Leon Aran

Leon Aron is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His most recent book is Riding the Tiger: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Uses of War.

Putin’s cannon fodder: an anthem for Russia’s doomed youth

Many were killed. Others hid in the fields, forests and basements, sometimes for days, before surrendering to the Ukrainian forces. Frightened, ill-equipped and with very little – if any – training, hundreds of Russian conscripts (prizyvniki) have been captured in the two months since Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region began. Yet another of the