Russian defence minister: conscripts not being sent to Ukraine - TASS

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that conscripts were not being sent to Ukraine to fight in Russia's "special military operation", the Russian state news agency TASS reported.

Though President Vladimir Putin had previously said that draftees would not be deployed to Ukraine, the defence ministry admitted in March that a number of conscripts had seen action in the conflict zone.

Russia conscripts around 400,000 young men annually for one year's compulsory military service, and their treatment is a sensitive political issue.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kevin Liffey)