this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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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.