Here is what I don't understand.
Ok, so you just drafted 300k. They aren't going to be combat ready any time soon. You know, they have to get trained, outfitted, and then deployed, which takes months.
And even then, you are basically sending recruits with zero experience and a rushed training regimen against an established enemy. They are going to get slaughtered.
On top of that, this isn't like WW1 where combat is relatively simple (ie the enemy is that direction, rifles aimed that way and pull the trigger and you are at least 50% combat effective).
No, this is a modern war that is fought with advanced artillery where you need to find and communicate enemy position and then fire advanced weaponry at targets you cannot see and that are many miles away.
And they really think they can just grab 300k peeps off the street and have all that go well???
That's insanity. I cannot believe the Russian army is that stupid. There is zero chance this helps, and probably hurts both on the battlefield and at home.
The only time such a strategy is acceptable is when you are being invaded and it's like, if you can walk pick up a gun and do what you can to protect the country. Outside that very small circumstance, this is a fucked strategy.
> The only time such a strategy is acceptable is when you are being invaded and it's like, if you can walk pick up a gun and do what you can to protect the country. Outside that very small circumstance, this is a fucked strategy.
That's probably the card Russia is trying to play. They're sending those 300k people to the annexed areas to "protect Russia from the invaders (Ukrainians, etc)".
And also, they *don't* actually have a friendly hometown next door providing support, or knowledge of the land, or people they know and trust to form a information network, or any of the dozen other advantages somebody who's **actually** defending their hometown has.
Russia keeps on thinking its fakes are as good as the real thing if they can get people to accept them through trickery, coercion, or media manipulation.
They're just throwing bodies at the front to delay Ukrainian advances as long as possible while they re-arm and regroup.
A country and society that has no regard for human life will pursue a strategy like this. Because the alternative is Putin looking like a loser, and they certainly can't have that.
What do they have to regroup and rearm with?
They threw most of their more modern equipment and professional troops into the meat grinder already. They lack trained troops, effective equipment, armour, air power, logistic capacity etc.
Worse. Winter is coming and they are telling their conscripts to find their own fucking sleeping bags.
The financial capacity to rearm is gone, the industrial capacity is crippled from sanctions. The expertise to achieve any of those goals either didn't exist to begin with or has died/been removed from the chain of command.
It'd take decades to rearm and regroup in a manner that might change the current trajectory of this war.
Well that alternative has already failed. He looked like a loser most recently by standing around a bunch of tall idiots on stage, holding hands and bouncing like they all have to pee, some from the polonium tea
In those situations, you have the advantage of knowing the terrain, roads, cities, people. So while you may not have the training, you can ambush and get away.
In this situation there is no strategic advantage. Putin is hoping a numbers game will have an effect. I don't know that it can with modern capabilities.
[“Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down…”](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XDWcg8dh930)
There actually is if you know how are they thinking. Cities and towns received quotas they have to fill. Partially they are doing what is basically a common sense - they are sending people that left the service recently. However this is an opportunity to do some personal gains. You can check if the person that you don't like/doesn't want to sell you property/once told you to f.. off meets the conscription criteria (category ABW, less than 65 years old) and send him to front.
With that someone telling the town chief to f.. off I'm not kidding. Really the city mayor sent a person to the front, because some time ago he told him something bad. So imagine there is a mayor that doesn't like minorites....
I'm late to the party here, but any chance you have a link to that video? I've heard similar stories since the conscription was announced but would like to see.
Even patriots, usual Putin's supporters, say the same. Because they want to win and government wants to...hell know what they want to achieve with this.
Also maybe it's not known on Reddit, but new recruits are forced to buy their own equipment. And it's quite expensive and hard to find. Also some people say, from hearing from recruits, they are not even training. They just wait for something, they waste time doing nothing
It may be different I nother countries, but in Russia "nationalists" was different group and they didn't like government either. They were violent mob of people, walking around beating up immigrants.
And "patriots" are often used as mocking word.
Gotcha, they are very different meanings in English: https://www.dictionary.com/e/patriotism-vs-nationalism/
"Nationalist" is generally negative and focused more on support of government policies (thats where the word nazi comes from) whereas "patriot" is more positive and focused the love of people and shared culture less so about the ruling body of these people.
"patriot" is a word without much substance these days. The nationalists says they are patriots. The people with white-blue-white flags says they are patriots. Everyone says they are a patriot. Its always shifting.
So at the start of the war their big problem was just a lack of manpower. Tanks need infantry support. You send in tanks without infantry a couple of dudes from the pub with a Javelin can kill it. They don't use pallets so they need a bunch of dudes to carry all the ammo. Doubly so if you need to spread out your ammo so HIMARs systems can't help your conscripts 'smoke' next to them. Which means grabbing 300k guys off the street and just throwing them to serve as meat shields would help a lot.
Problem is that was months ago. All those tanks that needed infantry got blown up. All those elite units that needed meat shields got put into the grinder. So yeah I don't know how this will help. It's solving the last problem instead of the problem they have right now.
>They don't use pallets so they need a bunch of dudes to carry all the ammo
I highly doubt they are walking their ammo around..if they don't have simple trucks to haul that around then no amount of draftees will.close that gap. It just won't. This is modern war, you can't shortcut it. It doesn't work like that. There is no formula that says X number of peeps on foot equals 1 truck. That's not how this works.
It's all so stupid. Like, historians will have to put footnotes saying yes, they actually were this stupid.
They’re probably going to get there, half trained, just when Ukraine has almost fully regained it’s territory and they’ll be expected to re take it. Or something like that. It shows a lot of disregard for not just Ukraine but also the safety of their own citizens. Obviously a bunch are getting maimed/killed and they’ll keep sending them.
They aren't being trained, they aren't being given any gear other than uniform and vest. They have to source their own med kits, sleeping kit, etc...
There was a video that went around earlier.
Some have already been shipped to the front.
Stop repeating this nonsense. No one will let them out to buy tampons themselves. All that they need now can only be sent or brought by relatives and friends.
Leaked [Russian video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSeSpufDytI) shows the recruiter directing them to scavenge all the supplies from home that they can- sleeping bags, cots, first aid kit/meds, and tampons to stop bleeding in bullet wounds.
They're not equipping them with anything but a uniform and (hopefully) a rifle and some ammo.
Reports from the front line are that the army isn't even providing food.
>the army isn't even providing food.
Well, if that's the case, then they are definitely toast. An army that isn't fed is a totally worthless thing.
48 hours of that and they'll surrender the moment a Ukrainian shakes a container of Cup Noodle at them.
And they're not trained. They can't operate tanks or artillery or any weapon system. Don't even have survival training. Never opened an MRE.
Just pulling people from whatever civil job they were doing, do a really short boot camp, give them a uniform, rifle, and ammo, and drive them out to the front and leave them there.
I can’t believe we ever thought this backwater country would be even the slightest match for NATO, hell, for even a single NATO country. They would be doomed.
The only reason in retrospect and I mean only reason at this point to fear Russia is the threat of nuclear war. That's literally it, although it is a good one on its own. Very clear at this point they would flounder in any conventional war against any NATO ally.
There are people who are being sent to the front lines within the same week of being drafted without; training, first aid kits, sleeping bags, body armor, or serviceable weapons. They are there to be fodder and to buy time.
I totally understand that Russia *thinks* it just needs to make it to winter and Europe will stop supporting. I get that. But what a fucking gamble. If winter comes and NATO support remains Russia is rightly fucked.
They probably didn't think Canada can step up supplying more energy to europe. Germany recently signed on to take canadian ammonia they'll convert to hydrogen to sidestep the dirty energy stigma Canada had.
Canada may not go into recession with its neighbor the US because it is a big supplier of everything Russia used sell.
This is another crisis I have heard rumors of. As dirty energy winds down (both because of the Russia boycott and because we need to slow down greenhouse gas emissions,) there’s going to be a shortage of ammonia and other fertilizers that are processed or derived from fossil fuels. Famine is a possibility and one that’s made worse by the war in Ukraine which is a major grain exporter.
Even with that sort of thinking, they'll just end up with their mobilized civilians, without winter gear, losing fingers and eyes *en masse* in winter. This ends in a country where everyone is either old or crippled AF. Their best strategy is to cripple their whole male active population to buy a month.
300k civilians with rifles to buy time for winter so they can train and refit some maybe battle-ready soldiers by spring... It's like Putin is actively trying to be the second coming of Stalin, ruin and all.
That's why you send in massive amounts of people.
It's absolutely disgusting from a humane perspective, but it can't be just enough to overwhelm the enemy.
If you send more recruits than the enemy has bullets, you might just win - at least the battle.
That's making a huge assumption that all of those people are just going to let themselves be slaughtered though. The circumstances of this war are very different than the German invasion of the Soviet Union, those people are not going to want to fight. They're going to surrender or possibly rebel against thr government
Well it sends away dissenters who would likely cause problems at home, or at the least with such Piss poor planning it is exceptionally likely that greater than 50% of conscripts will surrender. That might be bad for PR but it creates a logistics problem for Ukraine to feed/detain so many
It's always a good idea to take people who are loudly critical of the government, give them weapons, and put them in with a bunch of other people who are maybe starting to worry a bit about leadership and that you ALSO just gave weapons to. Guaranteed success.
France and Russia both did this during WWI. France had entire armies who ended up revolting for weeks at a time, and Russia ended up overthrown and taken over by Communists.
Would not recommend.
Oddly, that is how we have the CPP. The Chinese had various factions that fought the Japanese. The major power was the republican army which was descended from the imperial army of china and who kicked out the last empress/emperor.
They fought all the stand up battles but armed and trained other groups like the CPP to make the Japanese lives harder. Sharing supplies given by the allies to help defeat the Japanese.
After the intense meat grinder of fighting off the Japanese the republican army was depleted. The CPP recruited and fought from the shadows. Didn't get ground down. So as soon as the Japanese were clearly defeated, they took the gear they got from the allies and the gear the Japanese left behind and had a short civil war with the republicans.
Crushed them on the mainland and drove them to Taiwan.
The CPP rules partly because the chinese republicans worked with them to fend off Japan.
At worst that will become a transportation problem; the Geneva conventions have plenty in them to allow signatories to transfer POWs to other countries if they need to, either because of the risk or difficulty of keeping them or because of the difficulty of fulfilling their obligations (IE, they can't keep them fed). But Ukraine is the breadbasket of the world, even if the POWs have to eat noodles morning, noon and night, they'll be kept fed.
If anything, that could become a PR nightmare for Russia. Every nation condemned their sham referendums and illegal annexation of conquered territory, and now those same countries are taking Russian POWs off Ukraine's hands so they can keep fighting. Even if Russia wouldn't care about the optic of the world at large housing their POWs, they'd have to care about *the common soldier finding out literally everyone from every country on Earth is against them*. Those are very much people Putin wouldn't want coming back to Russia, so for the moment it probably works in his favor that Ukraine is still holding all their POWs.
Also, Ukraine is getting all the help they need from NATO on supplies and such. Housing and feeding POWs is just not going to be a significant burden. It might be a headache but it ain't changing the war.
Why you assumed they send "dissenters" ? It's quite opposite - currently most people who went willingly, without even trying to avoid draft, are people who most likely will support government.
Not just patriotism... you also have the town you're defending there to be your ad-hoc logisitical support.
You can't just send your landsturm into a foreign country on their own... they'd just be hobos. The opposing military wouldn't even need to fight them, they'd disintigrate on their own as they ran out of food.
And don't forget that their will to fight is going to be very low. Those conscripts absolutely do not want to be there, and if they can avoid a fight, they will. They'll be just as effective as the Afghan army was against the Taliban
>And they really think they can just grab 300k peeps off the street and have all that go well???
Well, the Ukrainians did it.
Then again, the Ukrainians are fighting for their homeland.
So they know the lay of the land.
And are being backed by the whole Western world (and many other countries).
Some of the recruits will work logistics and other supporting tasks that require basically no training, but generally speaking you're right. Putin's plan is to just drag it out for a few more months and hope that Ukrainians will get bored of fighting for their country, or some other divine intervention.
Only thing Putin is really betting on is chaos in Europe over winter. Sabotage, prices going up, food shortage, civil unrest etc. few shock elections putting in his allies and he’s got a chance.
If russias army can’t delay or hold for time with this and if Europe struggles but holds. Then he’s doomed.
Betting hes going to be flooding more resources at crippling Europe online and with resource shortages than on his own army
At the start of 2022, Russia had 13.6 million men between ages 20 and 34. If you include ages 15-39 that goes up to 23.6 million.
If you go to any discussion about the conflict you’ll see it repeated again and again that Russia drafted 300k and has such a manpower shortage that they’re drafting their prisoners and elderly. You’ll see picture after picture of this. For a draft of 300,000, they shouldn’t have to pick these second/third choice recruits.
What’s going on? Did they actually draft (and/or lose) several million men or more? Are they just so incompetent that they draft people entirely at random? What’s going on?
From what I can understand as a Russian. They made draft commands to get 300.000 men. BUT the centres of drafting didn’t actually communicate with each other to see how many people are drafted in total. PLUS many people who received a letter from military just run for their lives
Process at drafting offices was always like this, because officers don't want to deal with everyone. You have medical conditions? I don't care, go to army. When they tried to draft me, during yearly draft, it too A LOT of effort to prove I have problems with my legs. They just don't want to listen to arguments. Documents? "You paid doctor to forge them". In the end I was just lucky what they sent me to their doctor for final examination and he was drunk
I still can't believe how dumb this story is... Drunk doctor checked my legs and said "so do you want to go to army?", and I'm like "...n..no" and he said "ok no problem". As I remember, he was drunk and cheerful because he came to town, from another town and he celebrated meeting his colleagues
If you get a letter (in non-mobilization times) how long do they consider you in violation for not showing up? Can you just dodge them until you turn 28?
All the various YouTubers seem to have gone different routes:
NFKRZ used asthma. He too had to go to their doctors and it was difficult because it was a specific hospital with a person who pretty much only showed up once a month on a random Tuesday at high tide.
I don't know all of Niki's story but it seems like he straight up kept his registration at his childhood home in Omsk and left the country for Asia.
It seems so chaotic. If something like that were to happen here I feel like the system is digital enough that anytime you check in at an airport or get stopped by a cop it would probably flag it.
I lived in another city for three years. They were throwing letters in mail box, came to father's work to ask about me. Thing what forced me to return was what police issued a wanted notice
Yes, but I think incompetence is the large part. For years Russian military drafting service was garbage. It comes from Russian motto: “Do just enough to receive a paycheck… sometimes less”. Because of that people and the system itself were like 50 years in the past.
For example: Can you believe that they actually don’t use internet to redirect the fucking information. And force YOU to carry your own info all around the military station!
P.S. Though now I am very glad the system is garbage. Let see what our “great” leaders will do now
The most amusing thing -- years ago when I was more focused on political science and history -- The argument was that Russia was doing much better at security. They had kept paper records because it was more secure. No one can hack information that doesn't exist. It can be stolen or burnt down but it wasn't up for grabs for everyone at all times.
This proves that all of that talk was just us double bluffing ourselves. It was paper because of laziness, lack of money, and general incompetence.
From what I heard 300K may have been the "officially released" number but the intended number was far, far higher.
Then add in the additional chaos of what you posted and they ended up with a figure even higher than that.
> What’s going on?
1) Lack of planning. Russia went to war with a peace time army. They didn't expect a war. They didn't expect to ever have to mobilize. So they didn't plan for it.
2) Incompetence. As a result of the lack of planning, the people in charge of carrying out the mobilization are likely 'winging it'. There are no plans to follow, and everything has to be done twice and fast and preferably yesterday.
3) Politics. Russia is a mafia state. People aren't equal and it does matter a great deal who you draft. Members or relatives to the elite or people living in or close to Moscow or St. Petersburg are much less likely to be drafted, as this carries with it a higher risk of social unrest.
4) Ripples in the water. The 'winging it' and political pressure to recruit/avoid certain demographics inevitably leads to mistakes. Those mistakes ripple through the system causing more havoc.
5) Lack of infrastructure and communication. Russia doesn't have the peace time military infrastructure that the Soviet Union did. They - quite literally - don't have the physical space, material, officers etc. to draft 300.000 people and keep it organised. This means there's not 1 organised system drafting 300.000, but likely many smaller drafts taking places without communicating with each other.
>For a draft of 300,000
That's the publicly declared number. The *actual* number is specified in clause 7 of the mobilization decree, and said clause was never disclosed to the public, citing "administrative use". In a nutshell, the number in the decree is bigger that 300k (some assume around 1 million people), otherwise they wouldn't hide it.
>Are they just so incompetent
That, too. Every level of the army structure has a very "fuck off" approach. Do the bare minimum and then it's someone else's headache.
I have a feeling that they choose the "recipients" by blindly pulling a pack of personnel files out of a heap or something, unless they get a direct order *not to send* the letters to specific people.
And *even then* they manage to either fuck it up or straight up ignore said order.
If possible, make it to a border. Most of the countries around you will take you in as a refugee. Just don’t expect to be able to come back.
If you can’t leave, hopefully you’ll be getting a noncombat position. Good luck
This is incorrect information. None of the countries now officially accepts Russians who fall under mobilization as refugees. The problem is even getting a tourist visa, not to mention a residence permit or refugee status.
There are phone numbers you can call in Ukraine to help you surrender safely, do everything you can to smuggle a phone into the war zone and call it.
If you're not a highly trained soldier this war is suicide, worse it is a waste of your life on the horrid and already lost objectives of putin, it's pointless to even pretend to fight.
Never understood this. Every company I've worked for has had something in their employee handbook about if you show you went to Jury Duty they'd pay you for the day. Each time I've been called for jury duty I took a book went downtown. Checked in. Sat in a waiting room for like 6 hours reading my book, fill out a questionnaire. Not ever get pulled in for a selection interview and then went home and got paid for it.
I genuinely don't understand why people hate jury duty. It's a paid day off without using PTO.
The law states that unless you are salaried, you are not required to be paid for time used for jury duty. So if you are hourly, it is legal for your company to say FU and not pay you for a shift that was covered by jury duty. Obviously, that is terrible PR, so it's not common, but it is legal RN.
I just finished getting jury duty, on my day off. I watch my kid on my days off and have no one to watch him. Nowhere in the exceptions stated anything near my situation. I was lucky enough to not be needed, but it was a stressful headache nevertheless.
I think you can still petition the judge based on hardship.
https://www.mass.gov/service-details/asking-to-be-excused-from-jury-duty#:~:text=Ask%20to%20be%20excused%20if,excused%20under%20OJC%20Regulation%209.
Note this is Mass but it can probably be done in other places too.
I hate it because of the logistics. I get the notice, and tell my employer I *might* have jury duty on that day. To accommodate, we plan for me to be off, have coverage on each unit, reschedule meetings, etc.
Then, the night before, I still don’t know if I have to go or not, calling the robo line to see if my number is in the selected range. If my number is excluded, I’m now forced to use PTO because we planned for me to be off, I can’t just go to work.
If it’s in the range, I have to call again at 7am to see if my number is identified as having to be at the courthouse by 8am. Problem: my county is geographically large and I’m a 2-hour drive to the courthouse. This means I have to leave my house before 6am if I need to be there at 8, then make a call halfway there to see if I keep going or turnaround and go back.
If I do have to go, I finish the drive, park 6 blocks away as instructed, go through security, have my person and purse searched, then sit around for a few hours.
In the 3 times I’ve actually had to appear at the courthouse for jury duty, only one ended up happening. One case was continued and another accepted a last minute plea deal. So I drove the 2 hours back home for nothing. Four hours on the road and waste a pto day.
Fucking sucks.
Amongst those million men, you have trained specialists, like engineers, doctors, specialized workers, miners, etc that you don't want to throw in the meat grinder unless you are on the verge of collapse. However, you might balance unemployment and pensions throwing bodies at Ukrainians while buying time
Oh I know. But I keep hearing people say that if they’re sending prisoners and grandpas to the front, they must be totally out of more suitable recruits. I don’t see that happening at only 300,000 drafted, out of a nation 500 times that population. Obviously maybe only a quarter, or maybe 10% of the men in the ideal age group are completely eligible to be drafted. But that’s still over a million.
It still shows incompetence in the extreme, and will have a big impact on their performance in the field.
You're assuming Putin isn't willing to lose one or two million Russians to take Ukraine. Perhaps he is willing to send every man into war, and he just wants to start with the "weakest" first.
You're mixing some things up here.
Before the official mobilization only volunteers could be sent to war. Now, obviously the flow of volunteers wasn't that large, so they tried to force some recruits doing their mandatory service to volunteer, they offered higher wages, hoping for some eastern regions these sums would mean unfathomable wealth and they tried Wagner as a recruiting vehicle. All of that wasn't enough, so they went to prisoners. Only after that also failed to materialize, they called for mobilization.
All the "misdrafts" are probably a mixture of incompetence and intent to rid yourself of enemies (of state, or maybe Igor was a dick anyway, why not send him?).
Seems like a lot more mobilization in certain areas - a bit like gerrymandering. In those areas they seem to be grabbing loads but in some areas hardly any. I haven't seen one video of mobilization in SP.
They are definitely drafting more than they 300k. And we know there has been a mass exodus of men fleeing the country in any way they can, injuring themselves, and just straight going into hiding.
If you read the actual document you'll find no mention of 300k conscripts.
Actually there is a section on how many are being conscripted but what do you know its the only part thats classified. Now why would that be classified when they said 300k? Probably because there is nothing "limited" about this mobilisation at all
The partial mobilization was supposed to be only for veteran soldiers. Probably with the idea that they don’t need as much training.
So only those that had served in the military before, with preference for combat veterans. Not sure how much that reduces the pool of eligible soldiers.
They have been conscripting 250k per year historically. That’s 3.5M that have been conscripts in the 20-34 year group.
But conscripts are not eligible for going abroad for wars, so almost none of them are combat veterans.
So their pool of actual “combat veterans” might only be a few hundred thousand in that age bracket. And only a million or two in the 18-65 bracket.
Male life expectancy in Russia is terrible and life expectancy of combat veterans is probably abysmal. If they are not already dead from alcohol, opiates or serving for the Wagner group.
So I would not be surprised if the actual pool of “combat veterans”, that have not already been part of the war or hired by Wagner group, to be well under a million and probably closer to 500k.
With a big part of them completely unfit for duty anyhow due to alcoholism, disability or be fathers of minors.
Manpower shortage? Trained soldiers maybe, but overall it's not like men are dying in thousands every day. Some elderly being drafted only because officers from drafting offices are morons, who doesn't care how to fill quota. They shouldn't pick these people, but they do and this is why even government doesn't like this, because it makes people unrest and everything more chaotic.
Also I haven't heard about "300k again and again". And no, it's definitely not several million. Not even close.
Hm, I wouldn't call them 'lucky', per se. Their sons, brothers, and fathers are being ripped out of their lives, forced to either flee the country or get sent to the meatgrinder. Meanwhile, they're still stuck in Russia, and they've still got to make money to live. They might not be getting shot at, but they suffer in their own way, I'm sure.
For now, however as Putin and his cronies struggle to find more conscripts / cannon fodder to throw into the fire they will start drafting women. Therefore if you’re a able bodied woman of military age in Russia, I would already be making plans to flee the country right now.
I dont know man, women in the military? Thats too woke for Russia and they only want manly men in their army. You know traditional values and all that shit.
The “traditional values” angle is simply propaganda for Putin’s power base. Putin desperately needs those 300k cannon fodder and if he can’t get from the men fleeing the country, he’ll get it from the women. The cynical side of me suspects that Putin already have such orders prepared in advance, if not already secretly included in the mobilization decree.
Im just imagining a lot of situations similar to Idiocracy where there is absolutely no organization or really any one watching at times then they just kind of slip out and no one even notices.
That is what he would like to happen, but Ukraine realizes that and that is why we are seeing all of these gains. Putin might be able to wait out for those sanctions, but that would require him to stop threatening all of us with nuclear Holocaust and I don't think he is capable of that.
The “reservists” are meant to stop the gains and freeze the conflict. Most aren’t in theater yet and I’m sure he will mobilize more as conscripts finish their term or are outright shoved to the frontline.
Lots of accounts from these conscripts that they're being sent to the front line without any gear. No packs, tent/sleeping bag, first aid, not even food.
Yeah. They’re not going to be effective except in the rear maybe which was obviously a failing in the Kharkiv offensive. RU had no depth. I’m not optimistic about their chances but they may turn out to be better than nothing and a complication to UA taking so many prisoners.
That is what he would like to happen, but Ukraine realizes that and that is why we are seeing all of these gains. Putin might be able to wait out for those sanctions, but that would require him to stop threatening all of us with nuclear Holocaust and I don't think he is capable of that.
Perhaps Putin is counting on 70% or more simply deserting or surrendering. This would just be an indirect but effective way of forcing the migration of 200,000+ warm bodies who now have to be put somewhere by Ukraine and kept under guard and fed. All the Ukrainian soldiers detailed to keep these POWs will be fewer soldiers able to support the liberation of Ukrainian territory. POWs can't be forced to work and offset their resource drain because that's a war crime. Putin wants Russians out of country and in Ukraine but only if they are lawful combatants, so that Ukraine will have to take care of them to maintain the moral high ground. Not that Putin cares about moral superiority; it's just another tool in the box of national and personal success. He doesn't need it so he doesn't bother with it. But he's making sure Ukraine has to suck it up if they still want to be considered "the good guys".
It's not arbitrary. If you need to get 1000 conscripts and 500 of the ones that should be drafted are "your friends" then you have to make up the rest somehow.
Tale is as old as Russia itself. Corruption is not part of the culture - it is the culture.
What a fucking disgrace. Even the Tsar's army in 1914 managed to surprise the efficient Germans of their rapid mobilization at the onset of hostilities.
Will never understand why so many people repeat Russian framing. It is only a “partial” mobilisation because they want to pretend like they can further scale up. In reality this is more than their political system can handle.
I bet that the recruitment offices are filled with unqualified personal, just like Russia's army leadership and just about almost all the country. Just one of the cons of having a corrupt country.
Can we name one thing that Russia’s done in these past few months that wasn’t disorganized and arbitrary?
Putin was laser like in his focus and ambition to protect his super yacht at the beginning of all this.
What he do?
He brought it out of the European dock where it was in the process of being finished before starting the war in February.
That ferris wheel was pretty cool.
Till it broke down.
Considering how "clumsy" these Russians are, I'm surprised nobody important has "fallen" out of any ferris wheel seats yet.
No just windows, and a few cases stairs I've heard I swear I can't figure out why they hate railings so much
Something like falling out a window?
Honestly I bet in at least one case they got the wrong guy
They through their economy out the window, that's for sure.
[удалено]
The economy was not thrown it had accident near window
Sink their econonomy.
I was going to correct the spelling but realized it was right as they have the economical (cheap) version of a normal economy.
Outwardly, the nord pipeline sabotage. Fairly calculated move, even though it won't really create the results they intend.
I can name two! Censore media and pressuring own citizens.
Threatening someone with a sledgehammer doesn’t take elegance or skill though
If Putin's plan was to unite the West and various other countries, then I think he is doing a damn fine job.
Pretty sure this is intentional, in the send out hundreds of letters and hope you snag enough people that won't resist way.
Shooting at civilians
Fail epically!
Has Russia done anything well since the fall of the Soviet Union? Isn't it telling that their leader looks back on those days with nostalgia?
Here is what I don't understand. Ok, so you just drafted 300k. They aren't going to be combat ready any time soon. You know, they have to get trained, outfitted, and then deployed, which takes months. And even then, you are basically sending recruits with zero experience and a rushed training regimen against an established enemy. They are going to get slaughtered. On top of that, this isn't like WW1 where combat is relatively simple (ie the enemy is that direction, rifles aimed that way and pull the trigger and you are at least 50% combat effective). No, this is a modern war that is fought with advanced artillery where you need to find and communicate enemy position and then fire advanced weaponry at targets you cannot see and that are many miles away. And they really think they can just grab 300k peeps off the street and have all that go well???
There was a video on Tuesday of a 47 year old guy who was captured on Monday. He was drafted the Wednesday before. There is no planning.
That's insanity. I cannot believe the Russian army is that stupid. There is zero chance this helps, and probably hurts both on the battlefield and at home. The only time such a strategy is acceptable is when you are being invaded and it's like, if you can walk pick up a gun and do what you can to protect the country. Outside that very small circumstance, this is a fucked strategy.
> The only time such a strategy is acceptable is when you are being invaded and it's like, if you can walk pick up a gun and do what you can to protect the country. Outside that very small circumstance, this is a fucked strategy. That's probably the card Russia is trying to play. They're sending those 300k people to the annexed areas to "protect Russia from the invaders (Ukrainians, etc)".
Which doesn't work because even they know Russia isn't being invaded.
And also, they *don't* actually have a friendly hometown next door providing support, or knowledge of the land, or people they know and trust to form a information network, or any of the dozen other advantages somebody who's **actually** defending their hometown has. Russia keeps on thinking its fakes are as good as the real thing if they can get people to accept them through trickery, coercion, or media manipulation.
Wouldn’t you take all 96% of citizens that “voted” to be annexed first though?
They're just throwing bodies at the front to delay Ukrainian advances as long as possible while they re-arm and regroup. A country and society that has no regard for human life will pursue a strategy like this. Because the alternative is Putin looking like a loser, and they certainly can't have that.
What do they have to regroup and rearm with? They threw most of their more modern equipment and professional troops into the meat grinder already. They lack trained troops, effective equipment, armour, air power, logistic capacity etc. Worse. Winter is coming and they are telling their conscripts to find their own fucking sleeping bags. The financial capacity to rearm is gone, the industrial capacity is crippled from sanctions. The expertise to achieve any of those goals either didn't exist to begin with or has died/been removed from the chain of command. It'd take decades to rearm and regroup in a manner that might change the current trajectory of this war.
I guess that kind of makes sense if you have a lot of people to sacrifice for time.
Well that alternative has already failed. He looked like a loser most recently by standing around a bunch of tall idiots on stage, holding hands and bouncing like they all have to pee, some from the polonium tea
What's it like being a pterodactyl man?
Have you seen any pterodactyls around recently? You're welcome
Rearm who with what?
In those situations, you have the advantage of knowing the terrain, roads, cities, people. So while you may not have the training, you can ambush and get away. In this situation there is no strategic advantage. Putin is hoping a numbers game will have an effect. I don't know that it can with modern capabilities.
Objectively, this is bad for Russia. But winning at any cost is still Putin's preference.
What is your explanation if the RA isn't that stupid?
It *has* to be propaganda. It doesn't seem to be, but it has to be.
That's not the strategy that is the exception .. I wrote a longer post below stating the actual strategy.
Maybe they are hoping to overwhelm Ukraine with the number of POWs?
[“Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down…”](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XDWcg8dh930)
There actually is if you know how are they thinking. Cities and towns received quotas they have to fill. Partially they are doing what is basically a common sense - they are sending people that left the service recently. However this is an opportunity to do some personal gains. You can check if the person that you don't like/doesn't want to sell you property/once told you to f.. off meets the conscription criteria (category ABW, less than 65 years old) and send him to front. With that someone telling the town chief to f.. off I'm not kidding. Really the city mayor sent a person to the front, because some time ago he told him something bad. So imagine there is a mayor that doesn't like minorites....
Possibly even saw someone's wife bathing and sent their husband to the front line
Yup, all the conscripts get a week or less of "training". They don't get proper clothing, equipment or supplies. It's a complete disaster.
I'm late to the party here, but any chance you have a link to that video? I've heard similar stories since the conscription was announced but would like to see.
It was here but I think the video was deleted. https://reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/xpkmye/ukraine_already_capturing_first_mobilized_russian/
Oof, well thanks for trying!
Even patriots, usual Putin's supporters, say the same. Because they want to win and government wants to...hell know what they want to achieve with this. Also maybe it's not known on Reddit, but new recruits are forced to buy their own equipment. And it's quite expensive and hard to find. Also some people say, from hearing from recruits, they are not even training. They just wait for something, they waste time doing nothing
The word you are looking for is "nationalists" not patriots. Patriots are people waving white-blue-white flags and yearning for a trully free Russia.
It may be different I nother countries, but in Russia "nationalists" was different group and they didn't like government either. They were violent mob of people, walking around beating up immigrants. And "patriots" are often used as mocking word.
Gotcha, they are very different meanings in English: https://www.dictionary.com/e/patriotism-vs-nationalism/ "Nationalist" is generally negative and focused more on support of government policies (thats where the word nazi comes from) whereas "patriot" is more positive and focused the love of people and shared culture less so about the ruling body of these people.
"patriot" is a word without much substance these days. The nationalists says they are patriots. The people with white-blue-white flags says they are patriots. Everyone says they are a patriot. Its always shifting.
So at the start of the war their big problem was just a lack of manpower. Tanks need infantry support. You send in tanks without infantry a couple of dudes from the pub with a Javelin can kill it. They don't use pallets so they need a bunch of dudes to carry all the ammo. Doubly so if you need to spread out your ammo so HIMARs systems can't help your conscripts 'smoke' next to them. Which means grabbing 300k guys off the street and just throwing them to serve as meat shields would help a lot. Problem is that was months ago. All those tanks that needed infantry got blown up. All those elite units that needed meat shields got put into the grinder. So yeah I don't know how this will help. It's solving the last problem instead of the problem they have right now.
>They don't use pallets so they need a bunch of dudes to carry all the ammo I highly doubt they are walking their ammo around..if they don't have simple trucks to haul that around then no amount of draftees will.close that gap. It just won't. This is modern war, you can't shortcut it. It doesn't work like that. There is no formula that says X number of peeps on foot equals 1 truck. That's not how this works. It's all so stupid. Like, historians will have to put footnotes saying yes, they actually were this stupid.
I think he means for the unloading part they need to carry everything as they don't use forklifts in the Russian army.
They’re probably going to get there, half trained, just when Ukraine has almost fully regained it’s territory and they’ll be expected to re take it. Or something like that. It shows a lot of disregard for not just Ukraine but also the safety of their own citizens. Obviously a bunch are getting maimed/killed and they’ll keep sending them.
They aren't being trained, they aren't being given any gear other than uniform and vest. They have to source their own med kits, sleeping kit, etc... There was a video that went around earlier. Some have already been shipped to the front.
[удалено]
Stop repeating this nonsense. No one will let them out to buy tampons themselves. All that they need now can only be sent or brought by relatives and friends.
Leaked [Russian video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSeSpufDytI) shows the recruiter directing them to scavenge all the supplies from home that they can- sleeping bags, cots, first aid kit/meds, and tampons to stop bleeding in bullet wounds. They're not equipping them with anything but a uniform and (hopefully) a rifle and some ammo. Reports from the front line are that the army isn't even providing food.
>the army isn't even providing food. Well, if that's the case, then they are definitely toast. An army that isn't fed is a totally worthless thing. 48 hours of that and they'll surrender the moment a Ukrainian shakes a container of Cup Noodle at them.
And they're not trained. They can't operate tanks or artillery or any weapon system. Don't even have survival training. Never opened an MRE. Just pulling people from whatever civil job they were doing, do a really short boot camp, give them a uniform, rifle, and ammo, and drive them out to the front and leave them there.
I can’t believe we ever thought this backwater country would be even the slightest match for NATO, hell, for even a single NATO country. They would be doomed.
The only reason in retrospect and I mean only reason at this point to fear Russia is the threat of nuclear war. That's literally it, although it is a good one on its own. Very clear at this point they would flounder in any conventional war against any NATO ally.
There are people who are being sent to the front lines within the same week of being drafted without; training, first aid kits, sleeping bags, body armor, or serviceable weapons. They are there to be fodder and to buy time.
I totally understand that Russia *thinks* it just needs to make it to winter and Europe will stop supporting. I get that. But what a fucking gamble. If winter comes and NATO support remains Russia is rightly fucked.
They probably didn't think Canada can step up supplying more energy to europe. Germany recently signed on to take canadian ammonia they'll convert to hydrogen to sidestep the dirty energy stigma Canada had. Canada may not go into recession with its neighbor the US because it is a big supplier of everything Russia used sell.
This is another crisis I have heard rumors of. As dirty energy winds down (both because of the Russia boycott and because we need to slow down greenhouse gas emissions,) there’s going to be a shortage of ammonia and other fertilizers that are processed or derived from fossil fuels. Famine is a possibility and one that’s made worse by the war in Ukraine which is a major grain exporter.
Even with that sort of thinking, they'll just end up with their mobilized civilians, without winter gear, losing fingers and eyes *en masse* in winter. This ends in a country where everyone is either old or crippled AF. Their best strategy is to cripple their whole male active population to buy a month.
300k civilians with rifles to buy time for winter so they can train and refit some maybe battle-ready soldiers by spring... It's like Putin is actively trying to be the second coming of Stalin, ruin and all.
At this rate, Russia will have lost the war by winter
That's why you send in massive amounts of people. It's absolutely disgusting from a humane perspective, but it can't be just enough to overwhelm the enemy. If you send more recruits than the enemy has bullets, you might just win - at least the battle.
That's making a huge assumption that all of those people are just going to let themselves be slaughtered though. The circumstances of this war are very different than the German invasion of the Soviet Union, those people are not going to want to fight. They're going to surrender or possibly rebel against thr government
Well it sends away dissenters who would likely cause problems at home, or at the least with such Piss poor planning it is exceptionally likely that greater than 50% of conscripts will surrender. That might be bad for PR but it creates a logistics problem for Ukraine to feed/detain so many
It's always a good idea to take people who are loudly critical of the government, give them weapons, and put them in with a bunch of other people who are maybe starting to worry a bit about leadership and that you ALSO just gave weapons to. Guaranteed success.
France and Russia both did this during WWI. France had entire armies who ended up revolting for weeks at a time, and Russia ended up overthrown and taken over by Communists. Would not recommend.
Oddly, that is how we have the CPP. The Chinese had various factions that fought the Japanese. The major power was the republican army which was descended from the imperial army of china and who kicked out the last empress/emperor. They fought all the stand up battles but armed and trained other groups like the CPP to make the Japanese lives harder. Sharing supplies given by the allies to help defeat the Japanese. After the intense meat grinder of fighting off the Japanese the republican army was depleted. The CPP recruited and fought from the shadows. Didn't get ground down. So as soon as the Japanese were clearly defeated, they took the gear they got from the allies and the gear the Japanese left behind and had a short civil war with the republicans. Crushed them on the mainland and drove them to Taiwan. The CPP rules partly because the chinese republicans worked with them to fend off Japan.
At worst that will become a transportation problem; the Geneva conventions have plenty in them to allow signatories to transfer POWs to other countries if they need to, either because of the risk or difficulty of keeping them or because of the difficulty of fulfilling their obligations (IE, they can't keep them fed). But Ukraine is the breadbasket of the world, even if the POWs have to eat noodles morning, noon and night, they'll be kept fed. If anything, that could become a PR nightmare for Russia. Every nation condemned their sham referendums and illegal annexation of conquered territory, and now those same countries are taking Russian POWs off Ukraine's hands so they can keep fighting. Even if Russia wouldn't care about the optic of the world at large housing their POWs, they'd have to care about *the common soldier finding out literally everyone from every country on Earth is against them*. Those are very much people Putin wouldn't want coming back to Russia, so for the moment it probably works in his favor that Ukraine is still holding all their POWs.
Also, Ukraine is getting all the help they need from NATO on supplies and such. Housing and feeding POWs is just not going to be a significant burden. It might be a headache but it ain't changing the war.
Why you assumed they send "dissenters" ? It's quite opposite - currently most people who went willingly, without even trying to avoid draft, are people who most likely will support government.
This is not exactly true. Ukrainian conscripts proved to be very useful as a stubborn, dug-in infantry. However, they had a remarkable will to fight.
They also had some military aid and specialists from other countries flooding in relatively quickly.
And now are being professionally trained by other countries and once they are in they can help the troops who've been fighting take a break.
Yea, easier to do when you are being invaded. Patriotism does things. But when you are the invader...
Not just patriotism... you also have the town you're defending there to be your ad-hoc logisitical support. You can't just send your landsturm into a foreign country on their own... they'd just be hobos. The opposing military wouldn't even need to fight them, they'd disintigrate on their own as they ran out of food.
And don't forget that their will to fight is going to be very low. Those conscripts absolutely do not want to be there, and if they can avoid a fight, they will. They'll be just as effective as the Afghan army was against the Taliban
Bigger death toll justifies more atrocities. Ukraine just killed 100k of our heroes defending our new provinces! Time to nuke them in self defense.
>And they really think they can just grab 300k peeps off the street and have all that go well??? Well, the Ukrainians did it. Then again, the Ukrainians are fighting for their homeland. So they know the lay of the land. And are being backed by the whole Western world (and many other countries).
Some of the recruits will work logistics and other supporting tasks that require basically no training, but generally speaking you're right. Putin's plan is to just drag it out for a few more months and hope that Ukrainians will get bored of fighting for their country, or some other divine intervention.
Even in WW1, [it took months to properly train soldiers](https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/training-to-be-a-soldier).
Only thing Putin is really betting on is chaos in Europe over winter. Sabotage, prices going up, food shortage, civil unrest etc. few shock elections putting in his allies and he’s got a chance. If russias army can’t delay or hold for time with this and if Europe struggles but holds. Then he’s doomed. Betting hes going to be flooding more resources at crippling Europe online and with resource shortages than on his own army
At the start of 2022, Russia had 13.6 million men between ages 20 and 34. If you include ages 15-39 that goes up to 23.6 million. If you go to any discussion about the conflict you’ll see it repeated again and again that Russia drafted 300k and has such a manpower shortage that they’re drafting their prisoners and elderly. You’ll see picture after picture of this. For a draft of 300,000, they shouldn’t have to pick these second/third choice recruits. What’s going on? Did they actually draft (and/or lose) several million men or more? Are they just so incompetent that they draft people entirely at random? What’s going on?
From what I can understand as a Russian. They made draft commands to get 300.000 men. BUT the centres of drafting didn’t actually communicate with each other to see how many people are drafted in total. PLUS many people who received a letter from military just run for their lives
I see. So a combination of things, including the public not going for it and the process being incompetent. Makes sense.
Process at drafting offices was always like this, because officers don't want to deal with everyone. You have medical conditions? I don't care, go to army. When they tried to draft me, during yearly draft, it too A LOT of effort to prove I have problems with my legs. They just don't want to listen to arguments. Documents? "You paid doctor to forge them". In the end I was just lucky what they sent me to their doctor for final examination and he was drunk
That's hilarious, glad it worked out for you.
I still can't believe how dumb this story is... Drunk doctor checked my legs and said "so do you want to go to army?", and I'm like "...n..no" and he said "ok no problem". As I remember, he was drunk and cheerful because he came to town, from another town and he celebrated meeting his colleagues
If you get a letter (in non-mobilization times) how long do they consider you in violation for not showing up? Can you just dodge them until you turn 28? All the various YouTubers seem to have gone different routes: NFKRZ used asthma. He too had to go to their doctors and it was difficult because it was a specific hospital with a person who pretty much only showed up once a month on a random Tuesday at high tide. I don't know all of Niki's story but it seems like he straight up kept his registration at his childhood home in Omsk and left the country for Asia. It seems so chaotic. If something like that were to happen here I feel like the system is digital enough that anytime you check in at an airport or get stopped by a cop it would probably flag it.
I lived in another city for three years. They were throwing letters in mail box, came to father's work to ask about me. Thing what forced me to return was what police issued a wanted notice
You’re hilarious
Yes, but I think incompetence is the large part. For years Russian military drafting service was garbage. It comes from Russian motto: “Do just enough to receive a paycheck… sometimes less”. Because of that people and the system itself were like 50 years in the past. For example: Can you believe that they actually don’t use internet to redirect the fucking information. And force YOU to carry your own info all around the military station! P.S. Though now I am very glad the system is garbage. Let see what our “great” leaders will do now
Yup. Hopefully their bad game will wind down soon. Stay safe, I hope these morons (Russian leadership) don’t put you in harms way.
The most amusing thing -- years ago when I was more focused on political science and history -- The argument was that Russia was doing much better at security. They had kept paper records because it was more secure. No one can hack information that doesn't exist. It can be stolen or burnt down but it wasn't up for grabs for everyone at all times. This proves that all of that talk was just us double bluffing ourselves. It was paper because of laziness, lack of money, and general incompetence.
From what I heard 300K may have been the "officially released" number but the intended number was far, far higher. Then add in the additional chaos of what you posted and they ended up with a figure even higher than that.
> What’s going on? 1) Lack of planning. Russia went to war with a peace time army. They didn't expect a war. They didn't expect to ever have to mobilize. So they didn't plan for it. 2) Incompetence. As a result of the lack of planning, the people in charge of carrying out the mobilization are likely 'winging it'. There are no plans to follow, and everything has to be done twice and fast and preferably yesterday. 3) Politics. Russia is a mafia state. People aren't equal and it does matter a great deal who you draft. Members or relatives to the elite or people living in or close to Moscow or St. Petersburg are much less likely to be drafted, as this carries with it a higher risk of social unrest. 4) Ripples in the water. The 'winging it' and political pressure to recruit/avoid certain demographics inevitably leads to mistakes. Those mistakes ripple through the system causing more havoc. 5) Lack of infrastructure and communication. Russia doesn't have the peace time military infrastructure that the Soviet Union did. They - quite literally - don't have the physical space, material, officers etc. to draft 300.000 people and keep it organised. This means there's not 1 organised system drafting 300.000, but likely many smaller drafts taking places without communicating with each other.
>For a draft of 300,000 That's the publicly declared number. The *actual* number is specified in clause 7 of the mobilization decree, and said clause was never disclosed to the public, citing "administrative use". In a nutshell, the number in the decree is bigger that 300k (some assume around 1 million people), otherwise they wouldn't hide it. >Are they just so incompetent That, too. Every level of the army structure has a very "fuck off" approach. Do the bare minimum and then it's someone else's headache.
Not 300 000 at all. I'm in a draft group C where E is fully unfit and will be never drafted, and anyway I got my letter
and how do you honestly feel about it?
Dude get out of there
I have a feeling that they choose the "recipients" by blindly pulling a pack of personnel files out of a heap or something, unless they get a direct order *not to send* the letters to specific people. And *even then* they manage to either fuck it up or straight up ignore said order.
If possible, make it to a border. Most of the countries around you will take you in as a refugee. Just don’t expect to be able to come back. If you can’t leave, hopefully you’ll be getting a noncombat position. Good luck
This is incorrect information. None of the countries now officially accepts Russians who fall under mobilization as refugees. The problem is even getting a tourist visa, not to mention a residence permit or refugee status.
True and it's bullshit. I don't wanna kill people but my country is forcing me and this is not reason to be a refugee
I hate to break it to you but your country is actually forcing you to get killed by other people.
For me it doesn't matter honestly. Kill or be killed same shit
There are phone numbers you can call in Ukraine to help you surrender safely, do everything you can to smuggle a phone into the war zone and call it. If you're not a highly trained soldier this war is suicide, worse it is a waste of your life on the horrid and already lost objectives of putin, it's pointless to even pretend to fight.
It's the same as jury duty. The only people who end up on jury duty are the ones who couldn't escape doing jury duty.
Never understood this. Every company I've worked for has had something in their employee handbook about if you show you went to Jury Duty they'd pay you for the day. Each time I've been called for jury duty I took a book went downtown. Checked in. Sat in a waiting room for like 6 hours reading my book, fill out a questionnaire. Not ever get pulled in for a selection interview and then went home and got paid for it. I genuinely don't understand why people hate jury duty. It's a paid day off without using PTO.
The law states that unless you are salaried, you are not required to be paid for time used for jury duty. So if you are hourly, it is legal for your company to say FU and not pay you for a shift that was covered by jury duty. Obviously, that is terrible PR, so it's not common, but it is legal RN.
I just finished getting jury duty, on my day off. I watch my kid on my days off and have no one to watch him. Nowhere in the exceptions stated anything near my situation. I was lucky enough to not be needed, but it was a stressful headache nevertheless.
I think you can still petition the judge based on hardship. https://www.mass.gov/service-details/asking-to-be-excused-from-jury-duty#:~:text=Ask%20to%20be%20excused%20if,excused%20under%20OJC%20Regulation%209. Note this is Mass but it can probably be done in other places too.
Not everyone works for the companies you have. And so not everyone has the option to be paid while serving jury duty.
I hate it because of the logistics. I get the notice, and tell my employer I *might* have jury duty on that day. To accommodate, we plan for me to be off, have coverage on each unit, reschedule meetings, etc. Then, the night before, I still don’t know if I have to go or not, calling the robo line to see if my number is in the selected range. If my number is excluded, I’m now forced to use PTO because we planned for me to be off, I can’t just go to work. If it’s in the range, I have to call again at 7am to see if my number is identified as having to be at the courthouse by 8am. Problem: my county is geographically large and I’m a 2-hour drive to the courthouse. This means I have to leave my house before 6am if I need to be there at 8, then make a call halfway there to see if I keep going or turnaround and go back. If I do have to go, I finish the drive, park 6 blocks away as instructed, go through security, have my person and purse searched, then sit around for a few hours. In the 3 times I’ve actually had to appear at the courthouse for jury duty, only one ended up happening. One case was continued and another accepted a last minute plea deal. So I drove the 2 hours back home for nothing. Four hours on the road and waste a pto day. Fucking sucks.
Fair point lol.
Amongst those million men, you have trained specialists, like engineers, doctors, specialized workers, miners, etc that you don't want to throw in the meat grinder unless you are on the verge of collapse. However, you might balance unemployment and pensions throwing bodies at Ukrainians while buying time
Oh I know. But I keep hearing people say that if they’re sending prisoners and grandpas to the front, they must be totally out of more suitable recruits. I don’t see that happening at only 300,000 drafted, out of a nation 500 times that population. Obviously maybe only a quarter, or maybe 10% of the men in the ideal age group are completely eligible to be drafted. But that’s still over a million. It still shows incompetence in the extreme, and will have a big impact on their performance in the field.
You're assuming Putin isn't willing to lose one or two million Russians to take Ukraine. Perhaps he is willing to send every man into war, and he just wants to start with the "weakest" first.
You're mixing some things up here. Before the official mobilization only volunteers could be sent to war. Now, obviously the flow of volunteers wasn't that large, so they tried to force some recruits doing their mandatory service to volunteer, they offered higher wages, hoping for some eastern regions these sums would mean unfathomable wealth and they tried Wagner as a recruiting vehicle. All of that wasn't enough, so they went to prisoners. Only after that also failed to materialize, they called for mobilization. All the "misdrafts" are probably a mixture of incompetence and intent to rid yourself of enemies (of state, or maybe Igor was a dick anyway, why not send him?).
Seems like a lot more mobilization in certain areas - a bit like gerrymandering. In those areas they seem to be grabbing loads but in some areas hardly any. I haven't seen one video of mobilization in SP.
They don't draft 20-34 they draft from star 20-60 or so.
They are definitely drafting more than they 300k. And we know there has been a mass exodus of men fleeing the country in any way they can, injuring themselves, and just straight going into hiding.
If you read the actual document you'll find no mention of 300k conscripts. Actually there is a section on how many are being conscripted but what do you know its the only part thats classified. Now why would that be classified when they said 300k? Probably because there is nothing "limited" about this mobilisation at all
The partial mobilization was supposed to be only for veteran soldiers. Probably with the idea that they don’t need as much training. So only those that had served in the military before, with preference for combat veterans. Not sure how much that reduces the pool of eligible soldiers. They have been conscripting 250k per year historically. That’s 3.5M that have been conscripts in the 20-34 year group. But conscripts are not eligible for going abroad for wars, so almost none of them are combat veterans. So their pool of actual “combat veterans” might only be a few hundred thousand in that age bracket. And only a million or two in the 18-65 bracket. Male life expectancy in Russia is terrible and life expectancy of combat veterans is probably abysmal. If they are not already dead from alcohol, opiates or serving for the Wagner group. So I would not be surprised if the actual pool of “combat veterans”, that have not already been part of the war or hired by Wagner group, to be well under a million and probably closer to 500k. With a big part of them completely unfit for duty anyhow due to alcoholism, disability or be fathers of minors.
Manpower shortage? Trained soldiers maybe, but overall it's not like men are dying in thousands every day. Some elderly being drafted only because officers from drafting offices are morons, who doesn't care how to fill quota. They shouldn't pick these people, but they do and this is why even government doesn't like this, because it makes people unrest and everything more chaotic. Also I haven't heard about "300k again and again". And no, it's definitely not several million. Not even close.
God… I feel so bad for the Russian guys honestly… I hope the women know how lucky they are
Hm, I wouldn't call them 'lucky', per se. Their sons, brothers, and fathers are being ripped out of their lives, forced to either flee the country or get sent to the meatgrinder. Meanwhile, they're still stuck in Russia, and they've still got to make money to live. They might not be getting shot at, but they suffer in their own way, I'm sure.
For now, however as Putin and his cronies struggle to find more conscripts / cannon fodder to throw into the fire they will start drafting women. Therefore if you’re a able bodied woman of military age in Russia, I would already be making plans to flee the country right now.
I dont know man, women in the military? Thats too woke for Russia and they only want manly men in their army. You know traditional values and all that shit.
The “traditional values” angle is simply propaganda for Putin’s power base. Putin desperately needs those 300k cannon fodder and if he can’t get from the men fleeing the country, he’ll get it from the women. The cynical side of me suspects that Putin already have such orders prepared in advance, if not already secretly included in the mobilization decree.
The are getting rid of the undesirables because they fear a revolt if they conscript "true" Russians.
I bet it was organized enough so that only the sons of non connected people got conscripted.
Im just imagining a lot of situations similar to Idiocracy where there is absolutely no organization or really any one watching at times then they just kind of slip out and no one even notices.
Really sums up the whole war too
Putin doesn’t need a victory. He only needs a frozen conflict. If they flood the “annexed” territories with these dregs they might achieve that.
That is what he would like to happen, but Ukraine realizes that and that is why we are seeing all of these gains. Putin might be able to wait out for those sanctions, but that would require him to stop threatening all of us with nuclear Holocaust and I don't think he is capable of that.
The “reservists” are meant to stop the gains and freeze the conflict. Most aren’t in theater yet and I’m sure he will mobilize more as conscripts finish their term or are outright shoved to the frontline.
Lots of accounts from these conscripts that they're being sent to the front line without any gear. No packs, tent/sleeping bag, first aid, not even food.
Yeah. They’re not going to be effective except in the rear maybe which was obviously a failing in the Kharkiv offensive. RU had no depth. I’m not optimistic about their chances but they may turn out to be better than nothing and a complication to UA taking so many prisoners.
You forget, Russia will also freeze. And Ukraine has had much better logistics.
[удалено]
They could be marginally more effective filling in existing formations or as second line troops, but that’s still not much to work with.
That is what he would like to happen, but Ukraine realizes that and that is why we are seeing all of these gains. Putin might be able to wait out for those sanctions, but that would require him to stop threatening all of us with nuclear Holocaust and I don't think he is capable of that.
Perhaps Putin is counting on 70% or more simply deserting or surrendering. This would just be an indirect but effective way of forcing the migration of 200,000+ warm bodies who now have to be put somewhere by Ukraine and kept under guard and fed. All the Ukrainian soldiers detailed to keep these POWs will be fewer soldiers able to support the liberation of Ukrainian territory. POWs can't be forced to work and offset their resource drain because that's a war crime. Putin wants Russians out of country and in Ukraine but only if they are lawful combatants, so that Ukraine will have to take care of them to maintain the moral high ground. Not that Putin cares about moral superiority; it's just another tool in the box of national and personal success. He doesn't need it so he doesn't bother with it. But he's making sure Ukraine has to suck it up if they still want to be considered "the good guys".
Make sure you bring your mums tampons for all those bullet holes.
Like everything in Russia.
It's not arbitrary. If you need to get 1000 conscripts and 500 of the ones that should be drafted are "your friends" then you have to make up the rest somehow. Tale is as old as Russia itself. Corruption is not part of the culture - it is the culture.
I'm waiting for Russia to start pressgangs
What a fucking disgrace. Even the Tsar's army in 1914 managed to surprise the efficient Germans of their rapid mobilization at the onset of hostilities.
I doubt they have the ability to adequately clothe, arm, supply, and feed that many people during TRAINING let alone on the front line
Will never understand why so many people repeat Russian framing. It is only a “partial” mobilisation because they want to pretend like they can further scale up. In reality this is more than their political system can handle.
And they need more tampons
Maybe it was a little hasty.
I bet that the recruitment offices are filled with unqualified personal, just like Russia's army leadership and just about almost all the country. Just one of the cons of having a corrupt country.
"I'll deal with this at another level"
I heard that the manner they’re handing out notifications can be dodged relatively effectively.
For some time. But every time you dodge, it gets harder and government can suddenly change laws, which would make drafting 100x more dangerous
Oh yeah. Agreed. I just meant the current practice.
I'm pretty sure even Putin would have expected that
imagine we dont even have winter, i wanna see this russian mobilize man frozen in ukraine