Russia: Pundit calls for 18-year-olds to be sent to front line
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One of Vladimir Putin’s media puppets has said he wants “children” to fight in Ukraine to avoid the necessity of paying a pension to the wife of an older soldier. During an interview for Russian state media, Dmitry ‘Goblin’ Puchkov, a film and video translator, slammed 40-year-old Russians as debilitated by the “constant consumption of alcohol” and called for young people, including teenagers, to be forced to take part in two to three years of training with the navy before being sent to the front lines. He claimed the current Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine was “not enough” to defend the front lines and insisted “no matter how cynical this sounds” that children should be made to fight because they are cheap and nimble.
Puchkov said: “A contract army of 150,000 men cannot hold this front line, cannot hold this home front and cannot advance at the same time.
“They cannot do it, it is physically impossible. There are not enough people, not enough weapons, there is not enough of anything.
“This is why the partial mobilisation was declared. First of all, we should have been ready for this war. Secondly, what if it is not the first one? What if it does not end quickly? What do we do then?
“150,000 will not be enough. Yes, we will have to create an army of normal people where everyone who is fit will have to serve. They will have to serve the minimum of two or three years in the navy. There is no way to get trained in a shorter term.
“Next, it will turn out that those trained 18-year-olds will have to be sent to the front to take part in combat, instead of calling up 40-year-olds with a higher education, a business, a wife and three children, whose death at the front will cause the necessity of paying a pension to the wife and to the children.
“Instead, 18-year-olds will go, no matter how cynical this sounds. They will have to be sent. There is no other way around it – no way.
“All those talks about people who previously fought and served in hot spots. Citizens, do you have a clear understanding of the physical state of a 40-year-old? Can he run, jump, or sleep on the cold ground?
“How are his kidneys after a constant consumption of alcohol? Children will have to go and serve in the army. It is the only way.”
Faced with a Ukrainian Armed Forces emboldened by patriotism and Western support, Russia has resorted to mobilising poorly-equipped reservists to try to hold their positions.
The suggestion that children be employed in the invasion of Ukraine is evidence of a failing force.
Meanwhile, Russian-appointed authorities say they are working to partially restore power in the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson following what they have called a Ukrainian terrorist attack on power lines.
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The southern city in the region that Moscow illegally annexed in September was cut off from power and water supplies on Sunday following damage to three power lines.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the pro-Kremlin administration of the partially occupied Kherson region, said Monday that “power and connectivity is being partially restored” in Kherson city.
The alleged attack occurred on the Berislav-Kakhovka power line, and Russian state media reported on Sunday that the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station had also been damaged by Ukrainian strikes.
Stremousov has repeatedly called for civilians to evacuate from Kherson — which lies on the western bank of the Dnieper River — to Russian-controlled territory on the eastern bank in anticipation of a major Ukrainian counteroffensive to retake the strategic port city.
Last month, Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that occupying Russian forces in the Kherson region had been purposefully shutting off electricity and water and depriving the population of internet access in order to force them to evacuate.
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