Russian servicemen, who were conscripted in the spring to the 1st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment of the Taman Division, are being transferred from the Moscow Region to the Belgorod region “to protect the state border,” the BBC Russian Service reports.

The mother of one of the service members reported that the command of the regiment informed the conscripts that they would be sent to the town of Valuyki, located 30 kilometers from the Russian-Ukrainian border, in the coming days.

At the beginning of the war, relatives of the soldiers say, many conscripts died in this regiment, after which they were returned to Russian territory. However, they did not return to their place of permanent deployment in Naro-Fominsk. Rather, they were sent to Valuyki. According to the sister of one of the soldiers, they want to send conscripts to the Belgorod region to replace those who will be demobilized in October.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin said in the spring that conscripts would not take part in hostilities. Then it turned out that conscripts still wound up on Ukrainian territory, where they were killed or captured. Supposedly the high percentage of conscripts who ended up on the territory of Ukraine was one of the reasons for the resignation of the commander of the Western Military District, Colonel General Alexandr Zhuravlev, the BBC reported.

Relatives of the servicemen also said that the soldiers are being pressured to sign a contract, so that they can be sent to the war zone legally.

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