Ukraine

[Silvanus]

According to Finnish border control, >6,400 people left Russia into Finland yesterday alone.

 

[EvilRoy]

According to Finnish border control, >6,400 people left Russia into Finland yesterday alone.

I'm most surprised by the fact that Putin didn't start by trying to control this. I'm sure soon he will, but it's a startling lack of foresight not to soft-lock the borders before announcing conscription.

I haven't spent much time in Russia but when I was there the general attitude towards the government was "they do them, we do us". The government has all sorts of rules and expectations, but as long as you don't openly protest most laws are viewed as optional and enforcement gets weaker and weaker the further you get from major cities. It's hardly surprising that a lot of people are just leaving given that attitude.

Some with actual military experience might stick around - anybody who stayed serving after their mandatory term was up probably actually does care about the government to some extent - but most average people are going to hightail it or have an accident with a hammer and their weak hand so they can't hold a rifle. Pig farmers on the Mongolian border do NOT give a fuck about what's happening in Moscow, and they know they're far enough away from the seat of power that they can sneak off before anyone comes knocking.

 

[meiam]

I'm most surprised by the fact that Putin didn't start by trying to control this. I'm sure soon he will, but it's a startling lack of foresight not to soft-lock the borders before announcing conscription.

I haven't spent much time in Russia but when I was there the general attitude towards the government was "they do them, we do us". The government has all sorts of rules and expectations, but as long as you don't openly protest most laws are viewed as optional and enforcement gets weaker and weaker the further you get from major cities. It's hardly surprising that a lot of people are just leaving given that attitude.

Some with actual military experience might stick around - anybody who stayed serving after their mandatory term was up probably actually does care about the government to some extent - but most average people are going to hightail it or have an accident with a hammer and their weak hand so they can't hold a rifle. Pig farmers on the Mongolian border do NOT give a fuck about what's happening in Moscow, and they know they're far enough away from the seat of power that they can sneak off before anyone comes knocking.

While there's a lot of people leaving, its just a drop in the bucket of the number of people eligible for the draft. Also the people leaving are richer and probably include quite a few family member of well connected people. Conscripting them might have made Putin draft unpopular among his inner circle. The army also doesn't have anywhere near enough supply to equip everyone who could be drafted (they barely can equip the current number they have) so they'll just draft a small portion of eligible people anyway.

We'll have to see if the move backfire, but I imagine most people have revolt fatigue and the draft will probably not affect enough people to make it truly unpopular. On the flip side I don't see it really changing much, a bunch of untrained, poorly equip, low moral people are not exactly the scariest threat. Maybe they'll litearlly just use them as meat shield for what remain of the real army, going for the zerg/skaven tactics.

 

[Silvanus]

While there's a lot of people leaving, its just a drop in the bucket of the number of people eligible for the draft. Also the people leaving are richer and probably include quite a few family member of well connected people. Conscripting them might have made Putin draft unpopular among his inner circle. The army also doesn't have anywhere near enough supply to equip everyone who could be drafted (they barely can equip the current number they have) so they'll just draft a small portion of eligible people anyway.

That's not strictly true-- the Russian army has an enormous supply of stored weaponry. But it's mostly many years out of date, stuff that's been in storage for a reason, or which requires entirely different ammunition/maintenance than what they're currently using.

But that's how I think this will go. They'll begin equipping conscripts with more and more outdated, unsupported equipment, and with less and less training. Its already a move of desperation the government never expected to make 200 days ago. They're gambling that sheer numbers will overwhelm opposition.

Because that's one thing the Western countries can't supply to Ukraine: personnel. So it's the one unambiguous advantage Russia has.

 

[Dalisclock]

Next they'll announce the death of someone who walked against a wall and hit it too hard with their head.

Not long ago there was a member of the Russian government who showed up on tv looking like he'd been beaten across the face. Very clearly at that.

 

[Hades]

We all know these fake referendums Russian is fond of are done under gunpoint but it seems Russia decided to take this phrasing in the most literal way possible. T

Ukraine 'referendums': Soldiers go door-to-door for votes in polls

Russia is holding the self-styled referendums in parts of Ukraine it wants to claim control over.

www.bbc.com

 

[EvilRoy]

While there's a lot of people leaving, its just a drop in the bucket of the number of people eligible for the draft. Also the people leaving are richer and probably include quite a few family member of well connected people. Conscripting them might have made Putin draft unpopular among his inner circle. The army also doesn't have anywhere near enough supply to equip everyone who could be drafted (they barely can equip the current number they have) so they'll just draft a small portion of eligible people anyway.

We'll have to see if the move backfire, but I imagine most people have revolt fatigue and the draft will probably not affect enough people to make it truly unpopular. On the flip side I don't see it really changing much, a bunch of untrained, poorly equip, low moral people are not exactly the scariest threat. Maybe they'll litearlly just use them as meat shield for what remain of the real army, going for the zerg/skaven tactics.

I agree with you when it comes to major population centers - 5000 pounds for a flight is insane and not a lot of people can afford that - but where I see the sticking point for the conscription is in the smaller towns where a lot of Russia's population is spread across their huge territory. Only 25% of the population is concentrated in the really big cities, which is still a lot of people at something like 35 million skimming wikipedia, but the rest are spread thin over a big area and more sparsely as you head east. It's those people that I can't imagine showing up for duty, and Russia has a really long border that they can't fully police. So many small towns in western Russia are close to sympathetic countries with porous borders and it won't take the entire savings account to pack the car and take off.

I view it similar to the US or Canada, just thinking about the population vs area. If there was a serious draft I can see a lot of Midwest Americans or prairie Canadians just moving house, and now what is the government gonna do? Search areas with a population density of 5 people per square kilometer to catch draft dodgers? You'd waste more resources tracking them down and grabbing them than you would gain in useful soldiers. Definitely Russia is a lot more densely populated than that in the west, but as you go east it looks like it gets pretty lonely.

 

[bluegate]

Russian troops raped and tortured children in Ukraine, U.N. panel says

The findings by the United Nations experts are the latest allegations of war crimes against Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.

www.nbcnews.com

This is the West's fault too, isn't it, Seannieboy?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Russian troops raped and tortured children in Ukraine, U.N. panel says

The findings by the United Nations experts are the latest allegations of war crimes against Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.

www.nbcnews.com

This is the West's fault too, isn't it, Seannieboy?

Well, it's okay, because those children were all Nazis. For serious. Totes.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

Swastika-wearing ex-pupil kills 15 in Russian school shooting

A gunman with a swastika on his teeshirt killed 15 people, including 11 children, and wounded 24 at a school in Russia on Monday before committing suicide, investigators said.

www.reuters.com

Shit got real.

There's a lot of theories going around on what exactly this attack was about.

But I don't want to theorize right now. My condolences to the families.

 

[Silvanus]

Since conscription began--

* At least 5 recruitment centres in Russia have been set on fire.

* The number of protesters detained has risen above 2,000.

* A gunman shot a recruiter at a draft office.

Meduza: At least 5 recruitment offices set on fire in Russia amid mobilization

Two military enlistment offices were set on fire in Khabarovsk and in Amur Oblast on the night of Sept. 22, Russian news outlet Meduza reported. Since Sept. 21, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced mobilization against Ukraine, Russians set fire to at least five recruitment offices in...

kyivindependent.com

Gunman detained after shooting at Russian draft office in Siberia

A gunman was detained after opening fire at a military draft office in Russia's Irkutsk region on Monday, the local governor said.

www.reuters.com

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Swastika-wearing ex-pupil kills 15 in Russian school shooting

A gunman with a swastika on his teeshirt killed 15 people, including 11 children, and wounded 24 at a school in Russia on Monday before committing suicide, investigators said.

www.reuters.com

Shit got real.

There's a lot of theories going around on what exactly this attack was about.

But I don't want to theorize right now. My condolences to the families.

Well, he wore a swastika. Random outbirsts of violence against innocent people in general, but preferably women and children, are just part of the neonazis natural behaviour. I doubt it's related to the war. Maybe he got jealous that he couldn't do it legally like many of his countrymen are doing right now in Ukraine.

Then again, there he might have come across people who fight back.

 

[bluegate]

Well, he wore a swastika. Random outbirsts of violence against innocent people in general, but preferably women and children, are just part of the neonazis natural behaviour. I doubt it's related to the war. Maybe he got jealous that he couldn't do it legally like many of his countrymen are doing right now in Ukraine.

Maybe he got a draft notice and snapped

* A gunman shot a recruiter at a draft office.

Gunman detained after shooting at Russian draft office in Siberia

A gunman was detained after opening fire at a military draft office in Russia's Irkutsk region on Monday, the local governor said.

www.reuters.com

Russian Hero.

 

[Elijin]

There is a very cynical voice in the back of my head that doesnt blink twice at the idea Russia would do false flag shootings to shift national anger away from the draft and back on the Nazis, who just happen to be the boogeymen they claim they're fighting in Ukraine.

 

[Hades]

Doesn't the Putin regime has a history of committing terrorist attacks on the Russian population to help prop up Putin as president?

 

[Terminal Blue]

So, lately I've been randomly finding stuff out about the authleft in the US, and while a lot of it is just fucking wild it's also kind of making sense of a lot of what's been happening with tankies in the UK over the past few decades.

Brace for cringe by the way.


So, a bit of background. I went to a very politically active university during the Iraq war, and through protesting the war I met and got to know a bunch of people who ended up in the tankie pipeline, and without censoring myself my experience of that space is that it's a cult. You have some very manipulative men (and it is always men) who tend to have a very questionable grasp of Marxist theory but know how to pepper their speech with enough Marxist-sounding terminology to pass, and who are using the idea of being a real leftist to elevate their own importance and create an audience of people who will hang on their every word.

What I have subsequently struggled to explain is why these people, some of whom used to be my friends, have ended up basically agreeing with the far-right on everything short of overt racism and throwing out homophobic, transphobic and anti-semitic dog whistles (although I will give them some credit and suggest that they don't actually know the things they are saying are dog whistles).

Now, I think I have an idea. It's because a significant number of their counterparts in the US are just Nazbols. They're far-right neoreactionaries using the language and symbolism associated with communism and the Soviet union to pretend to be something else. Replace "western civilization" with "traditional modernity", replace "international Jewry" with "international finance", replace the "stab in the back" with "stab in the back".

Oh God, of course Caleb Maupin has multiple sexual assault allegations brought forward by members of his own organization. That's what happens in cults, after all..

 

[CM156]

* A gunman shot a recruiter at a draft office.

I heard the recruiter survived. And I'm sure his family wanted to buy a car.

There is a very cynical voice in the back of my head that doesnt blink twice at the idea Russia would do false flag shootings to shift national anger away from the draft and back on the Nazis, who just happen to be the boogeymen they claim they're fighting in Ukraine.

They have done it before.

 

[McElroy]

According to Finnish border control, >6,400 people left Russia into Finland yesterday alone.

17k in total over the week-end... So long for restricting tourists when anyone can just say they are fleeing.

 

[Thaluikhain]

So, a bit of background. I went to a very politically active university during the Iraq war, and through protesting the war I met and got to know a bunch of people who ended up in the tankie pipeline, and without censoring myself my experience of that space is that it's a cult. You have some very manipulative men (and it is always men) who tend to have a very questionable grasp of Marxist theory but know how to pepper their speech with enough Marxist-sounding terminology to pass, and who are using the idea of being a real leftist to elevate their own importance and create an audience of people who will hang on their every word.

Is that so very different that people on the right bleating about freedom and democracy and the like while being opposed to it in practice?

 

[Piscian]

On a really bizarre personal note, my dad recently converted to a Russian loyalist. Keep in mind, I live in America. It's complicated.. I grew up hardcore socialist/communist. My dad raised me hard on politics like every book in our little library was all idealist, socialist communist books, Lenin, Chomsky, Marx, even comedy stuff like Al Franken "Operation Chickenhawk" and Michael Moore's stuff. One of the first movies I ever saw was Roger & me. I've watched all of TV nation more than once, Motherjones on every table in the house. My dad, a former Army captain of all things, has always despised the US government. I personally settled on Socialist Meritocracy, based on my experiences growing up with Star Trek.

Anyhoo, At some point a couple years ago my dad went full communist zombie, essentially anything the USA government supports is evil all its enemies are the good guys. I don't think he's gone pro-china, but we got into a big fight last year because he stated the N. Korean famine was all lies and propaganda and made me shut off a documentary on that worlds biggest Hotel N. Korea never finished, the Ryugyong. I just dropped it, but recently my friends alerted me to the fact that hes spamming facebook now with all these anti-ukraine memes essentially calling the Ukrainians evil, saying they're nazi's and what not. Fake pictures of soldiers abusing people. It is wild.

He's an ultra-pacifist I'm not worried about him like those QANON types, he won't even allow guns in his presence, but it's just bizarre to watch because he doesn't even watch fox news or anything, he's just gotten roped into one of those conspiracies like all the other grandpas and I feel bad for him.

Like no doubt, I'm not a fan of "giving" billions away to ukraine with horseshit excuses about used military gear, what with a third of Americans literally in poverty, and I'm sure Ukraine isn't perfect as a people or a government, but I get it. Its a never ending line of lesser evils. Thats kind of my worldview on everything and why I never get too fenced into my beliefs or conspiracies. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face or however that saying goes. You can literally look at the requirements for expatriating to Russia and think "err this place seems scary" and thats them trying to dress up the place. There's just too much indisputable evidence that this is all wrong, for me to even think Russia shouldn't be stopped, regardless of how I feel about America or politics.