The conscription notice this week was for those with prior military experience...former military.
The Guardian is reporting this morning that male demonstrators who have been arrested are being given draft papers and in some districts, draft papers are being handed out to men while sitting in their university classes. Men in their 50s and men with young children, regardless of whether they have prior experience, are apparently being drafted.
The suspicion is that whoever is in charge of the draft for a given region has been a quota and at that level, they really don't care who they're drafting. The whole situation is going to get a lot uglier.
BTW, after donating to RP (I donated yesterday :) ), I suggest folks consider donating to Ukraine. The National Bank there has two funds set up where the money goes to either humanitarian aid or to buy kit for their army and police depending on which fund you pick.
My business partner is Russian-born and educated (in the US for 30 years now...just after the wall came down). He has family across Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and a few other USSR outposts.
His words when the "conscription" notices came out..
They were getting folks from rural shitholes, promising money for fighting and families for killed or wounded. Then prisoners and vicious offenders. Now with the main cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novorossiysk... the propaganda is over.
The conscription notice this week was for those with prior military experience...former military. The next (and final) step is for those of age, regardless of prior experience. Fearing that, flights from major cities to Armenia, Turkey, and the middle east are sold out for months now. Education was a way to avoid military service the past few decades, so the educated and upper-class folks are still on the sidelines...but for how long?
If the referendums pass in LNR, DNR, Zaporozhe, and Kherson, Putin will declare those as Russian territories... claim an invasion has occurred on Russian soil, and force wider mandatory military recruitment. The military at that point is a random assortment of people of the right age with some formerly experienced soldiers. It's a mess, and all of the propaganda works less and less on those with connectivity to the outside world. Vlad is in a corner...which isn't really a good thing for anyone.
I don't think they have a chance.
They are morally and materielly bankrupt, to use the military term
Mobilisation marked the point of no return for Putin's loss of control.
It's just going to get worse for him from here on in.
I don't think they have a chance.
They are morally and materielly bankrupt, to use the military term
Mobilisation marked the point of no return for Putin's loss of control.
It's just going to get worse for him from here on in.
an estimate of how both countries stack up
in spite of how poorly russia has performed up until now, i still think they could win some battles
long term, there's not much of a chance of them winning this conflict
putin's ego/hubris will probably feed many more of russia's minorities into the gaping maw of war
âWe do not seek conflict. We do not seek a Cold War,ââ Biden said, referring to the competition with China and beyond. It is a line he has used before. But his own aides acknowledge that in the contests with China and Russia, there is a lot of Cold War-like behavior underway.
As I understand it there has been an unspoken agreement between the people and the leadership: you give us stability, peace and order so we don't need do get involved in politics and can go about our daily lives and we'll turn a blind eye to your riches, despotism and foreign policy excursions.
If that it s the case, he just broke the contract.
He also just played his last card (annex a country illegally and threaten to nuke anyone who disagrees) and is about to be caught out. He's got nothing left to negotiate with.
future headline?
Breaking News! Putin Falls From a Seventh Story Window!
putin's plea/speech is basically a giant disinformation commercial for loyalty to the motherland
his war against a schizophrenic mirage of nazis and liberal democracies must be fought and at all cost(s) to boot?
surely a huge portion of sane people understand he is advocating putting the russian people on a turbo rocket sled to massive death, destruction and ruin
how long before there is a color revolution against his foolishness?
As I understand it there has been an unspoken agreement between the people and the leadership: you give us stability, peace and order so we don't need do get involved in politics and can go about our daily lives and we'll turn a blind eye to your riches, despotism and foreign policy excursions.
If that it s the case, he just broke the contract.
He also just played his last card (annex a country illegally and threaten to nuke anyone who disagrees) and is about to be caught out. He's got nothing left to negotiate with.
putin's plea/speech is basically a giant disinformation commercial for loyalty to the motherland
his war against a schizophrenic mirage of nazis and liberal democracies must be fought and at all cost(s) to boot?
surely a huge portion of sane people understand he is advocating putting the russian people on a turbo rocket sled to massive death, destruction and ruin
how long before there is a color revolution against his foolishness?
Just for perspective only in the past year did I finally hear a description of just what a tactical nuke is. And I just learned a little bit more by googling. . It is a "little" nuclear bomb. The size used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although they can be much more powerful. Somehow that just isn't what I would call small or little. Hard to call any nuclear weapon small or limited, imho. . That's all. I never really felt the need to know exactly how small they are or how big they could be. They somehow just sounded small whenever mentioned in conversations on matters that may find them useful or needed. They have been mentioned a lot recently. Perhaps I am the last person around these parts to know something like this as I usually am. So forgive me if I mentioned the already well known and obvious.
nothing wrong with admitting ignorance about something you don't know Kurtster.
The other thing to remember when it comes to tactical nukes is that they only work effectively on concentrations of troops. Ukraine have been very careful to keep their forces spread out. Moreover, at the frontline the Ukrainian troops are very close to the Russian forces, so basically tactical nukes (apart from all the other consequences) would have very little benefit on the battlefield.
Which leaves two other options: bombing selected cities with nukes (like Kiev or Kharkiv) like the US did in Japan or an all out strike.
Neither option promise much from a Russian point of view. If they took option a) NATO would immediately install a no-fly zone and state any further use of nukes would entail NATO retaliation (tit for tat, or in this case tit for two tats). Russia would lose the war.
If OTOH Russia evaporated the entire country then think WWIII. We all lose.
The other factor is that the Russian nuclear arsenal is probably as bad as its conventional and using it might expose its glaring weakness to a much more powerful adversary. My guess is that they realise not using it holds greater leverage than using it.
There is no way he can win the war against Ukraine now, even if does use tactical nukes or chemical weapons.
Just for perspective only in the past year did I finally hear a description of just what a tactical nuke is. And I just learned a little bit more by googling. . It is a "little" nuclear bomb. The size used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although they can be much more powerful. Somehow that just isn't what I would call small or little. Hard to call any nuclear weapon small or limited, imho. . That's all. I never really felt the need to know exactly how small they are or how big they could be. They somehow just sounded small whenever mentioned in conversations on matters that may find them useful or needed. They have been mentioned a lot recently. Perhaps I am the last person around these parts to know something like this as I usually am. So forgive me if I mentioned the already well known and obvious.
His army has been defeated; all he has left is nuclear weapons.
what is putin's goal? (remember he is kgb) occupation and oppression you wouldn't use a such weapon or messy technology on a piece of real estate that you covet he is obviously forced into the long game using energy and other commodities and any alliance with other authoritarian regimes making people suffer, especially innocent peaceful people is his modus operendi submission and surrender is the preference how does he get there? destroying necessary goods and services like electricity, food, water, shelter, etc. psych tactic to break the will of the victims all the while controlling the media narrative at home through manipulation the russian people are being force fed a steady stream of ukrainian dehumanization agitprop whipping up some hatred and bloodlust
There is no way he can win the war against Ukraine now, even if does use tactical nukes or chemical weapons. As the Ukrainians put it, this just raises the cost of fighting for freedom but in no way changes their determination to fight for it. They are not going to roll over and play dead now that they know they can and will win.
So this leaves Putin's primary goal to be to stay in power at home by projecting an image of a grand-daddy tsar who is looking after the best interests of Russia. But this is getting to be an increasingly difficult thing to sell to the Russian public now that he has trashed the military, made Russia look weak in the eyes of the rest of the world and had his economy ring-fenced by the rest of the global economy. So he's resorting to the victim-of-NATO narrative that plays so well at home with the propagandists hyperventilating at every opportunity. But I doubt everyone in Russia is buying it.
Most importantly, he's getting quite a lot of criticism from the right-wing/nationalists for cocking it up so badly. They still have a free reign to voice their opinions it seems. And this dissension will be confusing the silent majority who generally avoid getting involved in politics.
So Putin's days are numbered. Not because the Russians are suddenly going to turn into Europhiles and create a model western democracy, but because the nationalists are so pissed with the widespread incompetence of both the military and the political leaders. The big question will be what or who follows Putin and how will they ever manage to MARA. My guess is they will fail and Russia is going to break up into smaller dominions sooner or later. And I bet China is not averse to the idea of reabsorbing a large swathe of Siberia within its hegemony. Likewise, Turkey no doubt would like to expand its influence on the Turkic states.
Putin wanted to be remembered as the guy who reunited the great Russian empire. Instead he is going to be remembered as the guy who killed it.
