Ex-Soviet Soldier: Moscow’s surveillance system enables Putin’s conscription efforts
'He was not ready to go to a foreign country and kill other people for politics,' Ilya said of his son.
While I was in Moscow, I had the chance to sit down with a man named Ilya Drobychatzki. When he was younger, Ilya served in the Soviet military, and years later, his son served in the Russian special forces.
When the mobilization (conscription) began, his son was afraid that he would be the first to be drafted. So he fled the country to Turkey. “He was not ready to go to a foreign country and kill other people for politics,” Ilya said.
Ilya explained that the reason the Russian government was conscripting young men from Moscow instead of more poor rural areas was because of Moscow’s digital surveillance system and discussed his nuanced view of the conflict.
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