. I didn't see anyone get killed," he reports.

Several conscripts who spoke to Werstka claim that a possible offensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine was discussed earlier.

"Everyone knew. Conversations were held at the beginning of July, but we didn't fully believe it," says Sergei, a conscript from Siberia.

Two of Werstka's sources claim that at the start of the fighting, over 100 conscripts could have been at the border. A volunteer preparing meals for the soldiers said that there were 15 posts in the Sudzha area, and there were conscripts at each of them.

Some of the conscripts are currently in hospitals. A large group of soldiers could be centrally evacuated to a location far from the border.

In the first days of the fighting, some mothers were told on the Ministry of National Defence hotline that there could not be conscripts at the border. Putin himself promised this, declaring that young people without training would not be sent to the front.

For four days, relatives have been searching for any information about them in VKontakte groups and Telegram chats. "They are looking for surviving comrades, calling hospitals and phone numbers from which their sons last sent messages," describes Werstka.

The fate of many soldiers after the breakthrough of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is unknown.