this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 153 points 1 month ago (5 children)

You really have to wonder where the breaking point is at this point.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It just shows how effective top down propaganda is.

[–] [email protected] 95 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Propaganda? It's called oppression. It's literally illegal for people to complain about this.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I won’t disagree, but the controlled narrative the Kremlin pushes is still very much the definition of propaganda.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago

And you need the propaganda to have effective oppression.

Putin has to have his official narrative in order to mandate that anything else is a lie.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It can be two things. It’s a machine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The British gave time, the Americans gave money, the Soviets gave blood.

The Russian capacity to throw seemly endless bodies toward a goal is virtually part of their mythos. The above quote is from Stalin in regards to defeating the Nazis. The situation couldn't be more different, other than in the propaganda coming from Putin.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

That's when people bred like rabbits, Russian fertitility has been dropping for decades and their 21-30 cohort is one of the smallest anongst the population.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 month ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Unfortunately a large portion of the population supports the war and putin. Just look at the level of support just from russians living abroad. It's most of their population that is all on board.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Russia was never not a propaganda and fear controlled dictatorship, they only changed the paint job from time to time. It's almost impressive or at least very difficult for one to free themselves from that and open their mind when they, their parents and their parents and so on grew up like that.

I'm not saying it's not their fault I just think there's nuance to that.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

You spelled slaves wrong

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

That's barely enough to cover three months of losses. Insane.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

It's just sad to see those young men going into a completely useless ~~war~~ special military operation. A lot of them won't come home, a lot will return mutilated. Putin is a sick piece of shit.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

This is also why he's trying to force his population to fuck and make babies at all costs

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

That's about the population of able-bodied active duty us marines. Unfathomable.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

They have been trying to avoid conscripting from Moscow and Saint Petersburg. But they are running out of able bodied men outside those regions. There have been videos of men over 60 and men with health conditions that would preclude them from serving in a sane country. So I don't think they are that far off. Because when they start conscripting from M and SP they are seriously hurting their economy.

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