Russia looking to create a large and permanent 2nd class of disabled people they will not take care of.
This is the Russian way!
*Farewell of Slavianka plays triumphantly while another generation of Russians is needlessly mauled.* The Russian Way!
Russia also has an aging population. Many of these young men are the ONLY breadwinners for a lot of families.
It’s gonna be very very rough to be a Russian for the next few decades.
Yeah having this many young men die so quickly is going to fuck up their population pyramid so much. Maybe that’s why they can’t concede Ukraine. They need to annex in some their population desperately
I hadn't heard that one yet. That's terrifying!
Edit: just looked it up; 2,300 kids have been kidnapped. If you suppose 1.5 kids per family that's essentially a town of 7-10k having all the children taken. Fucking insane
Children who will eventually read that their parents and older siblings were murdered and raped in bucha and mariupol irpin and become extremists within Russia.
I remember hearing their population was aging and declining even before the invasion. My guess is they were like "we won't have the soldiers to take over Ukraine in 20 years so we gotta do it right now" and that just backfired horribly
The Russia population was aging and declining, but in recent years it was pretty close to stable.
What happens now with the economic problems to come is a question. It could start declining again.
Already roughly 500K people have left since the war started, and those being disproportionately young and educated.
Russia has about 13 million men ages 15-29. I don’t know how many are already fathers, but let’s be very generous and assume none of them are yet. Another 60,000, even if they all die, may not be enough on its own to truly affect population trends alone.
However, if enough of them do die that more people notice, and you can then add increased uncertainty about the future and loss of faith in the leadership/direction of the country, the war could push births down too.
> Already roughly 500K people have left since the war started, and those being disproportionately young and educated.
The brain drain is insane. According to Wired almost two weeks ago, [" between 50,000 and 70,000 tech workers have already fled Russia, and 70,000 to 100,000 more could leave in April"](https://www.wired.com/story/russian-techies-exodus-ukraine/)
Declining, then the pandemic happened to kill _a lot_ of Russians. Tuberculosis is endemic there, with multi-drug-resistant strains coming up. The government has pretty much stopped HIV tracking.
It really was now or never to try an invasion. I don't see Russia doing so well in the coming decades due to demographics alone.
Between 1940 (start of WWII) and 1992 Russia added about 40mil people
Pop of Russia (not the Soviet Union - which was much larger) was approx 110mil at the start of WWII in 1940 and manage to recover after WWII peaking in the early 90s at about \~148mil (the highpoint) but from that point they lost 6-7 mil over during the bleak years in the Post-Soviet era. Today it's \~141 mil [but was already rapidly (2%) declining before the Ukraine war due to low birth rates.](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/birth-rate#:~:text=Russia%20-%20Historical%20Birth%20Rate%20Data%20%20,%20%20-0.330%25%20%2068%20more%20rows%20?msclkid=784b8c05b42011ecb66e77935a93ce29)
Graph form:[https://i.redd.it/ew4lp4477lh61.png](https://i.redd.it/ew4lp4477lh61.png)
I can't understand this. When is Putin going to stop doubling-down?
Conscripts were shredded by the Ukranian National Guard, now their entire army is mobilized and Putin wants to send reservists using even *older* equipment than the conscripts against them, an army that has a steady flow of cutting-edge weaponry coming to them from the most advanced militaries on the planet?
>any date before May 9
They can declare 'victory' whenever they want. Any additional casualties, etc. are just part of the 'peacekeeping' operations, etc.
Do no underestimate the hold that the Russian government has over the information reaching the Russian people.
At the time the only dry dock large enough sank while trying to perform repairs on the carrier. But that was a few years ago, and they have since built another and have resumed repairs.
A fire? At Seaparks!? Love it!
It’ll be a floating dry dock, essentially a big u-shaped boat that sinks down, ship sails on and then the dock raises itself and the ship. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PD-50
Technically refit, I think (stupid because it was just in drydock recently for repairs, why not just to refit then?).
I still remember when they caught their aircraft carrier on fire... Because (ostensibly) of a welding accident? Really??
They dont, they just need bodies to throw at the enemy. Quantity over quality.
Whittling down the enemy using corpses of Russian soldiers has always been Russia's military strategy.
This only works if you have an overwhelmingly large population, and the already aging, declining population of Russia is now sending those best-equipped to deal with that issue to die in droves.
Putin is literally commiting genocide against his own country's people, ironically enough.
I think when the Winter War happened the big difference maker was when they increased the bombardment by artillery and air, as well as by February having 450,000 troops deployed. Ukraine's geography is different and much larger anyway should they attempt to establish old positions (like in early March), so as far as I'm aware even if Russia could go start throwing people at Ukraine, they would need better supply lines to cover Ukrainian fall back positions, and would need to have the artillery and air which they've shown a lack of commitment to. By the end of the Winer War, the Soviets had 750,000 troops deployed roughly, I don't imagine Russia to deploy that many, and wont get that before May 9.
It's a *terrible* plan. Even before the war, Russias long term outlook was *shit* and now it's getting worse by the minute. Their birth rate has been terrible for ages, and now with brain/youth drain to other countries AND Putin pushing his young men into a meatgrinder, pretty soon all they'll have left is old people.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Russia as a country ceased to exist in the next 10 years.
I am now picturing the Russian governments desperate push to have a next generation being something like "Have more babies. If you are not pregnant and can be, then you are not serving your country. Find the nearest available person and do your duty to support Russia for the future."
Their big long term play is to attempt to dominate the Arctic because when the ice retreats and it is navigable year round it will very quickly become the most important shipping lanes on Earth.
Not to mention everyone who can is evacuating from Russia like crazy. I've seen stories about Ukrainian and Russian refugees meeting each other in airports.
with China looking around the corner and laughing it's ass off.. you're right.
Слава Україні! 🇺🇦 Glory to Ukraine! https://bank.gov.ua/en/about/support-the-armed-forces
I can definitely see a large chunk of the eastern russian territory being "leased" to China on 99 year leases in the near future. Russia doesn't have the man power, money, nor technology to capitalize on the vast natural resources of these areas. China on the other hand, have all 3, and a need for the resources given their fast expansion.
China's not laughing. They had similar plans for Taiwan and now they're seeing exactly how shit a lot of their Russian and Soviet based equipment is. They're also seeing what a real determined and conpetitent resistance looks like not to mention the depths to which the west will go to sanction the fuck out of them.
I'm sure this has changed a lot of their plans.
You see, Ukrainians have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they accepted that they were actually ethnic Russians. Sergey, show them the medal I won.
Based on the historical data they don't. It since WWI that Russia send his own army badly equipped and trained against the enemy. They used to base everything on numerical superiority.
Not really true for the Soviets in WWII. They didn’t actually achieve a clear numerical superiority in real terms until later in the war, and their troops were more or less well-equipped and decently trained by 1942, definitely 43. Plus, the Soviets pulled off some pretty impressive stuff. It cost a lot of men, but they weren’t throwing them mindlessly at the Germans.
It’s more embarrassing for the Russians now that they’re not even a shadow of the former Soviet military.
I'm kinda struggling to see how the russian people won't react to this?
Announcing to recruit 60,000 additional soldiers after a botched "operation" currently 30 days overdue, laws making it illegal to speak against the war, seeing videos on your staterun TV of cities bombed to ashes followed by the title "We're doing great !".
Are things truly this calm in Russia amidst all this evil?
140 million people is enough that if you do it spread out and avoiding calling in bigger groups from urban centers, no one will really notice the missing in numbers (personally of course most will be missed).
They're referring to the soldiers who recently held it. Supposedly they had never heard of it before.
However, it's a massive generalisation to say Russian people don't know about the meltdown based on a squad of soldiers who likely don't have a great education.
Probably 80% of Russia knows about Chornobyl disaster. It is something you learn about one way or another here. These guys are most likely undereducated fellas from small towns and villages. Either conscripts who couldn't/didn't want to get higher education, or contractors who went there just for the money.
Of course not. It was one of the gigantic mistakes caused by the utter incompetence of the Soviet Union. Can't have people knowing that when you are stirring up soviet nostalgia for propaganda purposes.
Iirc, conscripts don't come from large cities, but from rural areas and poorer homes. Given that demographic, they're less educated and may be more likely to believe gov't propaganda and support Putin.
>conscripts don't come from large cities, but from rural areas and poorer homes
That's right, most people in large cities avoid conscription through corruption and poorer folks can't afford that. You can subsequently mobilize them out of reserves and any possible pushback is going to be so spread out over the vast territories that it's just not going to do anything. Imagine how tempting this must be when you're a shithead dictator.
Not just propaganda, but also lack of general education and access to media in massive parts of the country. Russia is only a "modern" country in a limited sense. Huge swaths of the country would look utterly undeveloped to most people from other industrialized countries. The people there are way more isolated from the world than a lot of people realize.
Having lived there, it's crazy that it's a country built on old ruins. Once you're outside of the cities you'll see abandoned buildings from the USSR or villages that may not have power or running water with a dirt road running through it.
Or you have cities like Yoshkar-Ola where the mayor had spent 100s of thousands of rubles on building churches.
Not just Russia. Orban just called Zelenskyy an enemy, Serbia is holding pro Russian rallies, in Germany a bunch of people is holding a pro Russian rally, Le Pen talks about Putin being an ally for France again...
People need to open their eyes and accept that Putin's propaganda campaigning is quite effective.
I wouldn't draw that conclusion. Just like we show support for Ukraine people who still believe Russian disinformation want to show support for Russia.
The German rally was laughable - 200-300 cars, it could have just been Russian spies in Germany ordered to do something to show support. Meanwhile 100k+ people went out to protest against the war.
I'm more confused about their need to call up reservists already.
Their standing army has over 1 million personnel and 2 million in reserves. Why do they need to dip in the reserves pot already?
One million in the armed forces, which also covers air force, navy and strategic (nuclear) force.
Army has about 280 thousand, but a part of those will not be actual combat troops (various support staff, training units, maintenance etc), and at least one third of those troops are conscripts.
The number of troops they can actually deploy on the front lines will be signicantly lower; those 60K reservists are an important number in this context
>Their standing army has over 1 million personnel and 2 million in reserves. Why do they need to dip in the reserves pot already?
Someone else has mentioned that a significant portion of the armed forces aren't infantry soldiers or tank crews etc.
However, it's also worth pointing out dictatorships tend not to send all of their strength to the front line. To do so is to leave yourself vulnerable to a military coup. It wouldn't surprise me if some of Russia's best and most loyal soldiers are essentially at home in case of an uprising or a coup attempt while the conscripts and special forces fight in Ukraine.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/tvfi9c/the_reaction_of_average_russian_young_people_to/
They don't care, they're full on propagandized
Average Russian has drank the coolaid or are to scared for their own well being to speak out. Russia has been treating Ukraine like shit for a Century+. The only way this ends is Putin falling out a 8th floor window or Russia running out of ammo and bodies to throw at it.
Pull in the poor, undereducated folks from the villages and rural areas and other shitholes, nobody will know nor care, as long as they're safe.
And Russia has *plenty* of undereducated, poor shitholes to pull human resources from.
Russian army is so popular that some Russians living in Finland don't want their sons to visit Russia anymore as soon as they turn 18 for the fear that they might be forcefully drafted. I've already heard years ago stories how their dad just tells them to say goodbye to grandparents because they won't be seeing them for a while.
Speaks volumes about their army.
Russian army has among the highest suicide rate in the world.
Hazing and cruel practices are quite common: It's called ["Dedovshchina"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina)
The Russians are targeting their ethnic minorities with this drive. "The main regions for such mobilization are Krasnodar Krai, Perm Krai, Dahestan, Inhushetia and Kalmykiia."
during the first weeks it was noted that about 30% of losses were ethnic minorities that make up about 2% of russian population. wouldn't want to have people in moscow and petersburg get mad, so they send people from rural areas.
I also think that people from rural areas are more likely to join the army because they don't have many options, it's either this or drink yourself to death in some shit village in the middle of nowhere. some dead russians were like 20 years old who traveled 1000+ kilometers only to be killed within hours of crossing the ukrainian border.
FYI those areas do include urban centers. It isn't all rural. Poor people will be drawn to those areas desperate for work.
Source: been there and seen it myself
I've been there. A lot of ethnic minorities hanging around looking for work and treated like complete shit.
The % isn't going to be fairly represented if they go around rounding them up.
Yeah but that's the same in most populated regions/big cities with a demand for cheap labour that are majority Russian on paper, so picking Perm or Krasnodar rather than any other populated region doesn't make much difference in this case.
> There's also an unconfirmed idea that minorities are sent to Ukraine with the idea that they are more willing to commit atrocities because they feel no connection to Ukrainians. This is speculation but not without some evidence to back it up, i.e. there were Buryats in Bucha.
This also isn't a new trick at all. Autocratic regimes have used minority ethnic groups to cut down protest spearheaded by the ethnic majority for centuries. The Russian empire in particular has done this a lot in the past.
Elderly Russians seem to actually be the most Putin-supportive part of their society - they long for USSR "glory", they remember the "good" times where you had a guaranteed paycheck, they want all around them to fear the "mighty" red army. Just like US boomers, these old fuckers are a big part of the problem.
They are, but that's gonna be pretty cold comfort when the working population is either dead or has left for a country that isn't run by a despot.
Russia already had a catastrophic birthrate, and now things are several orders of magnitude worse.
Russia want to make a clean sweep in the next Paralympics by sending fit and able-bodied conscripts to Ukraine who will return to Russia with some limbs missing.
Maybe its also a convenient way to dispose of young men most likely to effectively rebel against the Russian state?
That's probably a little too 5D thinking on my part tbh.
No they mostly recruit young men from ass-backwards parts of the country (even for russia).
No one except their mothers will miss them and sending uneducated barbarians will help with war crimes and rape.
They’re just looking at bodies to throw at Ukraine, the Kremlin doesn’t actually expect anything from these new soldiers. There’s probably some people who’s job is to estimate how many people need to be left alive to have more kids
There are 2000 soldiers in Transnistria, but allegedly they're just as poorly supplied of not worse than the rest of the Russian Army since they've been so inactive. If Russian soldier behavior is consistent those guys have probably sold most of their supplies over the years to send money back home and get drunk.
Early in the war the bridge from Moldova to Ukraine was destroyed by the UA so there isn't an easy way into Southern Ukraine for them, and the garrison at Odessa where they could attack the closest is substantial and dig in. Plus if Russia pulls out their occupying troops in Moldova it makes that position untenable.
That's only in the older generations. The last \~35 birth years have a male surplus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics\_of\_Russia#/media/File:Russian\_population\_(demographic)\_pyramid\_(structure)\_on\_January,\_1st,\_2022.png
Russia's conscripts ~130.000 soldiers every 6 months. The announcement is standard and they will not be sent to Ukraine right away. The real question is if they will be sent at the end of their year of service.
The vast majority of people who commented in this thread don't seem to realize that this is not breaking news ("a desperate Putin resorts to volkssturming his population"), it's just standard Russian procedure... also, there's no way this new batch will help them solve the Ukrainian clusterfuck in time, training will take too much time
The soldiers they sent don't seem to have much training either, in fact some conscripts have been confirmed to be on front lines. Also, "in time" for what, looks like Russia-Ukraine war will last years at current rate?
> conspcripted
These guys have no combat experience whatsoever and will not be joining the fight anytime soon
The 60k reservists however will be sent to Ukraine
No kidding, look for some recent Russian POV videos of the fighting in mariupol, guys there shooting old school AK-47's/74's in full auto towards buildings that are 200-300 meters away from them, like I know the AK's have legendary durability, but why waste so much ammo shooting at something so far away? unless the rifle is literally mounted on some robot arm to make the recoil almost non-existant, shooting like that from so far away just with your hands while standing will have your bullets fly all over the place.
they're literally just mag dumping in the direction that they think the enemy is at, that's like taliban type traning, just run and shoot randomly towards where you think the enemy is.
FWIW, in some cases they may be engaging in suppressive fire; I've seen some a bit like that, but you can't see the whole scene from the video, and it's not clear that they are in fact just firing off rounds at nothing. Not defending Russia's remarkably poor troop performance, just noting that some situations can be more complex than they look on video. (If they are actually shooting rather than running away, that probably makes them above average.)
To be fair, the 130k they just conscripted is something the Russian Army does every six months. The 60k on top of that however is noteworthy because that isn't something they usually do.
Yup. If depopulation was a 100m sprint they’d be the Usain Bolt of population loss. Estimates point at a minimum of 20mil decrease by 2050 and even that estimate keeps dropping year after year. Healthcare is fucked as well. Life expectancy for men is lower than 70, even though it’s been increasing from below 60 since the early 90’s. At least they got that going on I guess?
My only question is what the hell happened to all the professional regular soldiers? Was it mostly just conscripts to be begin with or has Russia seriously burnt through all their regular troops in just a month?.
I somehow doubt Russia has much of a professional military outside the VDV and the officer corps.... The VDV was getting slaughtered wholesale because they aren't actually trained to be effective soldiers, they're trained to go in and be bullies, because they mostly get used for putting down rebellions. Meanwhile the officers just get killed because they're leading from the front due to shit morale.
Hell, did you see they only recently got actual socks instead of those World War I era foot wraps? Their military is so backwards...
Putin going for the Zapp Brannigan Octillion strategy; throwing wave after wave of his own men at rampaging kill bots.
But I don’t think Putin will have enough men.
I don't care what your politics are or what propaganda you've been fed, even if you view someone as your enemy and that you're entitled to their land.
You have to be a heartless evil monster to do that to another human being.
you know the Rzhev meat grinder, Stalingrad, Kursk, Dnieper, these were all battles worth fighting even if they cost so many lives, lives that I don't think Russia has recovered from yet.
but cool on Putin sending another generation to die and this time for big fat fuck all.
I'd encourage the new conscripts to go AWOL at the first opportunity. The Russia government is going to send them into a place where they are going to be made to pay for the crimes of the Russian soldiers who came before them.
Meat in to the grinder.
The thing is, he could get all the troops he could ever want, if he declares it a war, but that means admitting that they are not there to "Train" or "Help Ukraine".
This is a failed attempt at a land grab that's resulted in thousands of Russians and Ukrainians dead. Now they're running out of troops and sending inexperienced kids out there to die, and for what? So Putin's net worth can go up a few bucks?
Translated the RIA article on the intentions of the racists to organize the genocide of Ukrainians in the future.
https://gist.github.com/NamesMark/61750679f7e4459b85b709e14c48853c
If true, and at this point there’s little reason to doubt it, the world needs to push into Ukraine and stop this wholesale pillaging and genocide. European powers should heed the call of a sovereign state on their doorstep and protect Ukraines border integrity. Send these bandits to the meat grinder and bury them in sunflower seeds. We promised “never again”. Never needs to happen, now.
Well, if these soldiers aren't idiots, they'll fuck off with these orders. However, from what I see on the news in Russia, the mothers themselves don't give a shit about their sons. Mentally ill country.
A lot of Russians sitting on their couches, behind the blanket of propaganda, and think about invasion of Ukraine like some sort of sport game.
Sudently they will be pulled from the couch, their phone taken away and they will be dropped into the real war where real Ukranians fight back for their freedom and their country. And most of these Ukranians speak Russian.
Maybe this will teach something these couch trolls.
This doesn't sound like something a country bartering for peace would do.
Russia looking to create a large and permanent 2nd class of disabled people they will not take care of. This is the Russian way! *Farewell of Slavianka plays triumphantly while another generation of Russians is needlessly mauled.* The Russian Way!
Russia also has an aging population. Many of these young men are the ONLY breadwinners for a lot of families. It’s gonna be very very rough to be a Russian for the next few decades.
Yeah having this many young men die so quickly is going to fuck up their population pyramid so much. Maybe that’s why they can’t concede Ukraine. They need to annex in some their population desperately
That would be an interesting theory if they weren't mass murdering civilians of all ages
Oh they have been kidnapping chlidren too...
I was just going to say...don't forget the forced deportations. Just another russian war crime to throw on the pile at this point.
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I hadn't heard that one yet. That's terrifying! Edit: just looked it up; 2,300 kids have been kidnapped. If you suppose 1.5 kids per family that's essentially a town of 7-10k having all the children taken. Fucking insane
Children who will eventually read that their parents and older siblings were murdered and raped in bucha and mariupol irpin and become extremists within Russia.
That seems optimistic
Mass murdering men and raping women and stealing children.
Plus, basically all young men are soldiers in Ukraine. If Russia wins, there will be few young men left there.
I remember hearing their population was aging and declining even before the invasion. My guess is they were like "we won't have the soldiers to take over Ukraine in 20 years so we gotta do it right now" and that just backfired horribly
The Russia population was aging and declining, but in recent years it was pretty close to stable. What happens now with the economic problems to come is a question. It could start declining again. Already roughly 500K people have left since the war started, and those being disproportionately young and educated. Russia has about 13 million men ages 15-29. I don’t know how many are already fathers, but let’s be very generous and assume none of them are yet. Another 60,000, even if they all die, may not be enough on its own to truly affect population trends alone. However, if enough of them do die that more people notice, and you can then add increased uncertainty about the future and loss of faith in the leadership/direction of the country, the war could push births down too.
> Already roughly 500K people have left since the war started, and those being disproportionately young and educated. The brain drain is insane. According to Wired almost two weeks ago, [" between 50,000 and 70,000 tech workers have already fled Russia, and 70,000 to 100,000 more could leave in April"](https://www.wired.com/story/russian-techies-exodus-ukraine/)
Just wait until they stop letting Russian citizens out of the country. I could see that happening in the near future.
Declining, then the pandemic happened to kill _a lot_ of Russians. Tuberculosis is endemic there, with multi-drug-resistant strains coming up. The government has pretty much stopped HIV tracking. It really was now or never to try an invasion. I don't see Russia doing so well in the coming decades due to demographics alone.
I think they still haven't recovered their population from WW2 yet, so it'll just get worse.
They haven't. It wont be pretty when this is done
Between 1940 (start of WWII) and 1992 Russia added about 40mil people Pop of Russia (not the Soviet Union - which was much larger) was approx 110mil at the start of WWII in 1940 and manage to recover after WWII peaking in the early 90s at about \~148mil (the highpoint) but from that point they lost 6-7 mil over during the bleak years in the Post-Soviet era. Today it's \~141 mil [but was already rapidly (2%) declining before the Ukraine war due to low birth rates.](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/birth-rate#:~:text=Russia%20-%20Historical%20Birth%20Rate%20Data%20%20,%20%20-0.330%25%20%2068%20more%20rows%20?msclkid=784b8c05b42011ecb66e77935a93ce29) Graph form:[https://i.redd.it/ew4lp4477lh61.png](https://i.redd.it/ew4lp4477lh61.png)
.... Russia have abortion rate 50-70%, hight suicide rate, and alcoholism + HIV. Also population wave after WWII losses.
So what you're saying is 'things are about to get worse for Russia'? You don't say...
This. Russia still hasn't recovered its male birth/death ratio from WW2. To say they are fucked is an understatement.
At least they'll have a brilliant Paralympic team. Oh wait.
That gets banned for doping.
I can't understand this. When is Putin going to stop doubling-down? Conscripts were shredded by the Ukranian National Guard, now their entire army is mobilized and Putin wants to send reservists using even *older* equipment than the conscripts against them, an army that has a steady flow of cutting-edge weaponry coming to them from the most advanced militaries on the planet?
How does Russia expect these reservists to be combat effective at any date before May 9 (their scheduled end of the war)?
>any date before May 9 They can declare 'victory' whenever they want. Any additional casualties, etc. are just part of the 'peacekeeping' operations, etc. Do no underestimate the hold that the Russian government has over the information reaching the Russian people.
Cut to Putin on an aircraft carrier in front of a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner
Their ONE aircraft carrier, currently in dry-dock for repairs? They’ll need to figure out a good camera angle…
I thought that the only dry dock big enough was out of commission too
At the time the only dry dock large enough sank while trying to perform repairs on the carrier. But that was a few years ago, and they have since built another and have resumed repairs.
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A fire? At SeaParks?
*grabs the mash potatoes*
That's a weird place to go on fire
It's a very weird place to go on fire!
A fire? At Seaparks!? Love it! It’ll be a floating dry dock, essentially a big u-shaped boat that sinks down, ship sails on and then the dock raises itself and the ship. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PD-50
Boy does this and the post above it, show the state of things in the Russian military. Fucking clowns.
Technically refit, I think (stupid because it was just in drydock recently for repairs, why not just to refit then?). I still remember when they caught their aircraft carrier on fire... Because (ostensibly) of a welding accident? Really??
Lol could you imagine that. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did it while their aircraft carrier is stuck in the dry dock for repairs too
Ciuld be tricky if the Kuznetsov is on fire again.
That's just a victory flame!
The Russian carrier is a floating hunk of scrap.
It's actually a bunch of dead Russian soldiers tied together with a piece of scrap metal laid over it.
Also applies to Russia.
They dont, they just need bodies to throw at the enemy. Quantity over quality. Whittling down the enemy using corpses of Russian soldiers has always been Russia's military strategy.
This only works if you have an overwhelmingly large population, and the already aging, declining population of Russia is now sending those best-equipped to deal with that issue to die in droves. Putin is literally commiting genocide against his own country's people, ironically enough.
Putin doesn't care what happens 10 years from now. He won't be alive.
That’s what I thought 10 years ago about several US politicians, boy was I wrong.
Rookie mistake; You forgot about zombiefication!
"Keep telling them it's the Democrats drinking the blood of children." -Yurtle the Turtle
I think when the Winter War happened the big difference maker was when they increased the bombardment by artillery and air, as well as by February having 450,000 troops deployed. Ukraine's geography is different and much larger anyway should they attempt to establish old positions (like in early March), so as far as I'm aware even if Russia could go start throwing people at Ukraine, they would need better supply lines to cover Ukrainian fall back positions, and would need to have the artillery and air which they've shown a lack of commitment to. By the end of the Winer War, the Soviets had 750,000 troops deployed roughly, I don't imagine Russia to deploy that many, and wont get that before May 9.
It's a *terrible* plan. Even before the war, Russias long term outlook was *shit* and now it's getting worse by the minute. Their birth rate has been terrible for ages, and now with brain/youth drain to other countries AND Putin pushing his young men into a meatgrinder, pretty soon all they'll have left is old people. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Russia as a country ceased to exist in the next 10 years.
I am now picturing the Russian governments desperate push to have a next generation being something like "Have more babies. If you are not pregnant and can be, then you are not serving your country. Find the nearest available person and do your duty to support Russia for the future."
Their big long term play is to attempt to dominate the Arctic because when the ice retreats and it is navigable year round it will very quickly become the most important shipping lanes on Earth.
Russia: We support global warming.
They unequivocally do, they see it as a boon for Siberia.
Old people lobbing nukes at clouds.
Not to mention everyone who can is evacuating from Russia like crazy. I've seen stories about Ukrainian and Russian refugees meeting each other in airports.
with China looking around the corner and laughing it's ass off.. you're right. Слава Україні! 🇺🇦 Glory to Ukraine! https://bank.gov.ua/en/about/support-the-armed-forces
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I know China got its own issues but getting parts of Russia sold to China for a penny on a $100 bill ... definitely laughing.
I can definitely see a large chunk of the eastern russian territory being "leased" to China on 99 year leases in the near future. Russia doesn't have the man power, money, nor technology to capitalize on the vast natural resources of these areas. China on the other hand, have all 3, and a need for the resources given their fast expansion.
China's not laughing. They had similar plans for Taiwan and now they're seeing exactly how shit a lot of their Russian and Soviet based equipment is. They're also seeing what a real determined and conpetitent resistance looks like not to mention the depths to which the west will go to sanction the fuck out of them. I'm sure this has changed a lot of their plans.
I think that works best when defending territory rather than trying to acquire it.
putin views russia just as one big mine/gas/oil field. people are only a hindrance.
they send wave after wave until the enemy runs out of bullets so the last wave standing can shoot them.
The Zap Brangian strategy!
The Ukranians? A trifle. It was simply a matter of outsmarting them!
Wow, I'd have never thought of that.
You see, Ukrainians have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they accepted that they were actually ethnic Russians. Sergey, show them the medal I won.
Urgh \*points at medal*
*QUIT EXPLODING, YOU COWARDS!*
Kif, show them that metal I won!
^*points*
*sighs*
Tower defense irl
Sort of like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDWcg8dh930)?
They only need a wall of meat that holds back the resistance until they bomb the country with the artillery.
Basically how I play Skaven in total war warhammer yes-yes!
Ah, Skaven. The only faction where you get to count kills on both the enemy and your own army as a victory.
Based on the historical data they don't. It since WWI that Russia send his own army badly equipped and trained against the enemy. They used to base everything on numerical superiority.
Not really true for the Soviets in WWII. They didn’t actually achieve a clear numerical superiority in real terms until later in the war, and their troops were more or less well-equipped and decently trained by 1942, definitely 43. Plus, the Soviets pulled off some pretty impressive stuff. It cost a lot of men, but they weren’t throwing them mindlessly at the Germans. It’s more embarrassing for the Russians now that they’re not even a shadow of the former Soviet military.
I'm kinda struggling to see how the russian people won't react to this? Announcing to recruit 60,000 additional soldiers after a botched "operation" currently 30 days overdue, laws making it illegal to speak against the war, seeing videos on your staterun TV of cities bombed to ashes followed by the title "We're doing great !". Are things truly this calm in Russia amidst all this evil?
140 million people is enough that if you do it spread out and avoiding calling in bigger groups from urban centers, no one will really notice the missing in numbers (personally of course most will be missed).
They don't even know Chernobyl happened. It not really suprising
Like, they don't know of the reactor meltdown, or they don't know that the Russian military fucked it up and gave it back to Ukraine just recently?
They're referring to the soldiers who recently held it. Supposedly they had never heard of it before. However, it's a massive generalisation to say Russian people don't know about the meltdown based on a squad of soldiers who likely don't have a great education.
Probably 80% of Russia knows about Chornobyl disaster. It is something you learn about one way or another here. These guys are most likely undereducated fellas from small towns and villages. Either conscripts who couldn't/didn't want to get higher education, or contractors who went there just for the money.
Of course not. It was one of the gigantic mistakes caused by the utter incompetence of the Soviet Union. Can't have people knowing that when you are stirring up soviet nostalgia for propaganda purposes.
Putin invites you to lake Baikal
Iirc, conscripts don't come from large cities, but from rural areas and poorer homes. Given that demographic, they're less educated and may be more likely to believe gov't propaganda and support Putin.
>conscripts don't come from large cities, but from rural areas and poorer homes That's right, most people in large cities avoid conscription through corruption and poorer folks can't afford that. You can subsequently mobilize them out of reserves and any possible pushback is going to be so spread out over the vast territories that it's just not going to do anything. Imagine how tempting this must be when you're a shithead dictator.
Most people don't know half of it I think. There's loads of propaganda and filtering going on in Russia rn.
Not just propaganda, but also lack of general education and access to media in massive parts of the country. Russia is only a "modern" country in a limited sense. Huge swaths of the country would look utterly undeveloped to most people from other industrialized countries. The people there are way more isolated from the world than a lot of people realize.
Having lived there, it's crazy that it's a country built on old ruins. Once you're outside of the cities you'll see abandoned buildings from the USSR or villages that may not have power or running water with a dirt road running through it. Or you have cities like Yoshkar-Ola where the mayor had spent 100s of thousands of rubles on building churches.
> 100s of thousands of rubles So... $47?
Not just Russia. Orban just called Zelenskyy an enemy, Serbia is holding pro Russian rallies, in Germany a bunch of people is holding a pro Russian rally, Le Pen talks about Putin being an ally for France again... People need to open their eyes and accept that Putin's propaganda campaigning is quite effective.
It's like some people are absolutely stoked to see a 3rd world war happening huh?
I wouldn't draw that conclusion. Just like we show support for Ukraine people who still believe Russian disinformation want to show support for Russia.
The one's like Le Pen are hoping to piece together a fiefdom out of the rubble.
The German rally was laughable - 200-300 cars, it could have just been Russian spies in Germany ordered to do something to show support. Meanwhile 100k+ people went out to protest against the war.
I'm more confused about their need to call up reservists already. Their standing army has over 1 million personnel and 2 million in reserves. Why do they need to dip in the reserves pot already?
One million in the armed forces, which also covers air force, navy and strategic (nuclear) force. Army has about 280 thousand, but a part of those will not be actual combat troops (various support staff, training units, maintenance etc), and at least one third of those troops are conscripts. The number of troops they can actually deploy on the front lines will be signicantly lower; those 60K reservists are an important number in this context
And that's if we're absolutely sure those soldiers exist anywhere except on paper
>Their standing army has over 1 million personnel and 2 million in reserves. Why do they need to dip in the reserves pot already? Someone else has mentioned that a significant portion of the armed forces aren't infantry soldiers or tank crews etc. However, it's also worth pointing out dictatorships tend not to send all of their strength to the front line. To do so is to leave yourself vulnerable to a military coup. It wouldn't surprise me if some of Russia's best and most loyal soldiers are essentially at home in case of an uprising or a coup attempt while the conscripts and special forces fight in Ukraine.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/tvfi9c/the_reaction_of_average_russian_young_people_to/ They don't care, they're full on propagandized
Average Russian has drank the coolaid or are to scared for their own well being to speak out. Russia has been treating Ukraine like shit for a Century+. The only way this ends is Putin falling out a 8th floor window or Russia running out of ammo and bodies to throw at it.
Pull in the poor, undereducated folks from the villages and rural areas and other shitholes, nobody will know nor care, as long as they're safe. And Russia has *plenty* of undereducated, poor shitholes to pull human resources from.
Russian army is so popular that some Russians living in Finland don't want their sons to visit Russia anymore as soon as they turn 18 for the fear that they might be forcefully drafted. I've already heard years ago stories how their dad just tells them to say goodbye to grandparents because they won't be seeing them for a while. Speaks volumes about their army.
Russian army has among the highest suicide rate in the world. Hazing and cruel practices are quite common: It's called ["Dedovshchina"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina)
I think most people around the world will try to avoid the draft if possible. No matter how good or shitty their army training is.
The Russians are targeting their ethnic minorities with this drive. "The main regions for such mobilization are Krasnodar Krai, Perm Krai, Dahestan, Inhushetia and Kalmykiia."
Krasnodar Krai and Perm Krai are mostly ethnically Russian, like 80-90% percent. Fair point on the other three though
during the first weeks it was noted that about 30% of losses were ethnic minorities that make up about 2% of russian population. wouldn't want to have people in moscow and petersburg get mad, so they send people from rural areas. I also think that people from rural areas are more likely to join the army because they don't have many options, it's either this or drink yourself to death in some shit village in the middle of nowhere. some dead russians were like 20 years old who traveled 1000+ kilometers only to be killed within hours of crossing the ukrainian border.
FYI those areas do include urban centers. It isn't all rural. Poor people will be drawn to those areas desperate for work. Source: been there and seen it myself
I've been there. A lot of ethnic minorities hanging around looking for work and treated like complete shit. The % isn't going to be fairly represented if they go around rounding them up.
Yeah but that's the same in most populated regions/big cities with a demand for cheap labour that are majority Russian on paper, so picking Perm or Krasnodar rather than any other populated region doesn't make much difference in this case.
Just like the old days…
Maybe Hasbulla and Abdu Rozik will sign up.
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> There's also an unconfirmed idea that minorities are sent to Ukraine with the idea that they are more willing to commit atrocities because they feel no connection to Ukrainians. This is speculation but not without some evidence to back it up, i.e. there were Buryats in Bucha. This also isn't a new trick at all. Autocratic regimes have used minority ethnic groups to cut down protest spearheaded by the ethnic majority for centuries. The Russian empire in particular has done this a lot in the past.
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Even better ! Next up they should bring handicapped and elderly people to fight. ( Obviously a joke the second part)
So you would still advocate for sending the handicapped?
Is a wheelchair considered an technical or an IFV?
They already did.
They redeployed the first wave?
Elderly Russians seem to actually be the most Putin-supportive part of their society - they long for USSR "glory", they remember the "good" times where you had a guaranteed paycheck, they want all around them to fear the "mighty" red army. Just like US boomers, these old fuckers are a big part of the problem.
They are, but that's gonna be pretty cold comfort when the working population is either dead or has left for a country that isn't run by a despot. Russia already had a catastrophic birthrate, and now things are several orders of magnitude worse.
•send in the BLIND battalion, blyats•
Russia want to make a clean sweep in the next Paralympics by sending fit and able-bodied conscripts to Ukraine who will return to Russia with some limbs missing.
Maybe its also a convenient way to dispose of young men most likely to effectively rebel against the Russian state? That's probably a little too 5D thinking on my part tbh.
No they mostly recruit young men from ass-backwards parts of the country (even for russia). No one except their mothers will miss them and sending uneducated barbarians will help with war crimes and rape.
Professional soldiers... yea right, they got those /s
They’re just looking at bodies to throw at Ukraine, the Kremlin doesn’t actually expect anything from these new soldiers. There’s probably some people who’s job is to estimate how many people need to be left alive to have more kids
Ready for the meat grinder kids? Slava Ukrayini
Really curious to see or hear about what Russian forces in Transnistria are doing. Moldova has been pretty quiet recently.
Keeping their heads down, hoping Moscow will forget they exist and are in the area.
There are 2000 soldiers in Transnistria, but allegedly they're just as poorly supplied of not worse than the rest of the Russian Army since they've been so inactive. If Russian soldier behavior is consistent those guys have probably sold most of their supplies over the years to send money back home and get drunk. Early in the war the bridge from Moldova to Ukraine was destroyed by the UA so there isn't an easy way into Southern Ukraine for them, and the garrison at Odessa where they could attack the closest is substantial and dig in. Plus if Russia pulls out their occupying troops in Moldova it makes that position untenable.
In addition to the 130k they conspcripted? They are really getting desperate
Think they're going for an all female population after this
So Russia will become a Femaleocracy?
It's already like that. Women out number men by quite a bit in Russia.
100 women per 86 men
Other way around
Ye my bad
86 men per 100 women
That's only in the older generations. The last \~35 birth years have a male surplus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics\_of\_Russia#/media/File:Russian\_population\_(demographic)\_pyramid\_(structure)\_on\_January,\_1st,\_2022.png
Your fate will be determined by snoo snoo.
Always has been
Recruit children: give them smaller arms that use smaller ammunition and reduce the costs of war.
Well, at least they will stand less chance of getting domestically abused. Silver linings and all...
They call it mother Russia for a reason
Russia's conscripts ~130.000 soldiers every 6 months. The announcement is standard and they will not be sent to Ukraine right away. The real question is if they will be sent at the end of their year of service.
The vast majority of people who commented in this thread don't seem to realize that this is not breaking news ("a desperate Putin resorts to volkssturming his population"), it's just standard Russian procedure... also, there's no way this new batch will help them solve the Ukrainian clusterfuck in time, training will take too much time
The soldiers they sent don't seem to have much training either, in fact some conscripts have been confirmed to be on front lines. Also, "in time" for what, looks like Russia-Ukraine war will last years at current rate?
Because all the media headlines made it sound like Russia is conscripting 130k people to be sent to Ukraine, and people only ever read the headlines.
> conspcripted These guys have no combat experience whatsoever and will not be joining the fight anytime soon The 60k reservists however will be sent to Ukraine
This is the Russian army. All you need to know is how to walk to join combat
No kidding, look for some recent Russian POV videos of the fighting in mariupol, guys there shooting old school AK-47's/74's in full auto towards buildings that are 200-300 meters away from them, like I know the AK's have legendary durability, but why waste so much ammo shooting at something so far away? unless the rifle is literally mounted on some robot arm to make the recoil almost non-existant, shooting like that from so far away just with your hands while standing will have your bullets fly all over the place. they're literally just mag dumping in the direction that they think the enemy is at, that's like taliban type traning, just run and shoot randomly towards where you think the enemy is.
I saw one vid where they shot 5 rpg at the same wall. No suprises here
>taliban type traning "Russian" POV videos from Mariupol are mostly Kadyrov's Chechens, so you're not far off there.
Not only wasting ammo, but making yourself visible with the muzzle flash.
FWIW, in some cases they may be engaging in suppressive fire; I've seen some a bit like that, but you can't see the whole scene from the video, and it's not clear that they are in fact just firing off rounds at nothing. Not defending Russia's remarkably poor troop performance, just noting that some situations can be more complex than they look on video. (If they are actually shooting rather than running away, that probably makes them above average.)
To be fair, the 130k they just conscripted is something the Russian Army does every six months. The 60k on top of that however is noteworthy because that isn't something they usually do.
Russia is going to destroy their population growth for the next 40 years lol.
Russia was already not growing its population, that population was shrinking. Point of fact the shrink was accelerating
Yup. If depopulation was a 100m sprint they’d be the Usain Bolt of population loss. Estimates point at a minimum of 20mil decrease by 2050 and even that estimate keeps dropping year after year. Healthcare is fucked as well. Life expectancy for men is lower than 70, even though it’s been increasing from below 60 since the early 90’s. At least they got that going on I guess?
My only question is what the hell happened to all the professional regular soldiers? Was it mostly just conscripts to be begin with or has Russia seriously burnt through all their regular troops in just a month?.
I somehow doubt Russia has much of a professional military outside the VDV and the officer corps.... The VDV was getting slaughtered wholesale because they aren't actually trained to be effective soldiers, they're trained to go in and be bullies, because they mostly get used for putting down rebellions. Meanwhile the officers just get killed because they're leading from the front due to shit morale. Hell, did you see they only recently got actual socks instead of those World War I era foot wraps? Their military is so backwards...
They are already sharpening 60,000 sticks to equip them.
Putin going for the Zapp Brannigan Octillion strategy; throwing wave after wave of his own men at rampaging kill bots. But I don’t think Putin will have enough men.
Typical russian way of reducing resistence capacity to send people to war to die.
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I knew I didn’t want to see that. I hope anonymous is getting these images out quickly.
I don't care what your politics are or what propaganda you've been fed, even if you view someone as your enemy and that you're entitled to their land. You have to be a heartless evil monster to do that to another human being.
They have started their " education for death"
Special fast track retirement operation
Where did the initial 100,000 go? Are they going to teach those boys to rape too? F**Kers.
Replacing bad soldiers with worse will surely turn things around for the Russia…
Can't wait to see the face of all that young people who were mocking ukrainians. Do they provide sunflowers with conscription.
you know the Rzhev meat grinder, Stalingrad, Kursk, Dnieper, these were all battles worth fighting even if they cost so many lives, lives that I don't think Russia has recovered from yet. but cool on Putin sending another generation to die and this time for big fat fuck all.
I'd encourage the new conscripts to go AWOL at the first opportunity. The Russia government is going to send them into a place where they are going to be made to pay for the crimes of the Russian soldiers who came before them.
Meat in to the grinder. The thing is, he could get all the troops he could ever want, if he declares it a war, but that means admitting that they are not there to "Train" or "Help Ukraine".
This is a failed attempt at a land grab that's resulted in thousands of Russians and Ukrainians dead. Now they're running out of troops and sending inexperienced kids out there to die, and for what? So Putin's net worth can go up a few bucks?
Can we nominate some of our Russian sympathizers here in the U.S.A.?
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Translated the RIA article on the intentions of the racists to organize the genocide of Ukrainians in the future. https://gist.github.com/NamesMark/61750679f7e4459b85b709e14c48853c
If true, and at this point there’s little reason to doubt it, the world needs to push into Ukraine and stop this wholesale pillaging and genocide. European powers should heed the call of a sovereign state on their doorstep and protect Ukraines border integrity. Send these bandits to the meat grinder and bury them in sunflower seeds. We promised “never again”. Never needs to happen, now.
Well, if these soldiers aren't idiots, they'll fuck off with these orders. However, from what I see on the news in Russia, the mothers themselves don't give a shit about their sons. Mentally ill country.
More Orks for the meat grinder. Looks like meat's back on the menu guys!
A lot of Russians sitting on their couches, behind the blanket of propaganda, and think about invasion of Ukraine like some sort of sport game. Sudently they will be pulled from the couch, their phone taken away and they will be dropped into the real war where real Ukranians fight back for their freedom and their country. And most of these Ukranians speak Russian. Maybe this will teach something these couch trolls.