Vladimir Putin has ordered the conscription of another 133,000 soldiers to aid his war in Ukraine.

The 18-to-30 year olds will be called up between tomorrow and December 31, but parents have raised fear that the untrained conscripts will be thrust straight into ‘hot’ border regions close to the war zone.

The figure is higher than the same draft last year when Putin recruited 130,000, and in spring when he drafted another 150,000.

The Russian regime is facing an increasing backlash over use of conscripts close to the war zone in defiance of an earlier Putin promise to parents that he would not put recruits in harm’s way.

  • Optional
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    91 hour ago

    I’m sure they’re not coming from Moscow. I wish they weren’t forced to be evil, to commit atrocities, to be maimed, emotionally scarred, to be lost to their parents. They haven’t even lived yet.

    Goddamn this corrupt mob in russia.

  • @rustyfish
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    283 hours ago

    Ah yes, Russian conscripts! Known for such classics as “immediately surrendering because they don’t want to die for nothing in some maniacs war”.

    • @Carmakazi
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      92 hours ago

      There was just a story about a group of surrendering Russian soldiers getting shelled by Russian artillery. It isn’t 100% clear that it was intentional, but its hard to not envision it as a throwback to the Soviet penal legions of old.

      I’m sure by now they have figured out (or rediscovered, more likely) tactics to minimize the risk of their conscripts folding, sadly.

      • @[email protected]
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        234 minutes ago

        It’s a confirmed fact they ordered troops in fallback lines to shoot any fleeing Russian troops trying to pull back on some of the fronts.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 hours ago

      And “that’s a nice washing machine, while looting it I should try to carry it in the open during an active firefight”

  • @Nuke_the_whales
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    62 hours ago

    This is also why he’s trying to force his population to fuck and make babies at all costs

  • @EisFrei
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    73 hours ago

    That’s barely enough to cover three months of losses. Insane.

    • @makyo
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      14 minutes ago

      I can’t remember what podcast I was listening to, maybe a Dan Carlin series, but it was talking about how in this post industrialization + propaganda era the breaking point for nations is far FAR more extreme than it was in the before times.

      • @[email protected]
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        595 hours ago

        Propaganda? It’s called oppression. It’s literally illegal for people to complain about this.

        • Optional
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          31 hour ago

          It can be two things. It’s a machine.

        • @[email protected]
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          354 hours ago

          I won’t disagree, but the controlled narrative the Kremlin pushes is still very much the definition of propaganda.

          • @ours
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            244 hours ago

            And you need the propaganda to have effective oppression.

            Putin has to have his official narrative in order to mandate that anything else is a lie.

    • rhys
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      93 hours ago

      I’m not sure there is one anymore.

      Dwarfed though it is by the heartbreaking tragedy being inflicted on Ukraine, it’s tragic too to see Putin’s militaristic propaganda embed itself so completely, even among the country’s youth.

      I doubt even a full mobilisation would cause sufficient unrest to end the war now, nor would an even higher rate of Russian casualties cause Putin to cease his tyrannical conquest.

      • @BMTea
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        120 minutes ago

        I don’t get why you guys view it this way. They, as Russians, are being utilized by the state and expended in a war of conquest that was initiated by an autocratic leader. The nation has paid a steep economic cost for it. That’s hard fact.

        But it’s also hard fact that their Russian nation is gaining territory. It is true that their country doesn’t control its strategic environment, their historic rivals in America and Western Europe. It is true that the last time they let these rivals lead them somewhere, it was to national decline and humilation.

        So yes, it is a tragedy, but the same one that characterizes the history of nations, and there is a rational element to the ideology that so many Russians now follow. The danger is the irrational element which turns this nationalist war into a racial or religious crusade, which are present but in my view not dominant.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 hours ago

        The last Russian revolution in 1917 was driven by military losses and lack of food. Putin has been avoiding Russian losses by using Indians, Cubans, and prisoners instead of the Russian population. Not sure how they’re doing on food.

  • @Buffalox
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    5 hours ago

    It’s insane how many Russians have volunteered to die for a few thousand dollars, for the past year. But allegedly it’s getting way harder to get volunteers for the Russian military.
    Ukraine entering Kursk was a wake up call, that showed Russians the propaganda was false.
    Normally such an invasion would energize a population against the enemy, to protect their own country, but it has had the opposite effect in Russia, probably because the population is realising aspects of the propaganda more.

    • partial_accumen
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      93 hours ago

      It’s insane how many Russians have volunteered to die for a few thousand dollars, for the past year.

      The driver is information asymmetry on the part of the volunteers. Yes, people are volunteering and dying for a few thousand dollars, but they don’t know that.

      They know they are volunteering for a few thousand. They don’t know that it is certain death.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 hours ago

        They’re also being lied to. They’re being told “oh, nothing to worry about, you’ll be doing logistics support in the rear” and then when they get off the bus they get handed a rifle and sent to the front.

      • @Buffalox
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        33 hours ago

        Yes that’s most likely true, and I think they are beginning to suspect something is off, in part because Ukraine invaded.

    • @[email protected]
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      154 hours ago

      It’s insane how many Russians have volunteered to die for a few thousand dollars, for the past year. But allegedly it’s getting way harder to get volunteers for the Russian military.

      This is mainly a byproduct of transitioning to a war time economy. Before the mobilization they had a fairly large labour glut, now that they’ve geared to war time production they’re having labor shortages.

      The detrimental aspect to this transition is that they’re going to have to rely on conscripts for their soldiers as they were already experiencing a really harsh population decline.

      The most dangerous part of this whole war won’t come for Russia until the war ends, regardless of victory or defeat. Their population decline coupled with the retooling of their domestic economy isn’t something that can be undone without major consequences. So they’re either going to have to continue the war footing to maintain their economy, or face an economic collapse similar in scope to the USSR.

      • @Buffalox
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        3 hours ago

        Their economy is collapsing already, it’s just not a quick collapse, but it’s definitely already happening. National bank increased interest rate from 16 to 19% in a month, and the Ruble is still declining.
        The economy is also declining, while at the same time overheating. (for instance worker shortage as you mention) The Russian economy cannot handle the strain of the war, and they can’t keep the economy up by being at war.

        • @[email protected]
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          73 hours ago

          The Russian economy cannot handle the strain of the war, and they can’t keep the economy up by being at war.

          Unfortunately, the collapse is very slow. Their national wealth fund is currently their bread basket, and that is maintained by their energy exports. With the price of oil being so high, they should be able to sustain their current economy for a couple years at least. There will be shortages, especially in areas where they were reliant on imports.

          However, from what I’ve read, oil would have to drop to around $60 a barrel to spur an economic collapse swift and bad enough to make the war unsustainable. That or the EU and US would actually have to militaristically enforce the energy embargo.

          • @Shard
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            52 hours ago

            That’s how these types of collapses work though.

            Everything just barely holds together and then the literally straw that breaks the camel’s back hits and then it all goes to shit in an instant.

            They’re keeping it together but at what cost? We can clearly see the social and demographic cost that will hit in a decade, we can see the economic costs hitting but how long till that manifests into something they can’t policy their way out of is a big question.

    • @twistypencil
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      85 hours ago

      Which propaganda did it show as false? The only one I know about is the lie that Ukraine is full of nazis

      • @[email protected]
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        314 hours ago

        Not OP, but I guess that the one about Russian superiority and untouchability. Not only Russia is not achieving the objectives in Ukraine, it got counterattacked on their own soil.

      • @Buffalox
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        194 hours ago

        The propaganda about Russian military might, and that they had already won the war.
        Yes if you weren’t aware, Putin is claiming that Russia already won the war. That’s how insane the propaganda is!

        Also propaganda that no country would ever dare invade Russia because Russia has the strongest military in the world, and they have nukes.

        But there are also many Russian civilians that stayed in the region now occupied by Ukraine, and they are in contact with friends and families in Russia, and is now telling how Ukraine is treating them well, and is now supplying food and medicine, and are not at all the Nazis they’ve been told.

        So it’s a pretty big collapse of several aspects of the Russian propaganda.

  • nitrolife
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    3 hours ago

    News about how soldiers are called up for military service every year. I remind you that in the Russian Federation, every man, unless he is disabled, is obliged to undergo military training. literally every man has a military ID and a postscript to the military enlistment office. Well, like all 30 years before, people were called up at the autumn draft this year…

    • @KillerTofu
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      22 hours ago

      The Butcher is a sadistic creature who delights in the torment and pain of others!

  • @IphtashuFitz
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    23 hours ago

    How soon until we see something like the end of the movie Starship Troopers, where the latest batch of recruits appears to be about 13 years old?

    • @[email protected]
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      22 hours ago

      Probably never. They’re trying to avoid conscripting the Russian population of any age, so they’re a long way from taking very young or very old people at large.

    • nitrolife
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      13 hours ago

      Never? Well, or in 10 years. Military conscription has been held in Russia annually for 30 years. And every year there are not much fewer people.

    • @Buffalox
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      3 hours ago

      Install Firefox, and use dark reader plugin if it’s too white.
      Install Firefox, and use µblock origin if it’s advertisements.

      If it’s the layout, get a life.