"They were sent to Ukraine as cannon fodder"
- Thread starter Cypress
- Start date
I feel so sad for her.
First, polls out of Russia are unreliable and suspect.
Second, polls don't trump moral truth. Some old fart in Moscow smoking cigarettes and watching Kremlin state TV doesn't have any skin in the game. And there is no evidence that garden variety Russian soldiers tend to be enthusiastic about prosecuting this war. Russia is a world military superpower that has been fought to a standstill by a second rate European nation. All available evidence is that morale and motivation are generally lacking in Russian enlisted soldiers on the front line. They do not give the impression they are fighting for the very existence of Mother Russia, the way their grandparents did at Leningrad and Stalingrad.
I did not speak of polls and I do not trust the polling industry as I am not an idiot....they have lied/been massively wrong too many times.
They're enthusiastic enough to commit war crimes and torture civilians.
https://sputniknews.com/20220415/to...ans-in-secret-mariupol-prison-1094784619.html
https://mena24tv.com/en/2022/03/28/...ure-with-nazi-symbols-were-found-in-mariupol/
T. A. Gardner
Serial Thread Killer
I'm not condoning it by any stretch, but this has been the way wars have been fought for millennia. The current US / Western way of war to make them bloodless for the US / West is a very new phenomena. It's also one that creates a false illusion of what war will be when the opponent can actually fight back on even terms.
Committing crimes against unarmed civilians and POWs is not evidence that Russia's army is motivated to fight relentlessly for victory against Ukrainian armed forces.
If this were really percieved as a war against an existential threat to Mother Russia, as Hawkeye claims, Russian armed forces would be showing some motivation, some relentless tenacity, some esprits de corps.
As it stands six months into the war, a world military superpower has been fought to a standstill by a second rate European nation.
So if you don't trust polling, what actual data are you using to make the unequivocal claim Putin is beloved and the War on Ukraine is wildly popular in Russia?
moon
Satire for Sanity
How about videos ?
The video I posted appears to show the genuine grief and anger of one Russian family. She does not look like she is lying to me.
moon
Satire for Sanity
What did you think of Vivien Leigh in ' Gone with the wind ' ?
Never seen the movie.
Russian Soldiers' Parents Head to Ukraine to Rescue Sons
Russian soldiers refusing to fight on the frontlines of Ukraine are being rounded up and detained, prompting their family members to try to go to their rescue, it has been reported.
Troops, who thought they could opt to leave Russian forces after a three-month contract fighting in the Ukraine war, have instead reportedly been sent to a makeshift detention center in Bryanka, in the Luhansk region which Moscow says it now controls.
Relatives told The Insider, an independent Russian-language investigative website, that there is a large number of refuseniks which Moscow's military command is not letting return home, fearing others will follow their example.
The father of one Russian soldier told the outlet that soldiers who wanted to quit had been bullied back into rejoining the frontlines or else were kept in cramped spaces where they face tough conditions, forced labor and sometimes torture.
"It is better to give your soul to God than to go back there," the unnamed father told the outlet. "They no longer want to be up to their ears in the blood of their friends and comrades."
"We need to do something, we need to get the children out of there and stop the lawlessness," one mother named by The Insider as Maria told the publication, "If we are the first, then others will follow. I don't know exactly how many of us there are, but I know there are many."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ne...ider-luhansk-bryanka-refuseniks-1727914?amp=1
Russian soldiers refusing to fight on the frontlines of Ukraine are being rounded up and detained, prompting their family members to try to go to their rescue, it has been reported.
Troops, who thought they could opt to leave Russian forces after a three-month contract fighting in the Ukraine war, have instead reportedly been sent to a makeshift detention center in Bryanka, in the Luhansk region which Moscow says it now controls.
Relatives told The Insider, an independent Russian-language investigative website, that there is a large number of refuseniks which Moscow's military command is not letting return home, fearing others will follow their example.
The father of one Russian soldier told the outlet that soldiers who wanted to quit had been bullied back into rejoining the frontlines or else were kept in cramped spaces where they face tough conditions, forced labor and sometimes torture.
"It is better to give your soul to God than to go back there," the unnamed father told the outlet. "They no longer want to be up to their ears in the blood of their friends and comrades."
"We need to do something, we need to get the children out of there and stop the lawlessness," one mother named by The Insider as Maria told the publication, "If we are the first, then others will follow. I don't know exactly how many of us there are, but I know there are many."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ne...ider-luhansk-bryanka-refuseniks-1727914?amp=1
Putin’s Cannon Fodder: Ethnic Minorities Disproportionate Casualties In Russia’s War
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, its casualties have disproportionately been made up of minorities from across the Russian Federation, among them Buryats, Dagestanis, Kalmyks, and Tyvans. These minority groups, often from poor and remote parts of the country, make up an inordinate amount of Russia’s army, and as anthropologist Gillian Tett described, are being used as “cannon fodder” on the front lines. Though the Russian Federation has only officially confirmed several hundred deaths in its armed forces, many experts consider the figure to have now run into the thousands.
It is difficult to get exact figures for the number of casualties from the conflict, but independent Russian media outlets Mediazona and iStories have calculated that Dagestan and Buryatia have the highest death tolls of any Russian region, even though their populations are several times smaller than those of Russia’s wealthy and predominantly Slav regions. Young, well-off men from St. Petersburg and Moscow can dodge the draft and take up jobs far away from the front lines, but less fortunate individuals from poverty-stricken regions like Dagestan are forced to take up the only steady income available to them. Often, these jobs are right at the heart of the violence.
If the economic coercion wasn’t bad enough, there are now several reported cases of the Russian Army using positive blackmail, where soldiers are offered clean criminal records or cash bonuses upon completion of their tour of service, to target young men from poor regions.
These underhanded recruitment tactics are a sign of Russia’s increasing desperation to scrape up enough manpower for its war, but they aren’t being used blindly; rather, they are bloody examples of the white Slav supremacy which permeates Russian society. Russia’s leading rental site allowed landlords to select an option for “Slavs only” as recently as last year. For centuries, the people of Russia’s roughly 160 ethnic minorities have been subjugated, mistreated, and continually decried as inferior. Their deaths on the front line are a testament to how cheaply Moscow views the lives of its ethnic minorities.
https://theowp.org/putins-cannon-fo...s-disproportionate-casualties-in-russias-war/
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, its casualties have disproportionately been made up of minorities from across the Russian Federation, among them Buryats, Dagestanis, Kalmyks, and Tyvans. These minority groups, often from poor and remote parts of the country, make up an inordinate amount of Russia’s army, and as anthropologist Gillian Tett described, are being used as “cannon fodder” on the front lines. Though the Russian Federation has only officially confirmed several hundred deaths in its armed forces, many experts consider the figure to have now run into the thousands.
It is difficult to get exact figures for the number of casualties from the conflict, but independent Russian media outlets Mediazona and iStories have calculated that Dagestan and Buryatia have the highest death tolls of any Russian region, even though their populations are several times smaller than those of Russia’s wealthy and predominantly Slav regions. Young, well-off men from St. Petersburg and Moscow can dodge the draft and take up jobs far away from the front lines, but less fortunate individuals from poverty-stricken regions like Dagestan are forced to take up the only steady income available to them. Often, these jobs are right at the heart of the violence.
If the economic coercion wasn’t bad enough, there are now several reported cases of the Russian Army using positive blackmail, where soldiers are offered clean criminal records or cash bonuses upon completion of their tour of service, to target young men from poor regions.
These underhanded recruitment tactics are a sign of Russia’s increasing desperation to scrape up enough manpower for its war, but they aren’t being used blindly; rather, they are bloody examples of the white Slav supremacy which permeates Russian society. Russia’s leading rental site allowed landlords to select an option for “Slavs only” as recently as last year. For centuries, the people of Russia’s roughly 160 ethnic minorities have been subjugated, mistreated, and continually decried as inferior. Their deaths on the front line are a testament to how cheaply Moscow views the lives of its ethnic minorities.
https://theowp.org/putins-cannon-fo...s-disproportionate-casualties-in-russias-war/