Putin's Growing Troop Casualties Forces Military Into Unprecedented Move

Russia has begun to recruit women for front-line roles in Ukraine for the first time amid the country's rising death toll in the war, according to an independent news outlet.

The women are being recruited into the Borz (wolf) battalion of the Russian Defense Ministry-controlled Private Military Company (PMC) Redut as snipers and drone operators, Important Stories, an investigative Russian publication, reported on Tuesday.

Previously, Russia had been known to recruit women as field nurses or cooks, but is not yet publicly known to have deployed them to fight at the front lines in Ukraine.

Important Stories found recruitment adverts targeting women on Russian social network VKontakte. They offer a starting monthly salary of 222,000 rubles ($2,355), compensation for battlefield injuries up to 3 million rubles (about $32,000), and death benefits up to 5 million rubles (about $53,000).

The adverts add that experience of handling weapons is desirable, but if an applicant doesn't have this, a month's training in Ukraine's partially occupied Donetsk region is provided prior to being deployed to battle.

"Initially, we did not have women; there were only men. Now we have decided to try to introduce a female sniper squad and a female UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] squad because women can do it too," a recruiter for the Borz battalion, identified as "Vesta", told a reporter with Important Stories who posed as an applicant.

"My task as a detachment commander is to prove that women are created not only for making soups and children," said Vesta.

The publication said two women have publicly announced that they have been recruited to fight with the Borz battalion—Yulia Sheremet from Donetsk, and Natalya Nikonorova from Russia's Urals, who are serving as snipers and drone operators.

Newsweek has been unable to verify the specific claims and has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.

In March, Ukraine said that Russia had turned to recruiting female prisoners to serve in its military, but didn't specify what roles they were assigned.

'PMC' Redut

Redut has participated in the war in Ukraine. While it is presented as an independent, private military company, it is secretly fully controlled and financed by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Federation (GRU), Russian dissident exile Vladimir Osechkin told Newsweek.

"It's one part of the Russian army. It's not independent. It's not a private army. It's a mask," Osechkin said.

Rising Casualties

The development comes as both Ukraine and Russia continue to suffer high rates of troop casualties in the ongoing conflict.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin inadvertently revealed how many Russian troops may have been killed since Ukraine began its long-anticipated counteroffensive in June.

"Since June 4, [Ukraine's counteroffensive] has been continuing. So far there are no results, there are only huge losses [for Ukraine]," Putin told the China Media Group in an interview published by Russia's state news agency Tass.

"The losses are simply huge—approximately one to eight as a ratio," Putin added.

On October 5, he said that Ukraine had lost 90,000 troops during its counteroffensive, which suggests that Russian losses exceed 11,000 military personnel. Newsweek has been unable to verify the figures.

Overseas Recruitment

Putin is reportedly under increasing pressure to take a more aggressive approach to his war against Ukraine and introduce a full-scale mobilization in the country to bolster its manpower.

Putin announced a "partial mobilization" of the population in the fall of 2022. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on September 21 last year that Russia would target 300,000 reservists and ex-military personnel with "certain military specialties and relevant experience."

The Kremlin has repeatedly brushed off reports of a covert mobilization or that a second wave of mobilization could occur.

Reports have emerged that Russia is luring foreign fighters to fight in its war in Ukraine, with citizens of Cuba, Armenia, and Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic bordering Russia, targeted through various means.

Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in early September that it had uncovered a "human trafficking network" that targeted its citizens to join the Russian military and participate in operations in Ukraine.

Reports have also emerged that migrant workers with Russian citizenship are being rounded up to fight in Ukraine.

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