this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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I don't know a single other modern "country" (that is considered "good" and "democratic" by westerners) that people don't want to defend so much that the regime needs to resort to forbidding people from leaving (and then put a huge effort into patrolling the borders because people want to escape this hell anyway) and literally kidnapping people off the streets and putting them into vans by masked ""people"" on daily basis just to sustain the meatgrinder.
The only thing that comes close are British press gangs - but that was 2 centuries ago.
And if there are some recent examples like this - I would absolutely support hanging the tyrants who do this, just like I hope Zelensky would be hanged one day.
A brief scroll of Wikipedia (the sources seemed legit) shows that, for example, Cuba (which I'm assuming you admire?) has mandatory military service, no known policy of alternatives for conscientious objectors, and harsh punishments for evading it even in peacetime, to the point that people have attempted to injure themselves to get out of it. They haven't been tried in modern war, but can't see them suddenly relaxing the rules when actually tested. Border countries tend to take defence very seriously.
For countries and cultures bordering Russia, this really is an existential question. The forced population transfer/ethnic cleansing of Tatars, Ingrians, Chechens and Ingush, Balkars, etc. show what tends to happen. And before you say "well that was Stalin", I'll point to the Russification efforts of Alexander III and Nicholas II, and to... well, just about all speakers of Uralic languages still existing in Russia, facing steadily or rapidly declining numbers. Also the number of people identifying as ethnic Russians in the Baltics and Crimea, directly attributable to said forced population transfers; Transnistria, where the change happened more organically but was nonetheless used as an excuse for invasion; and to some degree in eastern Ukraine, that saw significant russification attempts and Russians moving in to man the industrial centers during SU, inflating the numbers of ethnic Russians and prevalence of the Russian language at cost of the native population.
I honestly don't know that much about Cuba, seems like country much like any other that has trouble because of a difficult neighbor and making the best of it? But if we're talking about whether mandatory military service is sometimes justified, not whether mass media is biased (duhhhhh), perceptions held by the majority are inconsequential.
Conscription is done in preparation for "mass kidnappings of cannon fodder", as you put it.
Edit: Also kudos for not trying to defend ethnic Russians' history of ethnic cleansing.
No?..
Russia has conscription but not kidnapping part and forbidding to leave the country part. So do many other countries.
...yes? Or do you think the countries with peacetime conscription do it for shits and giggles, and the massive economic benefit of half the population losing about a year of working life?
Okay, then surely you can show me a shittone of examples of such a massive campaign of kidnappings happening to people forbidden from leaving the country because they are needed as cannon fodder that happened in modern history (let's say last two centuries)?
I'll just give you a partial list of European countries that 1) had wartime conscription, and 2) executed deserters, in WW1 or 2, which would indicate an equally/more drastic "kill or be killed" choice, and is way easier to find. Or do you know better how conscription worked in the WWs off the top of your head?
Russia has a larger population than Ukraine, and thus the luxury to not need everyone, and still they have called in reservists in "partial mobilization", exact number unknown. As Russia has conscription, every adult man who has performed their service is in reserve. As of 2023, reservists called into service are not allowed to leave and are subject to restrictions until they report to duty, which seems like high-tech enforcement/"kidnapping" to me. The conscriptions have also hit poorer regions, often with large ethnic minorities, more harshly, but I'm sure that's just coincidence.
There are reports of some military districts closing borders, of mobilized men being ill-equipped and used as cannon fodder, being killed in large numbers, you name it. As with all war reporting, hard to get well-verified factsfacts, especially from a country hostile to neutral reporters. We do know that protests are broken (and male protestors sometimes drafted).
But yeah, probably not needing troop replacements to the same extent as Ukraine. Who, I'm saying again, are fighting for the survival of their country and culture.
Maybe because "the Russian brainpan is predisposed to genocide" is self-evidently racist and nonsensical.
That's literally what conscription means in legal terms, though I imagine most military organisations would object to the term "cannon fodder" as they do try to use personnel to get something done, not just send them running into enemy lines of fire for no reason.
No. Conscription is you get summons and have to do military service (which is also totally wrong but a different thing). If you refuse you get sent to jail. You can simply leave the country if you don't like that.
What happens in Ukraine is kidnapping random people off the streets (who are forbidden from leaving the country), putting them into vans and sensing them to die.
You're presenting a distinction without a difference.
Both are effectively the same thing, a citizen pressed into service, against their will.
Jail-time is the best case scenario, and in no way intrinsic to the concept.
So "you cannot leave the country and will be kidnapped and forced to die a horrible death on the front lines" is the same as "you can freely leave the country but if you don't you will have to do forced labour in military uniform for a year".
Got it.
Now you're just being deliberately obtuse. That's not what the word "conscription" means, and I'm pretty sure you know that.
You're just being an ass because a year of mandatory service is what the law uses conscription for in Finland, DURING PEACETIME.
In wartime, being unable to leave the country, forced to fight on the front lines, is also conscription.
"you cannot leave the country and will be kidnapped and forced to die a horrible death on the front lines"
When done by a state, that is literally still within the definition.
Conscription for popular wars doesn't get to the point Ukraine is at. The U.S. drafted soldiers in WWII without the situation deteriorating to this point, for example. Then when they tried that for an unpopular war (Vietnam) it created all sorts of problems and the draft was scrapped.
Considering Ukraine is the only modern/western democracy to have been invaded for territorial conquest in about 80 years demonstrates the level of bullshit that you're spouting.
It's being liberated, not invaded.
Dismissing a state's right to sovereignty is the most anti-democratic thing I can think of.
Well, I personally stopped caring about a [western definition of] democracy when I learned that closing borders and not letting people out, kidnapping people off the streets, beating them, holding in basements for days and then sending them to the meatgrinder is actually entirely democratic while elections, forming political parties, etc. apparently is not.
Dictatorships are not as scary as western "democracy".
Literally no-one is claiming any of that shit is democratic.
Stop confusing wartime martial law with democracy. It makes you look like an idiot, when clearly you have far more developed ideas to discuss. It completely ruins any actual argument you might make for what is right and wrong.
Such as this article you commented on, demobilising someone who should never have been mobilised is a no-brainer, and it is fucked as hell that it isn't happening.
You really haven't looked at the legal systems around defensive service of most countries, have you?
Please. I am genuinely asking. Show me a country that doesn't have legal systems in place to press its population into defensive service, and/or suspend elections during wartime.
I live in Finland, we have one the MOST WILLING populations IN THE WORLD when it comes to self-defense.
And you know what? The military police still regularly arrests deserters who fail to show up for their conscription. And we're not even at war.
The alternative, is to not be prepared against threats like Putin, who will WIPE YOU OFF THE MAP given the chance.
Democracy is a peacetime luxury.
Not sacrificing thousands to save millions, is a privilege of the leaders who live in a parallel universe that doesn't have Putin in it.
Ah yes, the Fins are sure eager to repeat their WW2 'fight for democracy' against the Russians.
What?
Literally no-one here wants war. That's why Finland maintains such efforts to be ready for it, should it happen against our best efforts to prevent it.
What?
There are no wars for democracy. Like I said, democracy is a peacetime luxury. Finland fought for independence, and hence the ability to choose to be democratic.
....on the side of nazi Germany
And yes, it's always 'defense' now. Not 'war'
Like your ally 'defended' from a Polish attack or the US needs to defend itself from Irak, Iran, Afghanistan or wherever.
Imagine a gang arming themselves to the teeth and surrounding 1 person pointing guns at him.
"Hey, we're only going to defend ourselves"
That would be the NATO, Russia analogy.
I could add the gang really hate this guy, which your and other US regime aligned comments make abundantly clear.
The US is a travesty of a nation that sometimes does some good. I said absolutely nothing in support of their various brands of BS.
And if you think Finland worked with Germany during operation Barbarossa for any other reason except to maintain its existence in the face of an imperial soviet union, I don't know what to tell you.
And yeah, people are gonna gang up and surround you if you keep hugging a nuke, threatening to set it off if anyone tries to stop your tantrums.
I don't hate Russia. Its people are perfectly capable of decency and peaceful co-operation.
But it's current leader is a madman with genuinely dangerous delusions.
I am not a fan of Putin either.
But NATO forced his hand, as was always the intention.
It is NATO who would be in the face of Russia threatening them with nukes if they let them into ex-ukraine.
It's not Russia who unilatery blew up missile treaties and put them in Romania.
If Putin would be half as mad as the west claim to be they would be at war by now.
Ukraine war is a matter of survival.
Just look at history, always the European nations attacking Russia.
History is irrelevant, past "personalities" of countries do not define how they will act in the future.
NATO is a defense pact. NATO is not what Putin is scared of, that's just a convenient name that groups together the countries that he percieves as the "source" of the threat.
Putin is fully aware that NATO presents absolute zero military danger to Russia.
The only reason he hates it, is because each nation that joins, stops worrying about appeasing him, because membership significantly reduces fear of russias military power, and hence his influence over that country.
What he is scared of, is progressive western culture. Gay people and trans rights movements give him the heebie jeebies and he doesn't like that stuff coming closer and closer to russias borders, where imaginary lines on the map do nothing to stop the spread and intermingling of culture and ideology.
Russia isn't at war to survive. It's at war because Putin is mentally stuck in the 80s and can't handle social progress.
says the guy from the country with the nazi past (and present)
What he is scared of, is progressive western culture. Gay people and trans rights movements give him the heebie jeebies and he doesn’t like that stuff coming closer and closer to russias borders, where imaginary lines on the map do nothing to stop the spread and intermingling of culture and ideology.
That is the same reasoning the israeli fascist use as an exuse about the bad muslims they genocide, interesting.
And this even more:
https://apimagesblog.com/blog/2018/11/12/training-kids-to-kill-at-ukrainian-nationalist-camp
These thugs beat up a woman's rights march, imagine what they would do to LGBT.
As if you genuinely care and not something to validate your racism, Russophobia and aggressive fanaticism.
Had enough of you.
You can join Azov, Sich, Tornado, Safari or any of the many fascist batallions, you will find likeminded people there.
Last Pride parade in Kiev lasted 10 minutes because incoming mass of neonazis made the organisers resign from march in fear it would turn into bloodbath.
oooook then
https://yle.fi/a/74-20128479
NATO is a millitary alliance of the most Imperialist countries on the planet. The purpose of NATO is to pressure geopolitical adversaries into opening up their economies for foreign investment and purchase, and crush anyone who would go against that gangsterism millitarily. Mob security is not defensive, it defends extractive processes.
NATO is frequently guilty of offensive movements as well, such as Operation Gladio. Really, NATO was formed to oppose Communism, which is why some of their earlier leaders, such as Adolf Heusinger, were literal Nazis who served in the Third Reich.
The reason NATO has increased millitarization along Russia's border is to threaten it into opening up its Capital markets to be plundered by foreign Imperialists, just like what happened after the dissolution of the USSR before the Nationalists took power. Russia is no saint, it isn't some grand hero, but without NATO trying to get Russia to open back up again the invasion likely never would have happened, as war is expensive in lives and materiel.
Trying to make this about "culture," when Ukraine is also extremely socially conservative, makes no sense. If this was about opposing LGBTQ rights and "western values," Russia would have invaded other countries with more progressive social values. Instead, they invaded Ukraine with the express goal of demillitarizing it, and extended a peace deal early in the war on the conditions of Ukrainian neutrality with respect to NATO and demillitarization. The UK and US stepped in to deny this, as they wished to milk Ukraine dry with brutal IMF loans so that they can profit off of the suffering of Ukrainians.
Are you seriusly arguing that taking war off the table is "unfair"?
Economic problems, even international economic conflicts, should have economic solutions.
Not military ones.
Ukraine was invaded because it was the one country where Putin thought he might still have sufficient support.
I am fully convinced he genuinely believed it would be over in three days.
Ukraine isn't a progressive country, though. They banned leftist parties and contain Nazi brigades like Azov. If Putin wanted to "oppose Western Values," he'd target a country representing them.
As for the natural resources, this makes more sense, and is actually a secondary reason behind the invasion, the primary one of course being what they initially pushed for in the peace talks at the beginning of the war a few years ago, NATO neutrality and demillitarization. Now that that peace deal didn't go through, they are eyeing ways to recuperate the cost of war.
NATO isn't about "taking war off the table." There isn't an "economic solution" to Imperialism that would not be resisted millitarily by NATO. See Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, Libya, Cambodia, Cuba, etc. NATO is about mantaining a brutally oppressive international system of exploiting the Global South for super-profits in the Imperialist countries.
Even economic solutions like de-dollarization are met with millitary aggression and coups from NATO countries.
You haven't provided an example of a "country" where the regime does the same shit as Zelensky.
Show me videos of masked ""people"" with rifles grabbing, beating and forcing people into vans to send them to the meatgrinder on a daily basis.
There are other similarly developed countries under siege with which we can compare?
Organized wartime defense is a lot more complex than kidnapping a bunch of people and sending them in the general direction of the front. That isn't how any of this works.
I know of one country that's behind the agression... And one that probably IS using such tactics, considering their battlefield results. One which could stop at any time under no threat to its own sovereignty.
I honestly cannot comprehend your failure to realize that wartime and peacetime standards of government differ more than a little, or that your understanding of the situation is superficial at best.
That goes for all of us, unless you happen to be an actual commanding officer on either side of the conflict?
So there are no similar cases and we can at least agree that atrocities being commited by Zelensky's regime are unprecedented in modern times. Well that's something already.
Oh come on, be serious please. The west supports Ukraine almost as much as it hates Russia. And yet even western medias are writing about kidnapping in Ukraine and not in Russia. If it was happening in Russia - medias would not be able to stop writing about it.
Yeah it is indeed hard for me to understand how people support me and everybody I know getting kidnapped, beaten and killed, despite us never doing anything bad to you (except of course not dying protecting your geopolitical interest).
When under attack, countries rescind the freedom and rights of a subset of its population, in order to maintain them for the rest.
In a democratic country, the laws to do that are created in advance, and the power to wield them assigned through election.
Everyone hopes they will never be necessary, but we can't be surprised that when under military invasion, they are used.
"Meatgrinder" effectively illustrates the pointlessness of war, but you are using it as if to dismiss the fact that sustaining that same "meatgrinder" is the only reason the country of Ukraine still exists.
I'm Finnish. I am watching everything that happens in Ukraine as something that might happen to my country, and to me personally. In a paralell universe, Ukraine is at peace, and we're the ones suffering a pointless "special military operation". If Putin was smart, and looked to the future, going for our lithium reserves would have made a lot more sense than the fossil fuel resources of Ukraine. (Then again, rare earth minerals are present in Ukraine, too)
And you misunderstand me. I do not want you dead. I do not want you fighting for me. I do not "support" war.
But I understand the systems and mechanisms of a nation, which maintain its existense. The standards of a peacetime government can only be so high, because maintaining them does not risk trading in the existence of the nation that is upholding them.
Should there be a trial afterwards, investigating sacrifices that were obviously pointless? Absolutely.
And is there a point where the sacrifice is no longer worth it in comparison to surrender? To this, I have no answer.
I would probably trade in my country, to see my friends and family spared. But I am a lot less certain that would result in a better world afterwards.
It absolutely would, and would be extremely better off than it is now, what are you talking about?
The reason behind a need for kidnappings is that (well, among other reasons, but that's the biggest one of course) Zelensky wanted to join NATO. NATO recently said that Ukraine will not join. So the war was pointless to such a ridiculous degree that I don't have words to express it. It led to loss of people, territories, infrastructure and everything else and gained absolutely nothing (except billions stolen by the regime and huge debt of course). It was, and still is, all Zelensky's choice.
Anyway, nothing justifies what Zelensky does. Russia is literally liberating the people under Zelensky's regime. If I stayed in Ukraine (on Zelensky controlled territory) I would be his slave and maybe already dead. If I was on territory liberated by Russia on the other hand - I would be no less free than I was before/am now. What you are describing as "being 'conquered' by Russia" is absolutely a preferential scenario to living under Zelensky's regime (supported by "free and democratic" "world") that is going to kill you.
That is a discussion with no resolution. Like I said, I don't know where the point is, when sacrifice become worse than surrender.
Particularly because both are unknowable quantities.
You seem to consider the matter from a purely personal perspective, which is perfectly valid, but will of course result in different conclusions than someone who cares about what changes it would mean for society, and the state of the world. And you obviously view Russia a lot more favorably than I do. I'm not interested in changing your mind there.
For what it's worth, I don't think the western world should tolerate any of this. I think Ukraine should have been admitted into NATO, immediately, and for article 5 to have been retroactively shoved up Putin's ass before this ever got out of hand.
I think, that in similar fashion to Russia, the western world has the power to end the conflict tomorrow, and is failing to do so.
So maybe the people that are actually affected should be able decide that (as opposed to a single dictator with western support)? Currently, thanks to western support of Zelensky, the only way people can "decide" anything is by doing a violent revolution against the regime, which would not have a good chance of success due to weapon supplies to Zelensky's regime. Or by individually resisting/killing "draft "officers"" and bombing ""recruitment centers"".. Which people already do but on a small scale so it doesn't change the big picture...
What do you mean exactly here? I left Ukraine before the war started, so from "personal perspective" I am actually safe (unless Zelensky manages to convince other countries to send back his cannon fodder..). I am considering this from the perspective of people (among whom my family and friends) who still live under Zelensky's regime. Who are nothing more than slaves, cannon fodder for Zelensky and his supporters.
FWIW I don't consider Russia a good/bad country. I only speak of it in comparison to Ukraine, where it is objectively better and more free.
Let me put it like this.
You are offended by a leader that sends his people to die in defense. As you should be. Such a thing is horrifying.
What I do not understand, is your preference for a leader guilty of the very same crime, but for the difference that he sends people to die, in offense.
If Ukraine surrenders, this will all happen again the next time Putin would like some more territory.
And then, you and the people you care about, would be subject to the very same danger that current citizens of russia are. If not even moreso.
Why would Putin sacrifice from his pools of supporters, when he can conscript from newly conquered territory, amassing a force to take the next slice of Europe that tickles his fancy?
Maybe you'll be sent to fight us finns?
Do you see a difference between people being kidnapped off the streets and sent to die (Ukraine) and people being paid to join the army (Russia) (basically just a high risk job)?
I don't know why are you even comparing those two scenarios...
This is a speculation.
What is this danger? Tell me more about it. Is it the danger of being able to leave the country at any moment? Is it the danger of not being kidnapped off the street and instead being offered a voluntary contract to join army?
Russia has mandatory military conscription. If they want to send you to war, they can, and will, paid or unpaid. Is this news to you? The laws are in place, but Putin is avoiding them for fear of national backlash.
Do you think the country would go into uproar if he used those laws on the people who fought back for three years? I'm not sure it would even if he pulled it on his own people. Not for a while at least.
The difference, is population size. Putin is allowing it to be voluntary, because he can still afford to (he actually can't, and russias economy is eating itself alive to be able to keep paying fighters more and more, as normal jobs have to pay more and more, due to labour shortages as more and more working age adults are lost to the war... It's a vicious cycle that's going to culminate in involuntary conscription being the only option left to keep invading).
But Russia can, has, and I am absolutely certain, will, send people to die against their will.
And it is "happening again" right now. Last time, it was Georgia.
Why this would be news to me, and how is this relevant to out conversation? In Ukraine people are forbidden to leave the country so that they can be kidnapped off the streets and used as cannon fodder. In Russia neither is happening.
Yeah western medias are talking for three years now about an imminent economic collapse of Russia and every time it doesn't happen, but instead it becomes a fourth largest economy in the world...
See, you are speaking speculation again (which might or might not happen, I don't know, I can't see the future). While I am telling you facts (about closed borders, kidnappings, etc. that do happen in Ukraine but not in Russia).
Speculation again.
What exactly happened in Georgia? Russia helped South Ossetia become independent of Georgia, and did not conquer Georgia (which is apparently the goal of an evil Putin who dreams about conquring the world, accorsing to western media) despite its army being a striking distance away from the capital?
I going to stop trying. I can see I'm not going to succeed in changing your mind. You're holding on tight to some stuff that's completely immaterial, and I won't be able to show you what you actively refuse to see.
Just think about what I've said. Maybe look some stuff up. Especially when it comes to conditions in russia, and how Putin is bending over backwards to keep the invasion going.
Look into the weapons deals with North Korea, for example.
You are trying to tell me that it's good (or at least justifiable/normal) that Zelensky wants to murder me, my friends my family and several million other people who happened to be born in Ukraine. Obviously you are not going to change my mind :/
What stuff are you suggesting me to loop up? While I personally never visited Russia, I have close friends from Russia, several others who visited it, so I know from "first-hand" sources what's it like there.. (More or less the same shithole as Ukraine, but without kidnapping and with ability to leave)
Good? No.
Normal? Absolutely not.
Justifiable? Arguably.
The way it's actually happening? I don't even know. You didn't initially comment on that or the posted article, you commented on the general ability of a leader being able to send citizens to fight.
As horrifying as it is, and as someone who lives in a country where that question could become very relevant very suddenly, I think you're wrong. The conclusion I came to, is that the ability for a nations government to "trade in" the few to save the many, is not optional, if continued long-term existence is desired.
You're free to disagree on where the line for where that price is too great to pay in comparison to surrender, and you surely know better than I do where it is for Ukraine.
But it does exist. Countries the world over give their leaders the power to wield their human populations as a shield against threats. There is absolutely nothing unusual about that gruesome reality.
As for what I'm suggesting you look into, that would be the stuff you don't get to see from a first-hand perspective. Statistics, large scale policy, international relations, industry and economic trends.
You got out. You made your decision. You were able to decide to begin with. A lot of people don't have that option, and that means someone is making decisions for them. I'm not saying that's a good thing.
But AGAIN, democracy is not a tenable ideal in wartime.
It is a peacetime luxury, often flawed in implementation even then. Frequently too far away from a meritocracy to function efficiently.
You keep bringing it up as if there's some kind of hypocrisy happening, because you see "democratic" people supporting dictatorship.
But decisionmaking during wartime isn't something you can just "call a vote" on. Democracy doesn't work under siege. That's the whole reason basically every democratic government has the alternate operating mode of martial law, complete with legal systems written up a ready to go.
By personal perspective, I mean exactly that which you are talking about. You, what your situation would be like if you were still there, what it is like right now for the people you care about personally.
Like I said, I would probably trade in my country for those same people, too.
But I'm not sure I could live with it. I care about other things, many of which being a subject of the current Russian state would make it dangerous for me to care about.