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Number of Deserting Russian Troops Surges (www.kyivpost.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 11 months ago (23 children)

I’m just spitballing here, but I’ve done this kind of thing.

Establish a program where any defecting Russian soldier will receive a bonus of $20k USD and a work visa in one of a list of countries.
Defecting with military equipment increases the bonus based on the combat and the intelligence value of the equipment. 30-some years ago, I believe we were offering $1M to anyone defecting with one of the new MIGs. I think we got a couple out of that program.
Defection bonus can also scale with rank and intelligence value of the soldier. Defecting general? $1M. Defecting colonel? $250k. More money for info, and you can land a job as a “consultant” with western intelligence. Maybe throw in a condo.
The Russians are quite famous for punishing or executing innocent family members in revenge for such actions. They will have difficulty doing so if the number of defectors are in the thousands to tens of thousands, but the initial people will likely be those who have less of a concern there.
Expend funding for in-country intelligence assets to construct an Underground Railroad for defectors. Assign an initial $5B USD to develop networks in major cities to smuggle the families of defectors out of the country with arrangements made for visas etc.

If you were to sit down with a spreadsheet right now, you could come up with a rough estimate for the cost of eliminating one Russian asset - soldier, tank, air defense system, whatever. A program like the above would reassign those costs, with the additional benefit of saving the lives of Ukrainian troops and civilians (because it’s non-combat attrition) and having a potentially cascading effect (the more people that quit, the more others are likely to quit since it reduces both manpower and morale).

I don’t think it’s a big deal yet (although morale is a big deal), but it possibly could be.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Sorry but I don't think any country at this moment would be too happy to welcome fucking genocidal rapists maniac ex-convicted murderers.
The fact that at some point along the way they went "aww this is so cold and they're shooting back at me, I'm off" doesn't make those bastard war criminals something one would want as neighbours. And paid for it too lol. No thanks.

Not everything can be sorted with a cost-expenses spreadsheet.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

During the second world war British secret service got most of their intelligence by being nice to captured Nazis. They were more amenable to a bit of give and take if they were being put up in nice hotels with lots of food. It actually proved more effective than torture.

Since they were far more interested in themselves than "the cause" they were perfectly happy to exchange military intelligence for ongoing luxury.

Russia is a dictatorship and most Russians don't want anything to do with it, but they don't have a choice fighting the dictatorship is suicide. If you give them an out I'm sure they'll take it.

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