They're also recruiting from prisons and promising freedom afterwards, right? That probably doesn't help.
Where's the harm in taking violent criminals, giving them a year of practice doing war crimes, traumatize them up a bit, and then releasing them into civilized society?
See, it's all planned, because they then arrest the criminals and ship them right back to the front! So efficient!
Circular economy ♻️
And they even had their training beforehand. Murder, conviction, battlefield. What would that take, half a week?
See? This is why the Sardukar were retired to compounds.
The horror of the Sardukar was in how a state leader could transform dissidents and derelicts (the product of the emperor's own repugnant domestic policies) into a tool of command and control.
The horror of the Freman was in how a state leader could transform the desire for liberty and sovereignty into an empire-spanning blood drenched jihad.
Apply this to Russia/Ukraine (or Israel/Palestine or Ethiopia/Tigrey or North/South Sudan) and you see a host of disturbing parallels.
The longer and deeper the trauma of these conflicts, the more local people abandon their humanity in pursuit of victory.
I thought that's for Wagner only.
No, it's common practice now, not just for those who has been imprisoned for years but for fresh convicts too - they are offered draft instead of imprisonment right after conviction.
Even before conviction!
after wagner was dismantled in all but name (prigozhin was taken out eight months ago, can you believe that? time flies) the same deal was offered by russian army in form of Storm-Z battalions (it's a real name, i couldn't make it up if i tried). another low-quality type of units are BARS which is kinda, sorta like territorial defense units but it seems to me that they're mostly football ultras and other menace that society at large wouldn't miss
Pfffft.... Yet another sign of the Russian economy booming!
The murder economy
The sanctions are not working! 😡
(also, please stop the sanctions 🥺)
Russia is increasingly a resource tank for the Chinese economy. So long as the Chinese economy remains hungry for natural resources, Russia will be fine.
It's that capitalist policy of murders and acquisitions.
Hardened criminals are freely walking around Moscow, but that's okay because Ukraine is apparently the place of origin of the Russian people.
Same reason why Mussolini's invasion of Greece was totally justified. Aeneas was the progenitor of the Roman people? I guess Greece is the original homeland of Italians.
Ukraine is the rightful successor to the Kyjivan Rus' and the Soviet Union, therefore they should get the UN permanent member seat and all of the former USSR's belongings, including Moscow. Do I get a medal now?
This is fine, but only if we stop pretending the UK is an independent country and just fold it back in with the US
UM AKTUALLY MOMENT:
Aeneas was Anatolian, so the rumble should've happened with Turkiye.
Who would have thought the murders you sent to commit war crimes in Ukraine would come back missing pieces but still willing to commit war crimes in your home cities.
Well, I don't think they were planning for them to come back at all.
Who would have known that giving your convicted murderers guns and letting them loose on a battlefield with zero accountability for the war crimes they commit and then release the survivors in your cities with zero transition whatsoever isn't an effective way to rehabilitate them?
It takes 3 generations for a population to recuperate from the psychological and sociological consequences of a war.
Does that recuperation compound exponentially? Asking for an American friend.
Was "recuperation" wrong? English is not my first language.
It’s correct. But, I’m an American, and still recuperating from all the trauma. Sometimes, when things get quiet, I sit and think of all the deaths from wars committed for my benefit, and it makes me sad. 😞
You're right, the other poster is a Kremlin shill trying to distract from the Kremlin's barbaric war with "whataboutism"
Turns out when you send conscripted criminals to war you get back tactically trained war criminals.
russia is completely fucked and I think the world might be better off that way.
unfortunately when a giant drops dead, its falling corpse can still do a lot of damage
That's a neat phrase. Did you come up with it?
Their dad was a giant, it was traumatic, they don't like talking about it.
Power vacuums and breakaway republics forming from the decaying corpse of an empire with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons is probably not going to leave the world better off.
I guarantee that in the event of a Russian implosion the US and China will swoop in to secure nuclear assets. China especially because they want Russian land for mining.
Ah sure, like last time
This is completely different scenario from the 90s.
China wants a nice hunk of Siberia. What better way to achieve that goal than "securing WMDs"?
This isn't a movie where there is a definitive implosion moment when foreign powers will able to just waltz in and "secure" their mass stockpile of nuclear weapons, or all of their ICBM silos.
This is a massive country with a distributed nuclear triad who's capabilities are meant to withstand a first strike, and still be able to absorb a few more rounds of nuclear armageddon.
Guess again on how that scenario of foreign powers invading to capture their nuclear weapons would unfold.
That's the perspective for the after-Putin era. It won't affect his reign
They are fucking animals when out there. Killing and raping anything they want to just for shits. No wonder some of that stays inside of their underdeveloped brains after.
Not unique to Russia. Armed forces folks the world over are groomed to act like this.
Check out the surging rate of domestic abuse in Israel following Oct 7th.
And sexual assault in the US military (particularly the "elite" JSOC units) climbs with every new surge in deployment abroad.
Drug use, PTSD, high rates of bankruptcy and divorce and homelessness, all common to the military occupation.
Just another reason why War Is Bad.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The number of Russian soldiers committing murder after returning home from the frontline have soared over the past few years amid “chronic mental health” issues linked to serving on the battlefield.
The UK Ministry of Defence said the high number of homicides was likely due to “war-related chronic mental health issues” and the release of thousands of ex-convicts pardoned for their participation in the war.
“The high numbers of homicides by serving and veteran Russian soldiers are likely in part due to enduring war-related chronic poor mental health issues,” the MoD said.
When the mass recruitment of Russian prisoners started in the summer of 2022 it was led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, once the head of the Wagner private military group.
Prisoners - who serve in the “Storm-Z” unit - were offered a clean record, full pardon and allowed to go home after six months on the battlefield.
The Russian military took over the scheme in February 2023 and clamped down on the practice, removing the right to a pardon and ensuring prisoners fought to the end of the war.
The original article contains 394 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 55%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Same will happen to IDF soldiers, not sure if Israel is prepared for that.
Israeli soldiers are not recruited from prisons like in Russia
Look up hilltop youth.
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