Family Values or Fighting Valor? Russia Grapples With Women’s Wartime Role.
The New York Times
Russian military efforts to recruit women from prisons and civilian life have clashed with President Vladimir V. Putin’s conservative agenda.
The Russian Army is gradually expanding the role of women as it seeks to balance President Vladimir V. Putin’s promotion of traditional family roles with the need for new recruits for the war in Ukraine.
The military’s stepped-up appeal to women includes efforts to recruit female inmates in prisons, replicating on a much smaller scale a strategy that has swelled its ranks with male convicts.
Recruiters in military uniforms toured Russian jails for women in the fall of 2023, offering inmates a pardon and $2,000 a month — 10 times the national minimum wage — in return for serving in frontline roles for a year, according to six current and former inmates of three prisons in different regions of Russia.
Dozens of inmates just from those prisons have signed military contracts or applied to enlist, the women said, a sampling that — along with local media reports about recruitment in other regions — suggests a broader effort to enlist female convicts.
It’s not just convicts. Women now feature in Russian military recruitment advertisements across the country. A pro-Kremlin paramilitary unit fighting in Ukraine also recruits women.
“Combat experience and military specialties are not required,” read an advertisement aimed at women that was posted in March in Russia’s Tatarstan region. It offered training and a sign-up bonus equivalent to $4,000. “We have one goal — victory!”
The attacks heightened fears that the war was expanding beyond Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds into parts of Beirut once considered comparatively safe. New strikes were also reported in Iran, Iraq and Israel.
Iranian state media said Mojtaba Khamenei had released his first written statement as supreme leader, vowing that Iran would continue to block the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil route. Global oil markets have been roiled by the war.
The Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil, is all but closed as war in the Middle East expands. A British agency said three ships were hit by unidentified projectiles in or near the strait.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that “the most fighters, the most bombers” would be deployed. A day earlier, President Trump sent mixed signals on when the war might end.
Top clerics said Mojtaba Khamenei will succeed his slain father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Israeli military said it was attacking Tehran and Beirut early Monday, and Iran said it had launched missiles toward Israel.
With their pervasive military, political and economic clout, the Guards are often considered the main impediment to regime change, or any change, in Iran.
With political activism off-limits, residents of St. Petersburg are finding purpose and community in the “politics of small deeds,” repairing and cleaning architectural treasures.
President Trump claimed that Iran had surrendered. He made the statement after the country’s president said earlier that Iran would end strikes in Gulf states, with caveats. Qatar and Bahrain reported incoming fire.
China is learning lessons from the war in Iran. Chief among them, the United States may pose an even greater threat than Beijing thought.
The Israeli military said it was striking Iran’s capital while pounding Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, as fighting there intensified. Iran said it was targeting Tel Aviv, the country’s state news agency reported.
Iranian drones landed in Azerbaijan, a day after NATO shot down a missile headed to Turkish airspace. Italy pledged air defense weapons to help Gulf nations defend against Iran’s retaliatory attacks.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. military campaign against Iran was accelerating, with more warplanes arriving in the region. Earlier, Turkey said NATO had shot down an Iranian missile heading to Turkish airspace.
Iran targeted American sites throughout the region as President Trump said the United States was ready for a protracted fight. U.S. embassies and Amazon data centers were among the sites struck.