There will be no discernable difference. Russia already occupied these regions, considered it their land, and staffed and coordinated with the local militias. Rubber stamping some paperwork that no one else in the world recognizes makes no difference. It is a tactic a loser does to save face amongst his friends while everyone else sniggers.
Russia is all out of non-blacked eyes. They exposed themselves as a hot mess when they drove their invasion force down the main road and got their asses handed to them by a much smaller country.
With what force? The old men they just called up and gave a day’s training and an AK? They aren’t going to be capable of launching any kind of offensive. The experienced soldiers left are exhausted, and equipment is running low. Ukraine forces have seriously limited Russia’s logistical capability to reinforce and supply them.
It appears to me that Putin knows this. His mobilization troops are going to be piled into the Donbas as a defense while he frantically tries to consolidate territory and complete the preparations for declaring it all part of Russia. Then he’ll announce the ‘special operation’ to be over, and threaten nukes if Ukraine tries to take back its territory, which Putin will declare is an attack on Russia itself.
It’s not likely to work, but it may be the last card he really has to play.
It’s from an obscure 1988 movie called Moon over Parador. I guess it shows that no matter who you vote for in a dictatorship, the dictator wins. Yeah, I had to look it up.
It’d be even more cool if this poor schmuck hadn’t been forced (at gunpoint?) to debase himself on camera. That video is some seriously uncivilized shit.
More and more it’s getting harder to do things in secret these days. If it’s not your cellphone blabbing where you are it’s those pesky geologists picking up your carefully planted sabotage explosions.
Given the reports of Russian vessels in the near vicinity of the leak areas prior to said leak the evidence is leaning heavily towards Russia.
It wasn’t the Ukrainians - they don’t have naval capacity, or a navy.
I realize your favorite team in this conflict likes to think everyone is vitality dependent on them for their fuel needs but it just ain’t so. Russia might have been convenient and lower cost for a period of time, but they are NOT the only option. Nice job just asking questions.
Also, you used “barrier troop” improperly there - it’s not a group to inconvenience those on the front line, it’s a group there to kill anyone who doesn’t toe the line. This is inconvenient, but it’s not fatal.
I believe that in addition to “no retreat” they’ve been ordered “no surrender” - in essence, they’ve been ordered to fight to the death. I doubt that will actually happen the way Putin wants it to. Either he seriously over estimates the loyalty he inspires or he thinks he can terrify people into dying for his cause.
Interesting that these people (assuming the translation is correct) are openly calling the “special military operation” an actual war.
A part of me wonders if the calling up of so many unsuitable for combat men is deliberate, a way of internal “cleansing” of the population. That, along with the numbers of ethnic minorities winding up on the front lines, makes me wonder if the loyalists and their families are being spared, and the ethnic Russians to some degree as well.
Voting at the point of a gun is NOT voting.
Also, many videos of the ballot counting shows that many of those ballots are blank, not even marked. Again, that’s not voting.
There is a distinct difference between saying those militias are under direct control and them actually being under direct control.
Also - not at all impressed with how the Russian forces have been commanded in the field. Those Donbas militias might remain more effective under local control than under the ever-changing revolving door generals of the Russian military. Except, of course, those militias under local control might not be as loyal as the tsar Vladimir Putin would wish.
Followed shortly by a fall out of one of those dangerous windows on the upper floor of a building, or an accident while smoking…
No salary or perks are worth it if you don’t live long enough to enjoy them.
Just a suggestion - sometimes quality is better than quantity.
So… you are coming out completely in favor of Russia forcibly taking and assimilating someone else’s territory? Wow.
A black eye? We’re lurching closer to WWIII and Russia muttering about the use of nukes isn’t helping one bit. A day may come we may all wish it had only been a black eye for Russia, and that includes Russia.
Why the hell are you arguing that Russia should take MORE territory?
It is highly doubtful that Dontesk “wants” to be part of Russia. Once again - voting at the point of a gun is not voting. Now you’re saying these other parts of Dontesk which weren’t even given a sham vote are now automatically part of Russia?
No, Russia does not “have to” take anymore more territory. They didn’t have to take ANY territory. They didn’t have to start this war. Putin and the Kremlin are absolutely doing this entirely of their own volition.
YAY! Go Ukraine! слава україні!
Russia is rapidly becoming a laughing stock. Their Black Sea Fleet was sunk by a nation that doesn’t even have a navy! Their military would be a joke except there’s nothing funny about people being sent to a battle front with no training, rusty guns, lack of food and warm clothing, sending uninformed troops into the freaking Red Forest of Chernobyl to dig trenches, drafting old men, and feeding ethnic minorities into a meat grinder.
You are, of course, free to be a Putin apologist here (I’ll just note that your hero Putin does not permit that sort of minority view in his country) but I’m also free to mention that you are backing the wrong team.
so it’s safe to say, they will be even less effective, then?
I think that is fairly evident by now … what the USA should be doing now is stirring the pot in those “abused” regions and drum up local problems/uprising/revolt there … worst case that minor fire needs to be put out (=resources!) … best case: you get a real movement going …
It would be really interesting to see the first russian “senior administrative” being dragged through the streets of xyzstan, Ceauscescou style …
ETA: might be one of those regions w/ high muslim population - there seems to be the smell of revolution (uprising in Iran!) in the air.
I disagree, I think many of them would love to retire. They just don’t expect to - either the Ukrainian’s get them on the battlefield, or Putin gets them for disloyalty.
Sending all the men of a city off to a distant front isn’t mobilization, it’s potentially genocide. A convenient way of stripping the men from a predominantly Muslim area? Maybe.
Interestingly using seismology to monitor explosives and more specifically nuclear testing goes back over 35 years. A couple of my friends were research scientists involved in that back in the day.