Russia Is Sending Ukrainians to Fight Their Own Country

Russian President Vladimir Putin order for a "partial mobilization" initially recruited Russian men to help their military fight in Ukraine, but now even Ukrainians are being forced to cross enemy lines and fight their own countrymen.

Ukrainian officials said it is possible that this has always been Russia's goal, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of in April when he said that “Russia wants to turn Ukraine into silent slaves.”

But Ukrainians appear to not have been turned into the Russian military's slaves just yet as Ukrainian intelligence says their citizens who have been recruited to be reservists and sent by Russia to fight in Kherson already refused to take part in military operations.

This, the New York Times reported, pushed Russian military commanders to threaten those who refuse to battle that they will be sent out “to the front line without weapons."

Military analysts say that Putin's mobilization order, which has forced people to join the Russian army, appears to be backfiring on him.

Analysts who spoke to the New York Times said that “conscripts from Luhansk and Donetsk were part of the forces whose stunning collapse in the northeastern Kharkiv region” that happened this month allowed Ukraine to reclaim some Russian-occupied territories.

Luhansk and Donetsk are both parts of eastern Ukraine has been controlled by Russia since 2014.