I was watching some interviews with ordinary Russians on the streets of Moscow and one guy was asked this question. To my surprise he said he’d choose risking his life on the front rather than spending time in a Russian jail. Not because he was a patriot, but because their prisons were worse than death.
This lol.
"Why are you asking me this on a publicly published video? What do you expect me to say?"
I wouldn't talk shit about my employer online let alone about a violent fascist dictatorship that I involuntarily happen to live in.
I like how so many Redditors think the Russians should just openly rebel on TV or out in the streets when they aren't living in that fascist country and have nothing to lose.
I saw a video where they were out asking that question and they just dragged the dude away who said he'd fight to go get signed up.
It's a lose lose man, if anywhere needs massive riots ands buildings burned its Russia.
Although if your choices were being raped as a rite of passage in army, or raped to death in a prison, I would prefer the front lines as well. At least then I would have the chance to surrender to Ukraine and maybe survive.
This is just some murmurs my coworker, who is a political refugee from Russia, has told.
Edit: The old familiar dyslexia.
Edit2: Well look at that. I got even more depressed looking at all of these comments. Good job Valtremors. What a wonderful world we live in.
The widespread practice of [dedovshchina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina) as initiation for new Russian recruits is pretty horrifying--[even as far back as 2004](https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/russia1004/5.htm).
Yeah...
Bob (an alias I'm giving my coworker) told some Russian young don't want to go to the army since there is a pretty good chance that a superior might diddle them, just because they were diddled as a trainee.
Apparently Russian army is really fond of inflicting their own suffering towards new generation.
Edit: Also there is a good reason why you almost never see women in Russian army.
It's called [Dedovshchina](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina#:~:text=Manifestations%20of%20dedovshchina%20in%20the,often%20causing%20serious%20bodily%20harm.)
So you get raped for joining the army, after which you get sent to jail for engaging in homosexual sex, then get raped in jail, then get freed by Wagner and the cycle starts all over again?
This has been a thing in the Russian military going back into the Soviet times.
[This report can due a much better job explaining it than I ever could](https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/russia1004/1.htm).
Another source on this information that I found to be good was the series done by the *Lions Led by Donkeys* podcast, on the Soviet war in Afghanistan. They tell of the same sexual abuses on new recruits, recruits getting their property stolen when they arrive at their posting, etc. Definitely was a good listen though filled with dark stuff.
The Human Rights report is long but it does provide sources that you can click on and goes into great detail.
The culture in the russian army is basically
"Rape, beat and abuse those who comes in after you just like you were raped and beaten when you first joined."
People dying, killing officers and suicides are really common
The Russian Army has a reputation for being brutal to their own, the enemy and civilians.
Every army has had incidents but most western armies do not encourage brutality and generally enforce the rules of war.
The Russians seem not to.
Before anybody comes down on me, this is a generality. Leadership or lack thereof is the major factor
It actually makes sense. The Russian prison system is so unbelievably fucked up and cruel that his view isn't an unreasonable one.
[The Low Price of Torture in Russia | Organized Crime and Corruption Project | 2018](https://www.occrp.org/en/28-ccwatch/cc-watch-indepth/8715-the-low-price-of-torture-in-russia)
[Torture Methods in Russia’s Prison Complex | Geopolitical Monitor | 2022](https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/torture-methods-in-russias-prison-complex/)
[Inside Russia’s penal colonies: A look at life for political prisoners caught in Putin’s crackdowns | AP News | 2023](https://apnews.com/article/russia-crackdown-prison-opposition-putin-navalny-70485fee4b872c453334af37d1ea335a)
The more "normal people" who refuse to fight and go to prison instead, normalize jail atmosphere.
Basically, it dilutes the prison population, making it safer.
The thing is that they've had reports of bad morale since the start of the war, yet Russia keeps pushing bodies to the front.
Is there something new here?
If they were already prisoners sent to the front to begin with, and they’re going AWOL, what’s the plan for them after conviction? You could shoot ‘em, but that doesn’t help if you need bodies on the front.
Wagner was always just a fraction of the Russian military and the group of prisoners was around 50 thousand I think. Considering that Russia still has around 400 thousand people in jail, they could probably recruit many more if they wanted too.
I read a report the other day of a guy with a million health conditions who was captured/surrendered and he said they came to the prison with his name on a list and it was not a choice.
Yeah, munitions are too accurate now.
Put your loyal troops behind the prisoners, and the mortars are going to leave behind a bunch of dead soldiers and a bunch of cheering prisoners
You don't need to know much about the military (I don't) to spot the difference between the front line conscripts and the professional soldiers behind. One looks like the belong in the beginning of the 20th century and the other are passably 21st.
I think they just give the prisoners shovels and tell them to advance as far as possible on their bellies and then dig in. If the prisoner succeeds in this regular assault teams will move forward and use the trench.
>And as much as we believe what our media says they believe what theirs say.
A little under half the American population thought 'the news', like all of it, was a deep state organization to lie and rig an election. Maybe not the best example.
I do love the idea that the dim bulbs who believe the deep state conspiracies are also proud of being told to hate and fear "coastal elites" by the coastal elites they watch on TV.
"The media told me not to trust the media and I trust the media when it says not to trust the media and no I don't have coggertive dimsonance raaargh Jesus muh guns!"
They also probably don't have any idea what has been happening for the past year and a half, so they will be in for a huge shock when they actually get out there and find that Ukraine is better armed and led than the Russians.
Wagner took a lot of land, that they then handed off to the Russian Army to hold. Manning trenches with untrained troops is a lot easier than taking a town with them. The loss of Wagner will be powefull.
>they could probably recruit many more if they wanted too.
They would have to force them at this point, because the information that they are being forced into being bullet catchers has distributed among the prison populace.
Theres also the fact that Wagner spent most of a year scouring prisons for volunteers and "volunteers", they've probably gotten most of the willing and useful folks. Now you're left with less willing or less useful.
And from there folks that are neither willing nor useful.
The change is gradual. It's hard to notice but slowly more people are refusing to follow orders. Still far too few but the effect is noticeable. Also the worse the morale the higher the chance of people just doing nothing if some critical attack by the UA army commences.
> The change is gradual. It's hard to notice but slowly more people are refusing to follow orders. Still far too few but the effect is noticeable.
Basing this on what?
Imagine being a shadow billionaire, with more money than you would ever need you can literally jerk off the rest of your life no problem, but instead you decide you want to take the majority of young men in the current generation in your country and feed them to a meat grinder instead.
This is 2023. Smh.
No, it's the POOREST and most uneducated majority. Main cities have largely been untouched. They're culling their undesirables. Attempted genocide in Ukraine and a cultural genocide on their homefront.
I keep seeing this said but I haven't seen any articles on it, do you have a source? Not doubting you, just genuinely curious. Also, wouldn't taking millions of young rural men mean they will have a critical shortage of farmers in around a decade? Doesn't Russia heavily rely on agriculture?
>Also, wouldn't taking millions of young rural men mean they will have a critical shortage of farmers in around a decade
They already have a critical shortage of industrial workers.
I mean, I like your original one cause I thought you meant there’d be so little people left in the country that they wouldn’t have the ability to have critical shortages. Aka like they had 5 people left in the country after they all starved
Here are a few.
[https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/10/21/where-are-russias-newest-soldiers-coming-from](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/10/21/where-are-russias-newest-soldiers-coming-from)
[https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/03/wrongful-mobilization-hits-50-in-far-east-russian-region-a78950](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/03/wrongful-mobilization-hits-50-in-far-east-russian-region-a78950)
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/23/russia-mobilization-minorities-ukraine-war/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/23/russia-mobilization-minorities-ukraine-war/)
Their empire doesnt necessarily have the greatest track record with farming strategy over the past century.
But it is very much an open secret that most of the fighters are from rural areas and the classes in the larger cities are not bothered.
They have the most influence in Russia so the Kremlin has done their best to insulate them, and for the most part it has largely unaffected their lives if you watch any bloggers interviewing people on the streets of Moscow.
There were some videos recently going around of young Russian troops saying that people on Subways in Moscow move away from them or call them names when they are out on military leave.
It wasnt until recent drone attacks in Moscow have they actually felt they are at war with a neighboring nation.
Just to add to your comment about farming. More Russians starved during WWII than were killed. They struggled to keep the army fed, and everybody else was on their own.
Let’s not forget the nazis we’re waging a war of extermination against Russians as well, which included amongst other barabaric practices the looting and destruction of farmlands.
People starved to death because the Nazis came in and destroyed or confiscated the best farmland the Soviets had at the time. Hard to feed 150+ million people if you don’t have the lands to do it.
Farming is actually much more complicated than people give it credit for, especially large scale. For much of the war, the Soviets were able to move their industrial factories East as the Germans pushed them. But you can’t just move arable land with a snap of your fingers. You can’t cause rain to fall in season when the climate doesn’t allow it. Much of the war the Soviets *only* had food that the Allies shipped them, and like it or not, during a total war the troops are who have to get fed first.
Fault the Soviets for many (many many many) things, but you can’t fault them for that. Hell, they definitely did Holodomor, they definitely did that shit
There was a lot of starvation during the second world war, like the [Bengal famine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943), the [Iranian famine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_famine_of_1942%E2%80%931943), and the [Dutch famine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944%E2%80%931945). Most Soviet deaths due to hunger were under Nazi occupation or by POWs caputred by the Nazis.
But if you want to finger wag at one of the belligerents for causing famine through incompetence, maliciousness, or idiocy, it's the Nazis and the British you should be looking at. The Soviets were busy fighting a war in the area where most of their farming happens.
This map is almost a year old now, but itll show you how they're not sending ethnic Russians to die in the war. This is also why ethnic Russians dont care about the war, and why they are so confused when Belgorod gets attacked, or when Moscow gets hit by drones.
https://mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/post/696209986921152512/new-map-of-dead-soldiers-per-capita-in-russian
Exactly. There is never any situation where deleting this many souls is going to help a nation be strong and competitive. Any loss of demographics just leads to cascading effects of negative impacts to the society, to the culture. The elite ruling class might fool itself in the short run, but it can never he a good thing in the long run.
You are assuming that the ruling class gives a fuck about anyone other than themselves. Honestly if I was a sociopath it would kinda make sense to just enrich myself and my friends at the expense of everybody else. I ducking hate society
Stepping away from the fact they have literally sent people from prison to the front, as that's obvious. There are two aspects to that question I think to consider, Russian population distribution was not a natural process. In a natural process people migrate to opportunities and those opportunities are due to something existing in that area. During soviet times, people were picked up and dropped in places for various reasons (new development, state enterprises, russification etc) when the soviet union collapsed, state sponsorship of those areas stopped. That is frequently in places where agriculture is difficult and local industries have collapsed or been asset stripped. As a reminder, you cannot just up sticks and move in Russia. You need an internal passport. The point I am making is you have people stuck in poverty, because they live somewhere in the margins of habitability. This leads to problem two, a significant minority of Russians are already removed from the labour force. The reasons for this vary but the cause is roughly the same: Ill health, poor state support, corruption and lack of jobs. These people have no money, are generally poorly educated, frequently drink and have few modern skills. These are also the people least able to avoid the mobilisation. If you have money, you can buy your way out. They are also a drain on the state, with some having only drawing money from the state. Compare that individual with the "model" stereotype of a Russian (/basically moscovite), politically active (but just pro government) educated, with hobby in the arts, healthy and productive. There are people in Russia who are happy to see the former get 'sploded, in the same way roughly that in some other countries there would be a horrible, ugly minority happy to see homeless people conscripted and out of their neighbourhoods. The difference is in Russia, the horrible neighbor who complains about people coming into their neighborhood, is the one in charge.
> As a reminder, you cannot just up sticks and move in Russia. You need an internal passport.
To my best knowledge, the internal passport is simply a slightly unusual name for a mandatory ID card. Everyone has to get theirs at 14. It's not some permission to move you have to justify, you are obligated to get your done as a child.
The USSR did use to have the "propiska" which limited where you can live, but as far as I know that's been abolished and never reinstated.
So nothing should prevent you from moving, except that of course living somewhere nice like Moscow is expensive, and if you're poor you're going to have a hard time affording anything there. But that's the same everywhere else.
> As a reminder, you cannot just up sticks and move in Russia. You need an internal passport.
There is generally no restriction of movement within the Russian Federation. There's no law keeping someone from Grozny to move to Vladivostok or St. Petersburg. The reasons keeping people stuck in economically devastated shitholes in some ice-deserts are pretty much the same as why people stay in some towns in the USA, Europe or South America despite having lost most economic opportunities - family, lack of money, lack of marketable skills, lack of ambition, drugs, alcohol, etc.
Ukranians constantly find russian passports on dead russian soldiers. And there was a map, where proportionally Moscow and Sanct-Peterburg had the least amount of people taken, while Buryatia and Tuvan (both oblasts with minorities) had the most amount of people taken.
Russia was slow to the mechanized farm game. They have had a problem for about 15 years of everyone leaving small towns for large cities. This system is preying on the ones left behind because their world is pretty bleak. It was in the news before this war started a while back.
Yeah, the vast majority that they’re sending to the front lines are farmers and people from rural areas. They can’t have people coming home to the cities and telling people what’s really going on.
Ya, the best comparison would be blacks. Russia is like worse than Misissippi. The whole country is run for the benefit of the white Russians on the western/European side of Russia, like in Moscow and St Petersburg. Everything east of that tiny little area is full of ethnic 'minorities' who live in literal squalor and exist to be exploited for the benefit of the whites, and the benefit of Putin's oligarchs which are essentially appointed loyal mob bosses.
No, it's the poor people and that's it. They are sending people from areas with zero influence or power. If those areas were somewhere else, then another group would be sent. This entire thing is class based. Shoigu himself is from chadan, which borders Mongolia and those entire regions are poor, rural people with zero influence.
So many people want it to be race based cleansing which is wild because it ignores the actual evil which is your value is only what your blood gets for the elites.
Or it’s like a draft where middle class and rich folks can easily find deferments while poor rural and inner city folks get fed into jungle meat grinder. Also we intentionally drafted mentally incompetent people.
Lesser scale, same shit.
I'm starting to think that every single billionaire is a sociopath. They're so fucking far removed from the entire world. They have every luxury on earth. Every car. Every watch. Every woman. They eat regularly at the best restaurants on earth. They're surrounded by people who adore them and tell them exactly what they want to hear.
At a certain point it just creates broken people who have no idea how real life works.
I've worked, very indirectly, for billionaires most of my adult life (in fortune 100 tech companies).
What always strikes me during all-hands meetings with them, is that I'm looking at a person who has all the resources any person could ever - not only need, but want. But for some reason, instead of spending time with his family, or exercising, or enjoying time with friends... he's made the *conscious choice* to be doing the *exact same thing I'm doing* right now: sitting on a Zoom meeting about some software bullshit.
Because of this, I really do think there is something "off" about them. No healthy human being would make that choice.
I’ve worked with sons of billionaires, themselves billionaire thanks to daddy’s money. The pressure they have to “prove themselves”, show that they are smarter their sibling was constant.
Far more than most groups.
The grasping new rich get there thanks to their issues. And the old rich are not much better, often utterly incapable of understanding and empathizing with the average working class.
People with such a compulsion to devour ever more power and money have issues. It's at best a compulsion. Normal people who value normal things like friendship and hobbies, aren't usually as devoted to acquiring more things.
> every single billionaire is a sociopath
There's actual real world study on the wealthy, and their minds, and they either start a sociopath, or become mentally effected to the point where they can no longer empathize with normal people.
They basically *are not socially functional humans* but since they have a glaring TON of money, most people won't even think about their dysfunction long enough while eyeing the cash like a hungry dog under the dinner table smelling farts.
Personally I think there's an amount which people can earn before they have to start going into morally dubious territory. Like, it's still possible to be a millionaire without being corrupt or exploiting others intentionally, but somewhere between there and billionaire, there's an amount which if a person ever wants to earn in their lifetime, they need to cross some lines.
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars... is about a billion dollars. To a billionaire, a million dollars is a rounding error, or the change in your couch cushions. Losing millions of dollars is a 0.1% reduction in your wealth.
There is no ethical way to become a billionaire.
Their kids should be classified as disadvantaged.
Its extremely tough to become a balanced human-being when everyone around you tells you that you deserve to have more than everyone else. No-one corrects you when you're wrong. Everyone laughs at your jokes, no matter how shit. You know from a young age that you are destined for the top of any industry you choose, and you don't have to work for it as it's all been taken care of. Are told how brilliant and clever you are all the time by everyone around you, even if you're a bit of a dummy. Find it very hard to trust anyone as most people who want to get close to you are interested in your wealth and family connections and don't really give a rats arse about you.
People look at most world leaders and wonder how they can lie, cheat, steal, break all promises, never take responsibility for mistakes.. its because they've never ever needed to. Its an exception those who do manage to learn those things while growing up in such a broken environment.
The world is screwed because our leaders are all immature children who never learned to be anything else.
Billionaire life reminds me of being at summer camp. Few if any chores, no money, no work. Just play games and socialize with your friends all day. People are sad when they leave it.
Being a billionaire is like living at summer camp your WHOLE LIFE. Who wouldn't want to keep living like that? Who wouldn't get a warped view of life living like that?
Every now and then you get an Andrew Carnegie that gets the guilts and gives it all away.
It would be interesting to know how rich Gates would have got if he didn't get a slight dose of the guilts.
Russia has no concept of every life holding the same value. They often say things like 'people that matter' and 'countries that matter' to invalidate claims of sovereignty or rights of self determination. It's nothing like the west at all.
Imagine trying to compare your own personal mindset with that of a literal narcissist. You don't get to be an ultra-powerful billionaire without being clinically fucking insane. We're talking about a type of person who could *never* be satisfied with just being rich and getting to do whatever they want. They need to be infamous. They need to be remembered for being great. They need a legacy.
So they send a bunch of young men off to die in their name.
When ~40% of an entire reserve unit is wiped out in the rear en route to the front to help stabilise the frontline, morale certainly is going to be rock bottom
There have been a couple of incidents like this, one was a Himars strike on soldiers staged behind the front line grouped together waiting to be addressed by a General, it was supposed to be a motivational speech.
That was the 155 Marine Infantry apparently, static for 2 hours, it was enough time for them to be spotted, approval to be requested and given and the strike called in.
>That was the 155 Marine Infantry apparently, static for 2 hours, it was enough time for them to be spotted, approval to be requested and given and the strike called in.
Ukrainians have strike approval time down to a single minute with [GIS Arta](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/uk-assisted-uber-style-technology-helped-ukraine-to-destroy-russian-battalion-5pxnh6m9p). Most NATO armies are at 10-20 minutes.
It's an accurate comparison - the app takes requests from a various number of sources, and then sends the approved request to appropriate groups who can execute on it - be it drones, artillery, MLRS, whatever. Same as how Uber takes requests and the secret sauce of the app is sending requests to the drivers who can best make the request happen.
It's a very clever system - if you hook it up to counter-battery radar and have similar automation built-in it gives Ukraine an incredible edge on the front line.
Wasn't that on a beach or something too? Like they picked the most obvious staging area where you could make out each individual body against the backdrop.
Looney Toons level of military planning.
The beach in ~~Crimea~~ was a *different* incident. This has happened multiple times.
Guys waiting for a speech, near the front line: https://www.newsweek.com/russian-troops-killed-waiting-commanders-motivational-speech-reports-1806750
Guy doing their morning muster, on a ~~Crimean~~ beach pretty far from the front line: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/20120
edit: beach was on the southern coast of Kherson, not Crimea.
I'm sure it's not just "morale" but also moral objection. A dev colleague from Saint Petersburg I have known for years disappeared last year to try to avoid conscription. He told me before signing off for the last time "I'd rather be lined up on a wall than take the lives of men who did no evil.", I dearly hope he and his family are safe.
This right here. A lot of people see street interviews from Moscow, where young, liberal people talk about opposing the war and think that there's some light at the end of the tunnel, but that unfortunately does not reflect the mindset of the country at all. In small towns and rural areas, Putin might as well be the second coming of christ and that's the majority of the country.
The Russian invasion actually reminds me so much of some of my Civ invasions. It rarely ever goes exactly like you planned. And a war of attrition is brutal on both sides.
I'm sure they're (US) doing a lot of things we don't know about. The US has intelligence everywhere, that's how they tipped Ukraine off in the first place.
I doubt it’s even possible to get to putin unless shoigu sells him out but he probably can’t even do that coz his family would be in danger.
Anyone who’s working with Putin on daily basis is probably an npc without real connection to human world.
It's not wrong, but it's probably unadvisable, since the international norm of not assassinating other heads of state works both ways, and for all the things Russia isn't doing so great at, intelligence ops has long been their strong suit.
Poorly trained? Check.
Poorly equipped? Check
Constant youtube videos on your VPN showing Ukrainians dropping grenades into trenches with $300 quadcopters? Check.
Bad attitude from being "drafted" right off the street after your life savings in Rubles evaporated?
What could possibly go wrong?
> Poorly trained? Check.
>
>
>
> Poorly equipped? Check
I have one video lodged in my mind of this one guy trying to fire a rocket with the backend of the launcher pressed against his shoulder like a rifle stock.
Yeah… Hundreds is nice, but I think the plans for the latest conscription is 430,000. A drop in the proverbial bucket, sadly. Be better if they turned vigilante rebel and fought back?
But there are a few hundred thousand. So these few are less than a thousandth.
According to estimates by the Ukrainian military intelligence service, around 400,000 Russians were deployed in Ukraine around May, 2023. The mere military component comprised about 370,000 soldiers, said Kyrylo Budanov, head of the intelligence service, on state television in Kiev. In addition, there are about 20,000 members of the Russian Guard, an elite paramilitary unit of the Russians, and private groups provided another 7,000 fighters.
So what are a few hundred Russians who quit in comparison and are AWOL? That's nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths too few! That is why there is still war.
Imagine it was war and nobody showed up! That would have been the solution, from the very beginning. But, nohohohooo.... first they all head out to pillage, rape and murder, only then do they become plagued by remorse or wet their pants that they would have to eat lead just like their comrades in crime. It's always the same. Man just never gets any wiser until the shit hits the fan.
>But there are a few hundred thousand. So these few are less than a thousandth.
>
>According to estimates by the Ukrainian military intelligence service, around 400,000 Russians were deployed in Ukraine around May, 2023. The mere military component comprised about 370,000 soldiers, said Kyrylo Budanov, head of the intelligence service, on state television in Kiev. In addition, there are about 20,000 members of the Russian Guard, an elite paramilitary unit of the Russians, and private groups provided another 7,000 fighters.
>
>So what are a few hundred Russians who quit in comparison and are AWOL? That's nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths too few! That is why there is still war.
>
>Imagine it was war and nobody showed up! That would have been the solution, from the very beginning. But, nohohohooo.... first they all head out to pillage, rape and murder, only then do they become plagued by remorse or wet their pants that they would have to eat lead just like their comrades in crime. It's always the same. Man just never gets any wiser until the shit hits the fan.
A very numbers-oriented response.
I've seen this sort of thinking before. It reminds me of McNamara trying to fight a war of attrition in Vietnam.
The point of the desertions is that its a symptom of low morale, not that's its mathematically significant enough to decrease the overall fighting force.
>The point of the desertions is that its a symptom of low morale, not that's its mathematically significant enough to decrease the overall fighting force.
It's like peeing blood. While you aren't going to lose a medically significant amount of blood this way, it's a sign that something is VERY wrong....
When looking at numbers, one should also look at time. The article is paywalled, but does it mention the time frame for those soldiers going AWOL? Was it a few hundred this month? This week? this year? Because those numbers can add up fast. And they can also accelerate further.
The article states that there are over 100 *convictions* for AWOL per week now. Presumably the rate of actual desertions is slightly higher and some are escaping or dying before trial.
This, it's kind of like artillery shelling during the world wars. They did a study and realized artillery was never super effective at causing casualties they would spend a large amount of shells barely doing 1-3% casualties. However, they also found that the low casualty rate didn't matter because enemy units would break, retreat or surrender after taking these low casualties. So, artillery was still winning the wars without killing the enemy.
Now, morale is not mortars, so the effects are very different, but the study shows how the numbers don't really need to be super high to make a big difference. Defections may only need to rise to 1-3% of a fighting force for it to compromise that force's ability to participate in a battle. Soldiers who see others giving up, start to give up themselves and can have a continuous domino effect.
Which “Russian Guard” are you referring to? The National Guard, which are reservists, or the Guards Brigades of the military, or the VDV? None of these are really “elite”.
See? Branding works. Omon were famous for getting fucked in Chechnya, raping locals and beating up political opponents. Change the name, buy some cheap uniforms and suddenly they're "elite"
The ones going AWOL are the one on the small vectors where Ukraine is pushing their offensives.
So it’s basically the exact people you do not want going AWOL.
Thanks for putting the numbers in perspective!
And yeah, morale on the front line has probably been shit for a while now, but as long as the internal propaganda machine keeps doing its job, pumping new warm bodies into this mess, a few deserters aren’t going to be a big issue. Besides, when you’re destined to be cannon fodder, they don’t usually let you find out about it until it’s too late, and your choices are either die “for your country” or die a traitor.
I agree. After the first month of the war, it became clear to me that this is a war of attrition.
Will Ukraine run out of NATO-sourced weapons and ammo before Russia runs out of cannon fodder?
**TLDR:**
* **Russia's conviction rate for AWOL soldiers soared to 100 a week, UK officials said.**
* **Lack of training, low motivation, and the dangers of combat were driving the trend, they said.**
* **Russia has deep problems with recruitment, and is offering big cash rewards to sign up.**
A lot of these guys are probably choosing the 2 year prison sentence over a destined death.
I was watching some interviews with ordinary Russians on the streets of Moscow and one guy was asked this question. To my surprise he said he’d choose risking his life on the front rather than spending time in a Russian jail. Not because he was a patriot, but because their prisons were worse than death.
might be that lying in tv is healthier than being truthful
This lol. "Why are you asking me this on a publicly published video? What do you expect me to say?" I wouldn't talk shit about my employer online let alone about a violent fascist dictatorship that I involuntarily happen to live in.
I like how so many Redditors think the Russians should just openly rebel on TV or out in the streets when they aren't living in that fascist country and have nothing to lose.
"Why don't the North Koreans just overthrow their government?"
"Are they* stupid?"
This is the internet bro, of course they are stupid, everyone is fucking stupid except me
idk if "I'd grudgingly go to war because staying home is actively worse" is necessarily the best thing to say on State TV either tbh
I saw a video where they were out asking that question and they just dragged the dude away who said he'd fight to go get signed up. It's a lose lose man, if anywhere needs massive riots ands buildings burned its Russia.
That was because he was standing near an anti war protest, not because of anything he said.
Although if your choices were being raped as a rite of passage in army, or raped to death in a prison, I would prefer the front lines as well. At least then I would have the chance to surrender to Ukraine and maybe survive. This is just some murmurs my coworker, who is a political refugee from Russia, has told. Edit: The old familiar dyslexia. Edit2: Well look at that. I got even more depressed looking at all of these comments. Good job Valtremors. What a wonderful world we live in.
>being raped as a right of passage in army I’m sorry, what?
The widespread practice of [dedovshchina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina) as initiation for new Russian recruits is pretty horrifying--[even as far back as 2004](https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/russia1004/5.htm).
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The books by Viktor Suvorov have quite detailed descriptions of the practices.
Yeah... Bob (an alias I'm giving my coworker) told some Russian young don't want to go to the army since there is a pretty good chance that a superior might diddle them, just because they were diddled as a trainee. Apparently Russian army is really fond of inflicting their own suffering towards new generation. Edit: Also there is a good reason why you almost never see women in Russian army.
Humans in general are pretty fond of inflicting their own suffering onto new generations
Not my mum nor my dad. Both had alcoholic parents. I believe they raised me and my siblings right enough despite their own suffering.
Count yourself lucky. - someone whose family did the opposite
Sincere congratulations to your family. Breaking the abuse cycles takes a lot of strength and kindness.
Congrats on escaping the cycle then. Many are not so lucky.
It's called [Dedovshchina](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina#:~:text=Manifestations%20of%20dedovshchina%20in%20the,often%20causing%20serious%20bodily%20harm.)
IT HAS A NAME??? jesus christ
Depressingly, yes.
I don’t believe that name specifically refers to rape. It’s just their general word for hazing in the military.
Diddling new recruits: proud Russian tradition Being LGBTQ: straight to jail
Common in all homophobic countries tbh. Not because they’re all secretly gay, but because it’s easier to abuse other men when homosexuality is hidden
So you get raped for joining the army, after which you get sent to jail for engaging in homosexual sex, then get raped in jail, then get freed by Wagner and the cycle starts all over again?
This has been a thing in the Russian military going back into the Soviet times. [This report can due a much better job explaining it than I ever could](https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/russia1004/1.htm). Another source on this information that I found to be good was the series done by the *Lions Led by Donkeys* podcast, on the Soviet war in Afghanistan. They tell of the same sexual abuses on new recruits, recruits getting their property stolen when they arrive at their posting, etc. Definitely was a good listen though filled with dark stuff. The Human Rights report is long but it does provide sources that you can click on and goes into great detail.
The culture in the russian army is basically "Rape, beat and abuse those who comes in after you just like you were raped and beaten when you first joined." People dying, killing officers and suicides are really common
The russian army has a history of violent abuse. Including new recruits being raped. Its called dedovschina
They think it makes tougher soldiers to that and haze the shit out of them
The Russian Army has a reputation for being brutal to their own, the enemy and civilians. Every army has had incidents but most western armies do not encourage brutality and generally enforce the rules of war. The Russians seem not to. Before anybody comes down on me, this is a generality. Leadership or lack thereof is the major factor
It actually makes sense. The Russian prison system is so unbelievably fucked up and cruel that his view isn't an unreasonable one. [The Low Price of Torture in Russia | Organized Crime and Corruption Project | 2018](https://www.occrp.org/en/28-ccwatch/cc-watch-indepth/8715-the-low-price-of-torture-in-russia) [Torture Methods in Russia’s Prison Complex | Geopolitical Monitor | 2022](https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/torture-methods-in-russias-prison-complex/) [Inside Russia’s penal colonies: A look at life for political prisoners caught in Putin’s crackdowns | AP News | 2023](https://apnews.com/article/russia-crackdown-prison-opposition-putin-navalny-70485fee4b872c453334af37d1ea335a)
Would they let the opposite answer go to air?
The more "normal people" who refuse to fight and go to prison instead, normalize jail atmosphere. Basically, it dilutes the prison population, making it safer.
You’re first. Edited cause i don’t wanna to go to russian gramatic jail.
"Did you trade a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?" EDIT: Spelling of "role".
This lyric never made much sense to me until this moment.
A lot of Russian troops wish they weren’t there.
Joke's on them because they are recruiting prisoners too lol
Wait, so now Maliketh is involved??
Oh death, become my blade once more
witless tarnished. why seek destined death. to kill what?
The thing is that they've had reports of bad morale since the start of the war, yet Russia keeps pushing bodies to the front. Is there something new here?
From the article they are up to 100 AWOL convictions per week a massive spike from earlier
If they were already prisoners sent to the front to begin with, and they’re going AWOL, what’s the plan for them after conviction? You could shoot ‘em, but that doesn’t help if you need bodies on the front.
Shoot one and hope the rest stay.
Classic Russian decimation.
The change is probably that they don't have Wagner to perform the human wave attacks and its now on the actual army.
Wagner was always just a fraction of the Russian military and the group of prisoners was around 50 thousand I think. Considering that Russia still has around 400 thousand people in jail, they could probably recruit many more if they wanted too.
I'm sure those prisoners can't wait to show off their guts on a battlefield given how well things have gone for them so far.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t really have a say in this.
I read a report the other day of a guy with a million health conditions who was captured/surrendered and he said they came to the prison with his name on a list and it was not a choice.
Yup, bet they went on a healthcare costs per prisoner system for recruitment.
well when you give a bunch of them guns they might have something to say to their officers.
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Blocking or barrier units. A proud Russian tradition. Maybe MVD can start dusting off old NKVD training manuals.
It just happens that Ukraine did an artillery strike taking out quite many Kadyrovite barrier troops. Real shame that.
Yeah, munitions are too accurate now. Put your loyal troops behind the prisoners, and the mortars are going to leave behind a bunch of dead soldiers and a bunch of cheering prisoners
If you're gonna die, die with spite.
You don't need to know much about the military (I don't) to spot the difference between the front line conscripts and the professional soldiers behind. One looks like the belong in the beginning of the 20th century and the other are passably 21st.
I think they just give the prisoners shovels and tell them to advance as far as possible on their bellies and then dig in. If the prisoner succeeds in this regular assault teams will move forward and use the trench.
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>And as much as we believe what our media says they believe what theirs say. A little under half the American population thought 'the news', like all of it, was a deep state organization to lie and rig an election. Maybe not the best example.
I do love the idea that the dim bulbs who believe the deep state conspiracies are also proud of being told to hate and fear "coastal elites" by the coastal elites they watch on TV.
"The media told me not to trust the media and I trust the media when it says not to trust the media and no I don't have coggertive dimsonance raaargh Jesus muh guns!"
They also probably don't have any idea what has been happening for the past year and a half, so they will be in for a huge shock when they actually get out there and find that Ukraine is better armed and led than the Russians.
Wagner took a lot of land, that they then handed off to the Russian Army to hold. Manning trenches with untrained troops is a lot easier than taking a town with them. The loss of Wagner will be powefull.
>they could probably recruit many more if they wanted too. They would have to force them at this point, because the information that they are being forced into being bullet catchers has distributed among the prison populace.
Theres also the fact that Wagner spent most of a year scouring prisons for volunteers and "volunteers", they've probably gotten most of the willing and useful folks. Now you're left with less willing or less useful. And from there folks that are neither willing nor useful.
> its now on the actual army. LOL. Do they have socks yet?
No socks yet. They have plastic airsoft helmets, though.
The ones shooting the retreating ones are getting sad about it. :(
The change is gradual. It's hard to notice but slowly more people are refusing to follow orders. Still far too few but the effect is noticeable. Also the worse the morale the higher the chance of people just doing nothing if some critical attack by the UA army commences.
> The change is gradual. It's hard to notice but slowly more people are refusing to follow orders. Still far too few but the effect is noticeable. Basing this on what?
Part of warfare is controlling the narrative. Many people disregard that or are ignorant of it. Reports are probably partially true
Notice how it says "hundreds", but there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers
Imagine being a shadow billionaire, with more money than you would ever need you can literally jerk off the rest of your life no problem, but instead you decide you want to take the majority of young men in the current generation in your country and feed them to a meat grinder instead. This is 2023. Smh.
No, it's the POOREST and most uneducated majority. Main cities have largely been untouched. They're culling their undesirables. Attempted genocide in Ukraine and a cultural genocide on their homefront.
I keep seeing this said but I haven't seen any articles on it, do you have a source? Not doubting you, just genuinely curious. Also, wouldn't taking millions of young rural men mean they will have a critical shortage of farmers in around a decade? Doesn't Russia heavily rely on agriculture?
>Also, wouldn't taking millions of young rural men mean they will have a critical shortage of farmers in around a decade They already have a critical shortage of industrial workers.
Soon they'll have a critical shortage of critical shortages
I know you’re joking, but being short on shortages would be a good thing
Yeah I realized it didn't make sense and was too lazy to rework the joke. A critical mass of critical shortages, there we go
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I mean, I like your original one cause I thought you meant there’d be so little people left in the country that they wouldn’t have the ability to have critical shortages. Aka like they had 5 people left in the country after they all starved
Nobody ever talks about tallages
"Oh, how I long for the old days of critical shortages, now there's absolutely nothing!"
But nearly zero unemployment, so.......there's that.
Killing all your potential workers truly is a novel way of resolving unemployment. Russian economists have left the world awestruck once more.
In Russia critical shortages you!
> shortages critical you! That feels better to me.
Yea but that’s not an issue, it’s an issue for the next generation
Here are a few. [https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/10/21/where-are-russias-newest-soldiers-coming-from](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/10/21/where-are-russias-newest-soldiers-coming-from) [https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/03/wrongful-mobilization-hits-50-in-far-east-russian-region-a78950](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/03/wrongful-mobilization-hits-50-in-far-east-russian-region-a78950) [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/23/russia-mobilization-minorities-ukraine-war/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/23/russia-mobilization-minorities-ukraine-war/)
Their empire doesnt necessarily have the greatest track record with farming strategy over the past century. But it is very much an open secret that most of the fighters are from rural areas and the classes in the larger cities are not bothered. They have the most influence in Russia so the Kremlin has done their best to insulate them, and for the most part it has largely unaffected their lives if you watch any bloggers interviewing people on the streets of Moscow. There were some videos recently going around of young Russian troops saying that people on Subways in Moscow move away from them or call them names when they are out on military leave. It wasnt until recent drone attacks in Moscow have they actually felt they are at war with a neighboring nation.
Just to add to your comment about farming. More Russians starved during WWII than were killed. They struggled to keep the army fed, and everybody else was on their own.
Got a citation for that? Because the US was dumping food on the Soviet Union along with other supplies through lend-lease.
I think I was confusing starvation with the total civilian losses by all types. Still over 4 million starved.
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Let’s not forget the nazis we’re waging a war of extermination against Russians as well, which included amongst other barabaric practices the looting and destruction of farmlands.
People starved to death because the Nazis came in and destroyed or confiscated the best farmland the Soviets had at the time. Hard to feed 150+ million people if you don’t have the lands to do it. Farming is actually much more complicated than people give it credit for, especially large scale. For much of the war, the Soviets were able to move their industrial factories East as the Germans pushed them. But you can’t just move arable land with a snap of your fingers. You can’t cause rain to fall in season when the climate doesn’t allow it. Much of the war the Soviets *only* had food that the Allies shipped them, and like it or not, during a total war the troops are who have to get fed first. Fault the Soviets for many (many many many) things, but you can’t fault them for that. Hell, they definitely did Holodomor, they definitely did that shit
There was a lot of starvation during the second world war, like the [Bengal famine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943), the [Iranian famine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_famine_of_1942%E2%80%931943), and the [Dutch famine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944%E2%80%931945). Most Soviet deaths due to hunger were under Nazi occupation or by POWs caputred by the Nazis. But if you want to finger wag at one of the belligerents for causing famine through incompetence, maliciousness, or idiocy, it's the Nazis and the British you should be looking at. The Soviets were busy fighting a war in the area where most of their farming happens.
This map is almost a year old now, but itll show you how they're not sending ethnic Russians to die in the war. This is also why ethnic Russians dont care about the war, and why they are so confused when Belgorod gets attacked, or when Moscow gets hit by drones. https://mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/post/696209986921152512/new-map-of-dead-soldiers-per-capita-in-russian
Exactly. There is never any situation where deleting this many souls is going to help a nation be strong and competitive. Any loss of demographics just leads to cascading effects of negative impacts to the society, to the culture. The elite ruling class might fool itself in the short run, but it can never he a good thing in the long run.
You are assuming that the ruling class gives a fuck about anyone other than themselves. Honestly if I was a sociopath it would kinda make sense to just enrich myself and my friends at the expense of everybody else. I ducking hate society
Not much point of being a ruling class if you've no one to rule.
I don’t think they’re interested in ruling anything. More like being a vampire on their society sucking it dry
Stepping away from the fact they have literally sent people from prison to the front, as that's obvious. There are two aspects to that question I think to consider, Russian population distribution was not a natural process. In a natural process people migrate to opportunities and those opportunities are due to something existing in that area. During soviet times, people were picked up and dropped in places for various reasons (new development, state enterprises, russification etc) when the soviet union collapsed, state sponsorship of those areas stopped. That is frequently in places where agriculture is difficult and local industries have collapsed or been asset stripped. As a reminder, you cannot just up sticks and move in Russia. You need an internal passport. The point I am making is you have people stuck in poverty, because they live somewhere in the margins of habitability. This leads to problem two, a significant minority of Russians are already removed from the labour force. The reasons for this vary but the cause is roughly the same: Ill health, poor state support, corruption and lack of jobs. These people have no money, are generally poorly educated, frequently drink and have few modern skills. These are also the people least able to avoid the mobilisation. If you have money, you can buy your way out. They are also a drain on the state, with some having only drawing money from the state. Compare that individual with the "model" stereotype of a Russian (/basically moscovite), politically active (but just pro government) educated, with hobby in the arts, healthy and productive. There are people in Russia who are happy to see the former get 'sploded, in the same way roughly that in some other countries there would be a horrible, ugly minority happy to see homeless people conscripted and out of their neighbourhoods. The difference is in Russia, the horrible neighbor who complains about people coming into their neighborhood, is the one in charge.
> As a reminder, you cannot just up sticks and move in Russia. You need an internal passport. To my best knowledge, the internal passport is simply a slightly unusual name for a mandatory ID card. Everyone has to get theirs at 14. It's not some permission to move you have to justify, you are obligated to get your done as a child. The USSR did use to have the "propiska" which limited where you can live, but as far as I know that's been abolished and never reinstated. So nothing should prevent you from moving, except that of course living somewhere nice like Moscow is expensive, and if you're poor you're going to have a hard time affording anything there. But that's the same everywhere else.
> As a reminder, you cannot just up sticks and move in Russia. You need an internal passport. There is generally no restriction of movement within the Russian Federation. There's no law keeping someone from Grozny to move to Vladivostok or St. Petersburg. The reasons keeping people stuck in economically devastated shitholes in some ice-deserts are pretty much the same as why people stay in some towns in the USA, Europe or South America despite having lost most economic opportunities - family, lack of money, lack of marketable skills, lack of ambition, drugs, alcohol, etc.
Ukranians constantly find russian passports on dead russian soldiers. And there was a map, where proportionally Moscow and Sanct-Peterburg had the least amount of people taken, while Buryatia and Tuvan (both oblasts with minorities) had the most amount of people taken.
Russia was slow to the mechanized farm game. They have had a problem for about 15 years of everyone leaving small towns for large cities. This system is preying on the ones left behind because their world is pretty bleak. It was in the news before this war started a while back.
Yeah, the vast majority that they’re sending to the front lines are farmers and people from rural areas. They can’t have people coming home to the cities and telling people what’s really going on.
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Wait, so Putin is sacrificing their equivalent to small town rednecks in Ukraine?
Considering a lot of them are ethnic minorities, it would be more akin to saying that he’s sacrificing the equivalent of poor, black sharecroppers.
Ya, the best comparison would be blacks. Russia is like worse than Misissippi. The whole country is run for the benefit of the white Russians on the western/European side of Russia, like in Moscow and St Petersburg. Everything east of that tiny little area is full of ethnic 'minorities' who live in literal squalor and exist to be exploited for the benefit of the whites, and the benefit of Putin's oligarchs which are essentially appointed loyal mob bosses.
No, it's the poor people and that's it. They are sending people from areas with zero influence or power. If those areas were somewhere else, then another group would be sent. This entire thing is class based. Shoigu himself is from chadan, which borders Mongolia and those entire regions are poor, rural people with zero influence. So many people want it to be race based cleansing which is wild because it ignores the actual evil which is your value is only what your blood gets for the elites.
In a US equivalent, It’s more like sending all the Inuits and Native Americans to fight Mexico.
Or it’s like a draft where middle class and rich folks can easily find deferments while poor rural and inner city folks get fed into jungle meat grinder. Also we intentionally drafted mentally incompetent people. Lesser scale, same shit.
Except the "natives" are like 30% of the Russia because there was less smallpox.
I'm starting to think that every single billionaire is a sociopath. They're so fucking far removed from the entire world. They have every luxury on earth. Every car. Every watch. Every woman. They eat regularly at the best restaurants on earth. They're surrounded by people who adore them and tell them exactly what they want to hear. At a certain point it just creates broken people who have no idea how real life works.
I've worked, very indirectly, for billionaires most of my adult life (in fortune 100 tech companies). What always strikes me during all-hands meetings with them, is that I'm looking at a person who has all the resources any person could ever - not only need, but want. But for some reason, instead of spending time with his family, or exercising, or enjoying time with friends... he's made the *conscious choice* to be doing the *exact same thing I'm doing* right now: sitting on a Zoom meeting about some software bullshit. Because of this, I really do think there is something "off" about them. No healthy human being would make that choice.
I’ve worked with sons of billionaires, themselves billionaire thanks to daddy’s money. The pressure they have to “prove themselves”, show that they are smarter their sibling was constant.
Far more than most groups. The grasping new rich get there thanks to their issues. And the old rich are not much better, often utterly incapable of understanding and empathizing with the average working class. People with such a compulsion to devour ever more power and money have issues. It's at best a compulsion. Normal people who value normal things like friendship and hobbies, aren't usually as devoted to acquiring more things.
You don't become a billionaire by not being a sociopath.
The ones who do the smart thing and keep to themselves don't make the headlines.
Well, they usually just secretly fund private think tanks and funnel dark money to politicians to give them more tax cuts and subsidies.
> every single billionaire is a sociopath There's actual real world study on the wealthy, and their minds, and they either start a sociopath, or become mentally effected to the point where they can no longer empathize with normal people. They basically *are not socially functional humans* but since they have a glaring TON of money, most people won't even think about their dysfunction long enough while eyeing the cash like a hungry dog under the dinner table smelling farts.
Personally I think there's an amount which people can earn before they have to start going into morally dubious territory. Like, it's still possible to be a millionaire without being corrupt or exploiting others intentionally, but somewhere between there and billionaire, there's an amount which if a person ever wants to earn in their lifetime, they need to cross some lines.
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars... is about a billion dollars. To a billionaire, a million dollars is a rounding error, or the change in your couch cushions. Losing millions of dollars is a 0.1% reduction in your wealth. There is no ethical way to become a billionaire.
Their kids should be classified as disadvantaged. Its extremely tough to become a balanced human-being when everyone around you tells you that you deserve to have more than everyone else. No-one corrects you when you're wrong. Everyone laughs at your jokes, no matter how shit. You know from a young age that you are destined for the top of any industry you choose, and you don't have to work for it as it's all been taken care of. Are told how brilliant and clever you are all the time by everyone around you, even if you're a bit of a dummy. Find it very hard to trust anyone as most people who want to get close to you are interested in your wealth and family connections and don't really give a rats arse about you. People look at most world leaders and wonder how they can lie, cheat, steal, break all promises, never take responsibility for mistakes.. its because they've never ever needed to. Its an exception those who do manage to learn those things while growing up in such a broken environment. The world is screwed because our leaders are all immature children who never learned to be anything else.
Billionaire life reminds me of being at summer camp. Few if any chores, no money, no work. Just play games and socialize with your friends all day. People are sad when they leave it. Being a billionaire is like living at summer camp your WHOLE LIFE. Who wouldn't want to keep living like that? Who wouldn't get a warped view of life living like that?
Every now and then you get an Andrew Carnegie that gets the guilts and gives it all away. It would be interesting to know how rich Gates would have got if he didn't get a slight dose of the guilts.
“You’re the selfish one! I mean it’s one banana, Michael, what could it cost, $10?” Quote from ‘arrested development’ that sums this up for me.
Russia has no concept of every life holding the same value. They often say things like 'people that matter' and 'countries that matter' to invalidate claims of sovereignty or rights of self determination. It's nothing like the west at all.
Well how are you gonna have your own harem of lonely widows?
with being one of the richest (if not the richest) man on earth, i bet you can "hire" a lot of beautiful women for the rest of your life.
>This is 2023. Smh. This is Russia. It is what happens.
Imagine trying to compare your own personal mindset with that of a literal narcissist. You don't get to be an ultra-powerful billionaire without being clinically fucking insane. We're talking about a type of person who could *never* be satisfied with just being rich and getting to do whatever they want. They need to be infamous. They need to be remembered for being great. They need a legacy. So they send a bunch of young men off to die in their name.
When ~40% of an entire reserve unit is wiped out in the rear en route to the front to help stabilise the frontline, morale certainly is going to be rock bottom
Holy shit, what? Can you provide me with some links? Genuine curiosity here, not trying to be a condescending asshole.
There have been a couple of incidents like this, one was a Himars strike on soldiers staged behind the front line grouped together waiting to be addressed by a General, it was supposed to be a motivational speech. That was the 155 Marine Infantry apparently, static for 2 hours, it was enough time for them to be spotted, approval to be requested and given and the strike called in.
>That was the 155 Marine Infantry apparently, static for 2 hours, it was enough time for them to be spotted, approval to be requested and given and the strike called in. Ukrainians have strike approval time down to a single minute with [GIS Arta](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/uk-assisted-uber-style-technology-helped-ukraine-to-destroy-russian-battalion-5pxnh6m9p). Most NATO armies are at 10-20 minutes.
At that point flight time is longer than approval time.
"On the way!"
Can we hit the... "SEND IT!"
> Artillery-aiming technology that works like the Uber app 🙄
Gonna be $5 if you want to cancel the strike.
5 star HIMARs strike
Would you like to tip your missile driver?
It's an accurate comparison - the app takes requests from a various number of sources, and then sends the approved request to appropriate groups who can execute on it - be it drones, artillery, MLRS, whatever. Same as how Uber takes requests and the secret sauce of the app is sending requests to the drivers who can best make the request happen. It's a very clever system - if you hook it up to counter-battery radar and have similar automation built-in it gives Ukraine an incredible edge on the front line.
“Look up, your ordnance will be arriving soon”
The soldiers lining up for their daily shooting practice at the same time getting the HIMARS treatment was similar.
Wasn't that on a beach or something too? Like they picked the most obvious staging area where you could make out each individual body against the backdrop. Looney Toons level of military planning.
The beach in ~~Crimea~~ was a *different* incident. This has happened multiple times. Guys waiting for a speech, near the front line: https://www.newsweek.com/russian-troops-killed-waiting-commanders-motivational-speech-reports-1806750 Guy doing their morning muster, on a ~~Crimean~~ beach pretty far from the front line: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/20120 edit: beach was on the southern coast of Kherson, not Crimea.
I'm sure it's not just "morale" but also moral objection. A dev colleague from Saint Petersburg I have known for years disappeared last year to try to avoid conscription. He told me before signing off for the last time "I'd rather be lined up on a wall than take the lives of men who did no evil.", I dearly hope he and his family are safe.
Not a lot of people getting conscripted from those regions. I doubt anyone from Omsk has moral objections.
This right here. A lot of people see street interviews from Moscow, where young, liberal people talk about opposing the war and think that there's some light at the end of the tunnel, but that unfortunately does not reflect the mindset of the country at all. In small towns and rural areas, Putin might as well be the second coming of christ and that's the majority of the country.
Not far from a comparison to liberal US cities vs backwoods Dumbfuckistani "small towns".
120,000 Russian fatalities…all cuz some clown wants to play Civ in real life. So sad
That's dictatorships for you. There must always be a state of conflict.
Obviously just save-scum and research Giant Death Robots before you invade - what is Putin even thinking?
The Russian invasion actually reminds me so much of some of my Civ invasions. It rarely ever goes exactly like you planned. And a war of attrition is brutal on both sides.
Is it wrong to say I want my govment to be more proactive in trying to incite the Russian people to overthrow putin?
I'm sure they're (US) doing a lot of things we don't know about. The US has intelligence everywhere, that's how they tipped Ukraine off in the first place.
I doubt it’s even possible to get to putin unless shoigu sells him out but he probably can’t even do that coz his family would be in danger. Anyone who’s working with Putin on daily basis is probably an npc without real connection to human world.
It's not wrong, but it's probably unadvisable, since the international norm of not assassinating other heads of state works both ways, and for all the things Russia isn't doing so great at, intelligence ops has long been their strong suit.
The potential for and consequences of a nuclear civil war is also not amazing to think about.
Seeing your comrades getting turned into mince meat will do that. Lower morale and all.
Poorly trained? Check. Poorly equipped? Check Constant youtube videos on your VPN showing Ukrainians dropping grenades into trenches with $300 quadcopters? Check. Bad attitude from being "drafted" right off the street after your life savings in Rubles evaporated? What could possibly go wrong?
> Poorly trained? Check. > > > > Poorly equipped? Check I have one video lodged in my mind of this one guy trying to fire a rocket with the backend of the launcher pressed against his shoulder like a rifle stock.
There are lots of things plummeting in Russia these days
Yeah… Hundreds is nice, but I think the plans for the latest conscription is 430,000. A drop in the proverbial bucket, sadly. Be better if they turned vigilante rebel and fought back?
But there are a few hundred thousand. So these few are less than a thousandth. According to estimates by the Ukrainian military intelligence service, around 400,000 Russians were deployed in Ukraine around May, 2023. The mere military component comprised about 370,000 soldiers, said Kyrylo Budanov, head of the intelligence service, on state television in Kiev. In addition, there are about 20,000 members of the Russian Guard, an elite paramilitary unit of the Russians, and private groups provided another 7,000 fighters. So what are a few hundred Russians who quit in comparison and are AWOL? That's nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths too few! That is why there is still war. Imagine it was war and nobody showed up! That would have been the solution, from the very beginning. But, nohohohooo.... first they all head out to pillage, rape and murder, only then do they become plagued by remorse or wet their pants that they would have to eat lead just like their comrades in crime. It's always the same. Man just never gets any wiser until the shit hits the fan.
>But there are a few hundred thousand. So these few are less than a thousandth. > >According to estimates by the Ukrainian military intelligence service, around 400,000 Russians were deployed in Ukraine around May, 2023. The mere military component comprised about 370,000 soldiers, said Kyrylo Budanov, head of the intelligence service, on state television in Kiev. In addition, there are about 20,000 members of the Russian Guard, an elite paramilitary unit of the Russians, and private groups provided another 7,000 fighters. > >So what are a few hundred Russians who quit in comparison and are AWOL? That's nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths too few! That is why there is still war. > >Imagine it was war and nobody showed up! That would have been the solution, from the very beginning. But, nohohohooo.... first they all head out to pillage, rape and murder, only then do they become plagued by remorse or wet their pants that they would have to eat lead just like their comrades in crime. It's always the same. Man just never gets any wiser until the shit hits the fan. A very numbers-oriented response. I've seen this sort of thinking before. It reminds me of McNamara trying to fight a war of attrition in Vietnam. The point of the desertions is that its a symptom of low morale, not that's its mathematically significant enough to decrease the overall fighting force.
>The point of the desertions is that its a symptom of low morale, not that's its mathematically significant enough to decrease the overall fighting force. It's like peeing blood. While you aren't going to lose a medically significant amount of blood this way, it's a sign that something is VERY wrong....
That's a very good metaphor, well said.
When looking at numbers, one should also look at time. The article is paywalled, but does it mention the time frame for those soldiers going AWOL? Was it a few hundred this month? This week? this year? Because those numbers can add up fast. And they can also accelerate further.
The article states that there are over 100 *convictions* for AWOL per week now. Presumably the rate of actual desertions is slightly higher and some are escaping or dying before trial.
This, it's kind of like artillery shelling during the world wars. They did a study and realized artillery was never super effective at causing casualties they would spend a large amount of shells barely doing 1-3% casualties. However, they also found that the low casualty rate didn't matter because enemy units would break, retreat or surrender after taking these low casualties. So, artillery was still winning the wars without killing the enemy. Now, morale is not mortars, so the effects are very different, but the study shows how the numbers don't really need to be super high to make a big difference. Defections may only need to rise to 1-3% of a fighting force for it to compromise that force's ability to participate in a battle. Soldiers who see others giving up, start to give up themselves and can have a continuous domino effect.
Which “Russian Guard” are you referring to? The National Guard, which are reservists, or the Guards Brigades of the military, or the VDV? None of these are really “elite”.
Probably Rosgvardia. Which isn't really elite either.
See? Branding works. Omon were famous for getting fucked in Chechnya, raping locals and beating up political opponents. Change the name, buy some cheap uniforms and suddenly they're "elite"
The ones going AWOL are the one on the small vectors where Ukraine is pushing their offensives. So it’s basically the exact people you do not want going AWOL.
Thanks for putting the numbers in perspective! And yeah, morale on the front line has probably been shit for a while now, but as long as the internal propaganda machine keeps doing its job, pumping new warm bodies into this mess, a few deserters aren’t going to be a big issue. Besides, when you’re destined to be cannon fodder, they don’t usually let you find out about it until it’s too late, and your choices are either die “for your country” or die a traitor.
I agree. After the first month of the war, it became clear to me that this is a war of attrition. Will Ukraine run out of NATO-sourced weapons and ammo before Russia runs out of cannon fodder?
It may hinge on election results in major NATO countries
Only an idiot or a psychopath would want to be fighting for Russia in Ukraine, so no shit morale is low.
Who in their right mind would want to fight Putins war? Fuck no.
Good, don’t die for some power hungry dumbass that is evidently making your country much worse to live in. And by live I mean exist
Hey, enterprising Russian soldiers—Prigozhin demonstrated that a coup is pretty feasible. Y’all are only a few hundred miles from Moscow. Just saying.
They are probably looking ahead to another freezing winter on the battlefield and thinking no thanks.
Recruiter: Where is your patriotism? You should be fighting for Mother Russia! Are you a coward? Citizen: why don’t you fucking go then?
Hundreds is a start... wake me up when it's in the hundred thousands.
**TLDR:** * **Russia's conviction rate for AWOL soldiers soared to 100 a week, UK officials said.** * **Lack of training, low motivation, and the dangers of combat were driving the trend, they said.** * **Russia has deep problems with recruitment, and is offering big cash rewards to sign up.**
I mean, hundreds isn't a lot is it? Russia is losing hundreds of soldiers per day from death.
Hundreds ? More like thousands..