So Russia is doing a draft, but aren’t they running out of military hardware since so much has been destroyed? I don’t know a ton about militaries but wouldn’t artillery make short work of infantry with no real equipment or backup?
Or is the plan to more put soldiers in civilian areas and just wait out the war?
One theory I’ve heard is that Putin is drafting his political opposition into the war so that he can cement his rule at home. I guess this would explain why people who protest the war are being drafted.
It looks like many are making their feelings known about Putin’s war with their feet. How do you say FTS in Russian?
I also am scratching my head over this. Besides the lack of equipment and poor logistics in place to supply 300,000 more men on the battlefield, I am sure the professional soldiers of the Russian army loathe the idea of having a bunch of soft, unwilling suburbanites extracted from their cubicles to come fight with them, even if they have had some training in the past. What can go wrong there? SMH
I think you may be right about flooding the area with more Russians to wait for winter. They may put these new recruits to work on mundane chores like digging trenches, while more seasoned troops get freed to do more important things. Of course, the new troops may just be put in place as cannon fodder - that’s another way to get rid of political rivals.
That’s what I was wondering. Get a few hundred thousand or even a million guys all together in the same place, say just north of Kiev (yes, technically Belarus but that probably doesn’t matter). Give them all AK-47s and whatever else Russia can scrounge up and tell them to march towards Kiev until they get there or die along the way. Use their Air Force, which they’ve mostly held back, for air cover, and to hell with it if they lose large numbers of jets. Throw everything into one giant push, because it’s clear Russia isn’t going to win with their current strategy. Putin just might be crazy enough to try it, and I wonder if such a plan could actually succeed.
You either need really motivated or really terrified troops to make a human wave assault work. None of the regular Russian army seems very motivated, let alone troops suddenly dragged from their lives and thrown into uniform. The only motivation then is being threatened with death by their own army. This only works until the unwilling recruits get a chance to desert or surrender.
They can replace anyone who is more experienced in the rear areas, so they can be sent to the front. Other than that it is just more of Russia fighting the war poorly. It is always surprising when they make these moves but maybe it shouldn’t be by now.
I don’t think the soldiers would comply with a human wave like in Korea or the Iran-Iraq war. I doubt it is even on the table. But, nothing the Russians have done has worked so far, and nobody can really predict the outcome of this conflict or what the leadership of Russia will attempt
It is mostly a call up of reservists. But their reservists are guys that havent trained in a decade, they arent like the US army reserve as far as I know
Compulsary service meaning their required active duty stint and now they’ve been subjected to call-up during their required time in the reserves? Any way you parse it, it’s still a crap deal for them, all because Putin decided he really, truly, wants to be Czar.
Despite government assurances only those with military service background will be drafted, multiple reports are emerging of draft papers being sent to people with no prior military experience.
Hard to know what to believe at this point, but I take it average Russians don’t really want to do this.
But again wouldn’t artillery make short work of an assault like that, unless the assaulters hid behind human shields? Again I’m not a military expert but I thought that artillery killed or disabled any person with a 50 meter radius. A human wave seems like it’d be bombarded.
I mean look what happened in Afghanistan with unmotivated soldiers. Whats the end goal here?
It seems that the number of Russians reservists who are American-style weekend warriors is quite low – but not zero. And I have a strong suspicion those being called up were in the military much more recently than ten years ago.
So – what can they can accomp!ish? They can kill more Ukrainians, and then turn their loved ones into widows and orphans.
I am really not an expert but as I understand it, the conscripted Russian men are not trained soldiers, they are former soldiers. The purpose would be to hold on to territory already held by Russia in the Donestk and Luhansk Republics, and Crimea. Edit: For sure, some are completely untrained teenagers. If anyone knows better please correct me, I believe that this call-up is for men with military experience
I’d question that. Putin wants to stay in power and he’s aware that the useless loss of troops in Afghanistan was one of the main causes the Soviet regime was overthrown (and the useless loss of troops in World War I was one of the main causes the Tsarist regime was overthrown).
I think Putin realizes he’s lost the war in Ukraine. What he’s doing now is damage control. He wants to make it look to the Russian people like he’s accomplished something. Or at least make it look like he’s the best chance the Russia people have to avoid something worse.