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

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

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

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

  • skozzii@lemmy.ca
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    5 hours ago

    This whole war was illegal , time for Russian to rise up against Putin.

    • Vanon@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Honestly, that window of opportunity for Russians has closed, possibly for a very long time. By now, much of the gov is designed to quickly and brutally control opposition and protests.

      For contrast: Just on the other side of the border a decade ago, tens of thousands of courageous Ukrainians seized a very similar opportunity. They fought and died for it, did not give up, and won the battle. Fuck Putin and his Yanukovych puppets, hello Zelenskyy and EU. But Ukrainians are still fighting to finish the war. They should be incredibly proud of their achievements so far.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

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

    Goddamn this corrupt mob in russia.

  • rustyfish@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

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

    • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

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

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

      • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
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        6 hours ago

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

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      7 hours ago

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

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      I find myself wondering if this is even perceived as a negative at all by the public. Certain people no doubt look at service as a job opportunity and some actually support the goals of the war and believe Putin’s hype about fighting Nazis.

      Has the war effort even gotten through those types yet? Is it really taking fathers away from their families? Are those fathers not bought in on the war?

      This is what I worry about. That Russia is not even straining yet, let alone close to breaking.

    • makyo@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

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

    • rhys@lemmy.rhys.wtf
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      9 hours ago

      I’m not sure there is one anymore.

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

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

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

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

          • catloaf@lemm.ee
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            4 hours ago

            To be fair I also forgot the Russian mercenaries. Remember Wagner Group? Apparently they’re being absorbed into the Russian National Guard now.

      • BMTea@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

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

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

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

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

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

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

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

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

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

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

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

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

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

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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      9 hours ago

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

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

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

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

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

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

        • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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          8 hours ago

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

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

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

          • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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            5 hours ago

            Right now Brent Crude is just 71.28. Oil prices are going down.

            Additionally Russia does not have the technical ability to fix all of the refineries that Ukraine has been blowing up nor do they have the ability to fix all of the upstream production problems being created.

            Productions of raw products is dropping fastand those declines are going to both continue and accelerate.

            O&G is not going to be propping up Russia’s economy for much longer.

          • Shard@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            That’s how these types of collapses work though.

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

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

    • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

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

      • Tja@programming.dev
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        10 hours ago

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

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

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

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

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

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

  • nitrolife@rekabu.ru
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    8 hours ago

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

  • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

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

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      7 hours ago

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

    • nitrolife@rekabu.ru
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      8 hours ago

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