When Putin made his pledge to use only professional contract soldiers, he was likely making a promise that could not be kept, as conscripts are mixed into most Russian units, and one suspects support units (the kind that the Russian army claims was ambushed) have even more conscripts than combat units. As the mechanized spearheads penetrate deeper into Ukraine, Russians supply lines also get longer, and Russia will need more and more soldiers to guard the roads taking gasoline and food to the tanks and occupy the towns and cities behind the lines. Ukraine has been working on building up its territorial defense units for several years, and this will not be the only time that its forces will ambush and capture Russian troops behind the frontlines.

This embarrassment about conscripts might be yet another consequence of Putin’s war in Ukraine lasting far longer than he had intended. Initially Putin (or his underlings) likely believed that body bags filled with conscripts would not be a problem, because they didn’t expect there to be many casualties. They thought they could quickly take Kyiv and then mop up the leftover disorganized, demoralized Ukrainian forces. Instead Russian soldiers are getting killed and captured every day. Estimates for the total dead range from a few thousand to more than 10,000, but there are surely conscripts among them. The St. Petersburg branch of the Committee for Soldiers’ Mothers reported in 2014 that conscripts were sent down to Rostov in southern Russia “for training” and then sent forced to sign “contracts”—and some of these new “contract” soldiers (actually coerced conscripts) were probably among those sent into Ukraine in that phase of the war.

The official denial, the repetition, and the carefully worded statements show that the Russian government believes that the use of conscripts in their aggressive war is a sensitive issue.