Summary

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered 160,000 more Russians aged 18–30 be drafted from April 1 to July 15, amid U.S.-brokered ceasefire talks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned the Kremlin is preparing a major offensive in Sumy, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia, accusing Russia of stalling negotiations to gain territorial leverage.

Over 100,000 Russian soldiers are confirmed dead. Ukraine reported 46,000 dead and 380,000 wounded.

  • Ksin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    24 hours ago

    The last round of conscription was meet with uncharacteristically loud pushback from the russian public so pushing ahead with even more is interesting. Is the kremlin that confident in the effect of it’s propaganda? or is it just that desperate?

    • Aux@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      23 hours ago

      The Kremlin is confident that they will kill as many protesters as will be required to destroy any uprising.

    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      23 hours ago

      Both sides have resorted impressment to refill their ranks, regardless of public pushback men can still get bagged into a van on the street and sent to the front lines.

    • Motorheadbanger@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      21 hours ago

      The pushback was for the mobilisation, while this is a start of a routine conscription event, these happen twice every year

        • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          21 hours ago

          Ehh sorry. I assumed/hoped you were talking about something more, that I wasn’t aware of. I know of these protests, but they were not nearly intense enough to disrupt the system. Much of the urban youth that might have led the protests has left the country in the meantime too, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the next round of recruitment is met with even weaker resistance…

      • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        23 hours ago

        There were protests and hundred of thousands of young Russian men left the country after Putin announced the first “partial” mobilisation. The recruitment process was also botched and conscripted even the disabled and old.

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    1 day ago

    Vlad should call his MAGA supporters to join his cause and it will fulfill their need for violence.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 day ago

    As we all know, repeatedly drafting several divisions worth of men is a sign you’re winning the war…

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      23 hours ago

      Territorially? Yes, Russia is winning. But politically, economically and socially? Russia already lost. The deaths of thousands of soldiers in the face of Russia’s demographic crisis will result fewer labour force, which means lower tax revenue. The Russian economy is in war footing and this is already causing inflation because of heightened government expenditure, and businesses struggling to pay the ever increasing wage demands of civilians at home, who replaced the jobs that would have been filled instead by soldiers from the front. With secondary sanctions, even Chinese banks are reluctant to lend to Russia. The future generations of Russians will be paying for the economic and social consequences of the war in Ukraine. In essence, Russia may be winning territorially, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory with generational consequences.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        23 hours ago

        They still only have 20 percent of the country. After years. At this rate they will run out of people before Ukraine runs out of territory.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    1 day ago

    Are they going to be equipped like the Russian soldiers in late WWII? One soldier gets a rifle, the other gets five bullets, and both get helmets the thickness of tin cans.

    • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 day ago

      That is ww1. Not world war 2. The whole ‘wait for your comrade to die and take his weapons’ did not happen during ww2. It did happen in ww1.

    • Apollo42@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 day ago

      Russian soldiers in late WW2 were typically very well equipped, as were most soldiers by that stage in the war (even German soldiers were pretty decently equipped late war, though mostly due to having almost no soldiers left to equip).

      Late summer 1941 and even at points during Stalingrad, sure there were definitely times when soviet soldiers were being thrown into battle massively underequipped, but this was the exception rather than the rule.

      By 1944 (even by 1943) the Red Army was more mechanised than the Wehrmacht and was better at Blitzkrieg than the Wehr ever were.

      • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 day ago

        Lend lease really helped with mechanization. The jeeps and trucks they had were indispensable for the war effort. We often talk about guns and bombs, but people don’t realize how important transportation and heavy machinery is.

  • Podunk@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    43
    ·
    2 days ago

    Rest in peace you poor bastards. Forced to fight a rich mans war… for nothing.

  • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    92
    ·
    2 days ago

    This is America’s future. Conscription is in Project 2025 and make no mistakes about it. The Christian Nationalist Death Cult would love to send you to the front.

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      2 days ago

      The Christian Nationalist Death Cult would love to send you to the front.

      To fight for Russia against Ukraine or Israel against Iran. Maybe if they’re in a good mood, you’ll be able to choose which genocide you participate in.

    • index@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 day ago

      Isn’t conscription already a thing in USA? Many countries silently paused conscription but it’s just there

        • invertedspear@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          1 day ago

          That’s the other guys point. We haven’t used it since the 70s, but the system is still in place to be used. Easy to fire it up again.

          • tikifire@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            1 day ago

            My point was at least half or more of the US population has little-to-no-memory of what that was like.

            My dad was drafted during the Vietnam era but I’m in my 50’s and have no actual memory of that time.

            I know it happened but I was really young when they stopped the draft and we’ve had several generations born since then who also have no memory of it.

            It would be politically dangerous for a government to restart a draft absent an actual world war-type situation or a dictatorship.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      This is America’s future. Conscription is in Project 2025

      Americans could still prevent that future if a few million of them got off their asses and took action against the fascist takeover of their country.

      But that would get in the way of watching American idol, and HoneyBooBoo reruns, wouldn’t it…

    • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      edit-2
      2 days ago

      According to this article, project 2025 doesn’t do that. It proposes requiring students to take the military ASVAB test. Which honestly isn’t the worst idea. In my high school they recommended people who didn’t know what they wanted to do for a career to take it even if they weren’t going into the military.

      • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        44
        ·
        2 days ago

        They are planning to make all public school kids take the test but not the private school kids. It will be for conscription. They will know where to throw your ass to make the meat grinder run better. That’s the only reason for this bullshit

          • bassomitron@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            2 days ago

            Private schools don’t have to follow the same requirements as public schools already. The person above you is just inferring that since they’re already separate in the current system, the new ASVAB requirement would also be separate. But until it becomes an actual law, it isn’t super useful arguing hypotheticals in this context.

        • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          2 days ago

          You went to the shit schools, I went to school in the south, they gerrymandered them so the kids of poor parents took them while the rich kids didn’t (and got actual schooling).

          • 7U5K3N@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            2 days ago

            Yep 100% went to a shit school. I’d not be surprised if the asvab paid the school for each person that took it

          • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            2 days ago

            That just means you are the cannon fodder style infantry. You’ll be the guy sent out to catch a drone or two.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            edit-2
            2 days ago

            Just fail it

            So you can be shuffled in with the grunts rather than the officers?

            The military loves putting dumb-dumbs through basic and stacking them on the front lines to catch stray bullets.

            • hddsx@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 day ago

              I mean, you can also fail out at basic too IIRC.

              Also, you need a college degree to be a commissioned officer.

                • hddsx@lemmy.ca
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 day ago

                  You can absolutely get chaptered out for failing basic multiple times.

          • wirebeads@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            2 days ago

            Or if ever American says they’re gay, they’d never join the military because DEI and such.

            Or just be black, brown, Asian, trans, a celebrity or rich. America doesn’t want any of that in the military either

            • Triasha@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              2 days ago

              They don’t want poc or women to be career.

              They want women pregnant, so they are “safe” in that sense. They want white officers commanding brown conscripts to go do the dying.

          • entwine413@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            2 days ago

            Just don’t ace it or every branch of the military will start harassing you at home trying to get you to join.

        • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 days ago

          It’s a 3 hour aptitude test. Are you good at math? Are you good at electronics? Etc. I would imagine it’s a minor speed bump to joining the military.

            • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 day ago

              No. The hardest math is some insanely light algebra too. X = 5y kind of stuff.

              It still opens the door to enlistment and being harassed to join the military, conning poor kids into making a mistake.

              • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                43 minutes ago

                I mean, I was harassed to enlist despite actively going to college (officers usually get a commission after college), despite repeatedly telling them I was not interested and never taking the test.

                • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  8 minutes ago

                  Yeah you’re just meat and bone to a recruiter. They have monthly quotas and will pull any old shit to hit them, just like any salesman.

                  I knew guy in boot camp that had a 4 yr degree. The recruiter had convinced him that he should enlist as a medical corpsman to get college money to become a doctor. The bullshit here is that the military will 100% prepay for your medical degree as long as you commit to a commision as an officer in the military as a doctor afterwards.

                  This was in the initial “intake” part of boot camp, so I dont know how it ended up for him, but the drill sergeants, who were not kind during the rest of the experience, were absolutely incensed at what happened to him. They were absolutely livid. Hopefully someone got him into the officer path that was available to enlisted and got him out of there, but some recruiter likely fucked over years of this guys life just to hit a qouta.

    • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      The religious nutters will form a White Christian unit copying the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, march with the goose step and all of the sick fucks will have Jerusalem Cross tattoos.

      Conscription will start after the US economy completely swirls down the shitter leaving all sorts of skid marks.

    • MintyFresh@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      2 days ago

      Lol have you seen kids these days? I’d be surprised if more than 15 percent are fit for service, and of that 15% maybe half would pass a drug screen.

      • ploot@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        32
        ·
        2 days ago

        Kids in the 1960s were the same, and the USA still sent them off to get killed, maimed, and traumatized for the rest of their lives.

        • lumony@lemmings.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 day ago

          All in the name of… checks notes

          Fighting communism.

          Really puts into perspective who is pulling the strings over in the Land of Freedom. Here’s a hint: their children are never the ones to die in a war.

          It’s genius, really. Convincing the working class to literally sacrifice their children for a system that supports the ruling class. Brilliant.

      • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        2 days ago

        Have you seen what Russia is throwing out to get blown up? As long as you can absorb some rounds they don’t care.

  • Hikuro-93@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    89
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    Where’s Trump and his “young, brave men”? You know, that speech. The one aimed at Zelensky stating he should just stop the war and stop being desperate by conscripting more people for the defense effort?

    Eh, must have left it in the same place he left the “Zelensky is a dictator” comment after he was asked if Putin was also a dictator.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      2 days ago

      I mean, it’s a fucking pointless, blood drenched meat grinder on both fronts. Like some kind of WW1 reenactment with the safeties turned off.

      You don’t need to be a fan of either side to want this nightmare to end. But since the people in charge have no real skin in the game (because they’re sociopaths who are more than happy to see these populations sacrificed to their vainglory) the killing simply will not end.

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 day ago

        So me invading your home with a weapon and threatening to kill your family, you would just let it happen? You don’t feel even a slight inkling to defend your families lives?

        Do they know that about you?

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 day ago

          So me invading your home with a weapon and threatening to kill your family, you would just let it happen?

          Obviously not. I’d hand my young son, with no combat experience, a rifle and send him out to meet you. And when you shot him, I’d send my next son, who is even younger and easier to kill. And then I’d send my infant daughter, with a grenade tapped to her chest. And then I’d send my neighbors and my neighbors’ kids and their neighbors and their kids, until everyone on the block was dead.

          And if one of them finally got you, I would consider all that bloodshed worth it. Because now we’ve secured the most important thing in the entire world - private property.

          And if none of them got you, and you were still camped out on my lawn, I’d blame the Woke Leftists, the Transgenders, and the Jews for my defeat, because they caved to Russian propaganda when one more salvo would have done it.

      • Hikuro-93@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        57
        ·
        edit-2
        2 days ago

        If that simplistic and dismissive view is your take on the whole Ukraine defending their sovereignty against a foreign invader…

        Then Doktor Jidanbo prescribes you with less Fox News consumption - as 9/10 dentists say it clouds judgement.

        Stopping the ‘meat grinder’ is actually very simple. All that needs to happen is for Russia to stop attacking Ukraine and leave Ukrainian soil. All Russia needs to do is wanting to actually end it, which is the part all the greedy vultures wanting to carve up Ukraine conveniently leave out.

        I rather die a proud fighter who fought my oppressors than live in misery while they gleefully take what’s mine, and my loved ones. Capitulating to bullies only leads to more bloodshed. Standing up to them and making them regret their barbaric ways is how you actually stop them.

        Take that any way you want, as that’s all I’m gonna say.

        • Doesnotexist@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          24
          ·
          2 days ago

          I’ve had a relevant quote in my head about this for a long time: “if Russia put down their guns, there would be peace. If Ukraine put down their guns, there would be no Ukraine”

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          2 days ago

          Ukraine defending their sovereignty against a foreign invader…

          Wasn’t Donetsk in the grip of a civil war, during which ethnic Russians were being bombed and gunned down by Ukrainian militias? For six years?

          I rather die a proud fighter

          In what division? The 101st Chairborne?

          All the Redditors who were going to die in glorious conflict did it in the first year of the war, when they gave away their positions doing social media influencer shit within range of Russian artillery.

      • torrentialgrain@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        2 days ago

        Ukraine is fighting an existential defensive war to save their country. Their soldiers fight to defend their loved ones and families.