Rutte Urges Young Russians to Stay Out of the War

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, during a visit to Kyiv, issued a stark warning to young Russians against enlisting in the army and fighting in Ukraine. In a message addressed directly to potential recruits and their families, he said many could lose their lives or suffer serious injuries at the front.

Rutte said the Russian army does not train new soldiers adequately or provide them with adequate equipment, and that the likelihood of death or injury is very high. He warned that wounded soldiers may be left without assistance on the battlefield. "And odds are, that if you are wounded, you will be left to suffer in the mud and die", he said.

The NATO secretary general also addressed Russia's casualties in the war, saying Moscow loses more than 30,000 soldiers every month. He described such losses as "absolutely staggering" and compared them to the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, claiming Russia now loses more soldiers in a single month than the Soviets lost in ten years of the Afghan conflict.

Rutte stressed that these were not abstract numbers but real people. "That will probably be you", he told young Russians.

(reuters, max)