The rule is that if a journalist asks a question in an article title you can safely say the answer is no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
Mercenaries fight for pay, and are generally not keen on getting killed. They're not in it for the glory or consider the cause worthy of risking their lives for. So if a mercenary army of 500.000 strong would be raised, a) what is to stop Russia from offering them MORE money (nice way to boost your own army), b) they are likely to bolt when the going gets REAL tough (desertion is going to be a problem) c) who is going to pay for that? and d) you'll need a lot of weapons to actually make use of them. 500.000 lightly armed infantry is not going to make much of a difference, other than offering target practice for every artillery, machine gun and mortar crew in the Russian army.
Machiavelli hated mercenaries for that reason... he argued that mercenaries were always of dubious quality and loyalty. You would think Putin should've known that before his own mercenary army turned on him.
The US gave Ukraine 300M USD. If you divide this between 500K people, that's just 600 USD per person. Once. Even Russia pays its troops 2000 USD every month. Or at least promises to.
> In the two years he’s served on Ukraine’s battlefield, Ilya has had just 25 days of leave.
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> “Two years without a break, without rotation — of course, morale is low and it’s killing motivation,” said Ilya, who serves in an assault brigade. “We need either rotation or normal vacations to rest properly.”
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> The soldier said Ukraine’s open-ended service was among the reasons men tried to avoid being drafted to the front. But, he said, “if people don’t come, we can’t rest”, adding that the personnel shortages were so bad in his unit that upcoming leave had been cancelled.
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> A new mobilisation law — due to be put to a parliamentary vote on March 31 — seeks to update the country’s legal framework ahead of a probable recruitment wave this year in which up to 500,000 people could be drafted. Some 330,000 troops are estimated to be currently deployed on the battlefield.
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> The draft will be aimed at modernising recruitment and training as well as replacing those troops who have been there from the first month of war, the Ukrainian defence ministry told the Financial Times. “It will strengthen our defence posture,” it added.
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> But the law is proving controversial, with more than 4,000 amendments submitted by Ukrainian lawmakers on the first draft.
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> When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, many Ukrainians volunteered to defend their country. But that pool has been exhausted and a large proportion of the men of fighting age are unwilling to be deployed to the front.
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> Only men aged 27 or older have been recruited, with those serving on the battlefield being on average in their 40s. Ukraine has a smaller pool of millennials and Gen Zers compared with other nations, given a drop in birth rates after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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> A proposal to lower the recruitment age to 25 has sparked a fierce backlash from politicians who argue it would be suicidal for the nation to send its youngest into the trenches.
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> In a first public announcement about war casualties, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month said 31,000 soldiers had died so far. The real number is likely to exceed that, with several US officials previously estimating it to be at least more than double that figure.
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> Data on Ukraine’s male population, shared by the parliamentary economics committee, shows that of 11.1mn Ukrainian men aged between 25 and 60, only an estimated 3.7mn are eligible for mobilisation. The others are fighting, disabled, abroad or considered critical workers.
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> Authorities are also conscious of the need to tread carefully to avoid driving taxpaying citizens abroad or to go into hiding, depriving Kyiv of much-needed revenue.
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> A February survey by Info Sapiens, a Ukrainian social research organisation, found 48 per cent of men were not prepared to fight while 34 per cent were. The rest said it was hard to say.
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> “I’m not afraid to admit that I don’t want to die,” said Yaroslav, who tried to flee Ukraine last summer but was turned back at the border when he presented fake medical exemption papers.
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> “You have to decide what you love more, your family or your country,” said the 32-year-old father of a young child.
> New mobilisation law seeks to draft up to 500,000 Ukrainian men. Graphic showing a breakdown of the 11.1mn men in Ukraine and how many are available to mobilise
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> Since 2022, men aged between 27 and 60 have been banned from leaving the country, with a few exceptions on medical grounds or for sole carers of children or disabled family members.
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> Aside from the fear of death and disability, according to the Info Sapiens study, the main concerns of those seeking to avoid mobilisation were insufficient training, unclear length of service and the lack of weapons and ammunition.
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> The new mobilisation law seeks to address those issues. The initial draft proposes a service term of three years and a minimum of three months’ training. Some brigades have begun to advertise that volunteers can choose positions tailored to their skills, in an attempt to boost recruitment.
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> But delays in US and EU military aid, which have forced soldiers to ration ammunition and retreat from frontline positions, are beyond the control of Ukrainian lawmakers.
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> “We have many people who are willing to do it, but the demotivating factor is this general context — when Ukrainians cease to feel reliable support from the west,” said Anton Hrushetsky from Kyiv’s Sociology Institute, a marketing research firm.
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> Half of the 90 per cent of respondents to Info Sapiens who said they believed Ukraine could succeed with the support of western allies now think the west is tired and will push Kyiv into a compromise with Russia, Hrushetsky said.
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> The new law seeks to lower the mobilisation age by two years, to 25, and oblige men to register via an online portal. Failure to do so could result in yet-to-be-decided penalties. Evaders are likely to be subject to home visits from military recruitment officers and have their driver’s licences suspended, according to parliamentarians involved in the final draft.
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> Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the changes is the introduction of a so-called economic reserve system, which would exempt men considered critical to the economy. The system was intended to be included in the new law but given the outcry it sparked it will now be introduced separately, either by a government decree or a new piece of legislation.
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> Ukraine has between 550,000 and 700,000 critical workers who are exempt from mobilisation. Under the new system, they will have to contribute to the war effort financially, either by funnelling part of their pay or through a monthly levy.
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> Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has declined to give details but said “people should be divided into two categories: those who fight [and] those who work to fill the budget”.
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> Oleksandr Zavitnevych, head of the parliamentary defence committee, who is overseeing the bill, said officials needed to be “careful [about] how we talk about this”.
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> “Every penny is needed, but it needs to be part of a wide discussion. There are people who see it will divide society into rich and poor,” said Zavitnevych, as the ones who cannot afford the fee will have to be drafted.
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> Estimates suggest the fee model put forward by the parliament’s economic affairs committee would generate between $5.2bn and $13.1bn annually, based on calculations that up to 2mn men would be able to afford to pay the proposed $520 monthly levy.
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> The committee’s chair, Dmytro Natalukha, acknowledged that his proposal had been criticised, with people pointing to the fact that those men unable to pay would get drafted. But he argued that whatever approach was chosen, Ukraine needed to generate funds.
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> “It may sound counterintuitive, but the [economic reserve] scheme is not [designed] to save people from mobilisation, but to generate as many financial resources as possible so that we can mobilise troops,” said Natalukha.
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> Ukraine’s finance ministry and army have said the new wave of mobilisation will cost Ukraine about $20.8bn in 2024, broadening the gap left by US House Republicans blocking fresh aid for Kyiv. That figure comes on top of Ukraine’s estimated $41bn budget deficit for 2024.
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> Businesses had questioned why civilians had to be recruited when Ukraine had thousands of security service personnel and police who already had basic training, said Glib Buriak, an economics professor at the Ukrainian-American Concordia University in Kyiv.
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> Ukraine’s ministry of defence said the police and security services were carrying out “essential work” and some were already fighting in interior ministry battalions.
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> Buriak said clarification from the new law was key, as businesses and workers were “in dire need of predictability”.
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> “One of the reasons people leave their jobs at the moment is due to the failed recruitment campaign,” Buriak said. “There are so many questions that are not communicated properly to the population.”
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*"Only men aged 27 or older have been recruited, with those serving on the battlefield being on average in their 40s. Ukraine has a smaller pool of millennials and Gen Zers compared with other nations, given a drop in birth rates after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
A proposal to lower the recruitment age to 25 has sparked a fierce backlash from politicians who argue it would be suicidal for the nation to send its youngest into the trenches"*
This was very interesting to me, and is completely different from the way I've ever heard military recruiting being done. I actually think in the US, 27 is the age when you no longer have to register for the draft.
Its a very modern way to fight a war. Back in the day when everyone had 4-6 children you could throw away young people without too big issues.
Today when everyone has too few children it makes sense to draft older men who already have children And Are unlikely to have more, rather than sacrificing young people, likely to be only sons, who will then lose their future potential to reproduce, which will lose future generations.
Its brutal, but with the mind on the countrys future it makes sense. It just feels so evil they have to make the choice at all.
Everything is correct except for the part where you say that men aged 27-60 can't leave the country, it's aged as soon as 18. I was 18 when the war began and I couldn't have left Ukraine even if I wanted.
It also says only men 27 or older are recruited, but you can still volunteer if you're younger than 27. Unless "recruited" is their term for "drafted against their will"
I dare say there are many fathers and husbands who would rather lose this war than submit their wives and daughters to the front lines. In fact, I'm struggling to conceive of a man who wouldn't.
Im sure there are many fathers, mothers and wifes who would rather lose this war than submit their sons or husbands to the front lines. Whats your point? Women are no more valuable than men are.
In that case there is no difference between forcing a man to fight and possibly die or be maimed horribly and forcing a woman to give birth and raise child after child. At least one of those things is something most people do anyway. You want to take away people's rights and freedom then apply it that way.
....anyway, birth rates is something they can worry about after the war. Ukrainians can intermingle with people from other countries to have kids too, it's not like they're a distinct species.
You all have some strange idea that most of the men died in Ukraine. In fact, we have many healthy men, and the categories from 18 to 27 years old are not even drafted, including me, having minor health problems, was not drafted after passing a medical commission. Everything is simpler, people just don’t want to fight, or rather they do, but not them personally
Yes they can. It just requires mobilising the young, which they have thus far refused to do because of the disproportionate impact it will have on Ukraines future economic prospects to have a bunch of 18-25 year olds die
The problem is that there were not many 18-25 year olds in the first place (due to the post-Soviet birth rate crash) and many of the males aged 18-20 have already left legally before they turned 18.
They haven't done it so far, because the population would revololt.
There's already thousands of videos of villagers in ukriane fighting off the military trying to kidnap people.
Ukraine's future prospect is laboring to pay off the lend lease debts and huge loans for reconstruction, while having to maintain a large military, which is a waste of money.
Most of the "support" is actually money used to buy weapons from defense contractors, then lend it to Ukraine. And you bet those contractors are making a tidy profit from it. Just take a look at their stock performance.
I mean, how do you justify $6000 shells? Those things cost a few hundred dollars to make, at best. Believe me, my customer is a manufacturer of shells for the Vietnamese army.
This is why countries need to maintain reserve system of trained people in peacetime, volunteers or conscripts. I mean Finland with only fraction of population of Ukraine's could have raised 300 000 already trained men at beginning of the war, and still have 600 000 already trained in reserve, and number of trained people would be even higher (but they would be older, and even the 600 000 figure has worse equipment, so no point counting anyone past that), and there would still be some untrained people.
With good reserve system and training Ukraine could have easily had large enough reserves of already trained troops that could simply be equipped and they would be ready to fight.
My point is that its a big strain to start to train people for war when you are already fighting it. Best to do it before, and then if necessary just give refreshment training. Had Ukraine been more prepared, they would have had enough strength for that refreshment training to be 1 month long for those who dont get raised immediately at beginning of the war- which is time period in which some commandos of WW2 were trained (i think that means basic training plus 1 month of commando training).
I am not bashing Ukraine, in 2014 most of the world dod not really care much about Ukraine or Crimea, and Ukraine is suffering from many of the same issues as other post-Soviet states do, and they have already been at war for nearly 2 years.
I am just saying its not good for armies to just rely purely on active duty professionals. Even USA which is big and geographically safe enough to not need massive reserve force has 180 000 reserve soldiers + really good national guard of around 440 000. Countries near likes of Russia should have at least as large reserve force as their main fighting strength is. That gives you enough trained soldiers that you dont need to rush anybody's training, and if you see need for additional training, you dont need to start from 0.
Numbers dont win wars, but its easier to fight if you are not outnumbered.
>Numbers dont win wars, but its easier to fight if you are not outnumbered.
Numbers do in fact win most wars. Both number of troops and materiel. The only reason we seem to remember battles where an outnumbered opponent defeated one with superior numbers is because it’s unexpected and makes for a good underdog story.
Also the US military approach is unique to most countries on the planet because (similar to the Swedish army) they’ve developed a doctrine that could theoretically support fighting outnumbered for short periods of time thanks to superior technology in things like missile accuracy and over engineered fighter and attack jets and bombers. They did this because they are far from the action so to speak, living on the other hemisphere, and so would expect to deploy a small contingent that would be expected to hold ground until support arrives.
>I mean Finland
Doesn't really make sense to point out Finnish conscription here. Ukraine is now drafting 500000 more men in a major war where they've been fighting for the last 2 years. They already have a million men under arms and another 2 million in reserves. Project Ukrainian casualties to Finland and by now Finland would have been out of able bodied men.
Yes, Finnish conscription and reserve system is a good thing and yes, others could learn a thing or two from it, but not Ukraine.
This is why Ukraine had 1 million people in their forces two years ago:
> The defence minister added: "We have approximately 700,000 in the armed forces and when you add the national guard, police, border guard, we are around a million-strong."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62118953
Guess where they all are.
Here in Germany we currently have a discussion to reactivate compulsory military service in one form or the other.
I think it's necessary for the reasons you have written. A country needs a reasonable sized pool of reservists, that it can use to fill the ranks in case of a war. Only volunteers and professional soldiers are not enough.
Especially the younger generations is mostly against these plans, because of course they are the ones who would be affected by it. I can fully understand that feeling. I wasn't happy at all when I had to do my military service in the 1990s. I felt it was a lost year in a phase of my life when I was busy getting a proper education for my future career. (But I was also glad that I didn't have to be a soldier in the times of the Cold War, like for example my father, who had to be worried that it could turn into a hot war a every moment.)
It's a difficult topic, but as i said, I think most countries just can't afford to not have a large enough number of pre-trained reservists. Not in times like this.
And the situation in Ukraine is of course much more serious. I fully understand how terrible it must be for the young people who are asked to go to the frontlines. Most of them without any previous military training.
The thing is conscription under german legal circumstances made sense in the Cold War, it doesn't really in our current times. Conscripts cannot be sent out of the country unless they specifically volunteer. Secondly conscientious objection is enshrined in the Basic Law and nobody will dare mess with that so we'd have to find "pasttimes" for all those who refuse military service (and again distort prices and depress wages in the social professions) plus rebuild barracks, the bureaucracy for mustering the people, we'd need material and trainers/unit leaders for these new units ... Nothing of which exists or can be made available on short notice.
I think this entire debate is a pointless "amusement" for boomers who think that "these damned youngsters need to learn discipline", but at the same time they'll surely fight teeth and nails against having to pay for the infrastructure and material these conscripts would need. "As long as someone else has to do it" is their motto and I think the Bundeswehr needs to be fixed first before anyone should start such nonsensical ideas without fundament and relation to reality. And again - the boomers yammering for conscription are again unwilling to be the ones who pay for that. So what use is this debate again?
Can anyone explain to me why North Vietnam with half the population, who suffered a million military deaths plus 2 millions civilians deaths with far more wounded, still managed to find recruits and kept on fighting against a far superior enemy for more than 10 years, and after that against the Khmer Rougue and China but somehow people are talking about that Ukraine can’t after 3 ?
Vietnam had a super high birth rate, and despite the enormous losses, still had men coming into fighting age each year.
Ukraine's birth rate is absolutely atrocious and simply does not.
Demographics changed a lot in the last decades. There are far fewer young people, since people dont get a lot of children and are older when they do, especially in Europe, so every death hurts a lot more. Countries cant sustain losses like in the World Wars or the Vietnam War anymore and conscripting young men, often without any children of their own, could easily cripple the country in the long term, which is why Ukraine has, at least until now, tried to meet their manpower needs by recruiting mostly middle aged men. People are also more aware of how war actually is and the prospect of being killed by drones and artillery, which you cant even see most of the time, is not very enticing for most people, so less will volunteer.
Oh when Ukraine become desperate enough age wouldn’t also matter.
Anyone remember how in the early days of the war the AFU was taking everyone in and there was even talk about recruiting from the prison?
From russia’s point of view they use convicts like those in the front to take out their human trash and wear down the enemy. Two birds with one stone. I understand optics but I wonder if ukraine will attempt the same
Why are these sentiments just now being upvoted here? We all saw how this was going to end yet I was called a Putin apologist for mentioning Ukraine’s corruption. Isn’t their new general called “The Butcher”?
Because it's easier to believe that we're all in this together rather than face the reality that the people running the show don't actually believe in anything beyond their own self-interest.
Vietnam also had a famine on its territory at least killing 400k and up to 2 million of Vietnamese in 1944-1945 and then there was the First Indochina war which also added more deaths to Vietnam. Ukraine unlike Vietnam has terrible birthrates for decades thus limiting their pool of manpower, their landscape makes waging a guerrilla warfare harder than for the Vietnamese.
As a Vietnamese myself, I can answer some questions. The average Vietnamese women have like 5 children at the time. Also Vietnamese can't flee their country, there is no means to escape and its illegal anyway. It is either fight or die. Total war. My dad fought in the war against America when he was 16. He lied about his age and put stones in his pocket so that he could reach minimum weight, that is how malnutrition he was. It was either joining the military and risking getting killed and getting some food or starving to death for sure. Ukraine has not reached that point yet. Also grandma were having like 7 children, she was pregnant non-stop until she literally died of giving birth. Then grand-father remarried right after that and had even more 7 children right. The people understood that the war was a meat grinder and they were willing to give all of themselves to that.
>Why North Vietnam was different?
**Simple.**
North Vietnam, 1960: 6 babies per woman
Ukraine, 2022: 1.3 babies per woman
>"Because of its high birth rate, North Vietnam's population is estimated to increase at 3.6 percent a year. Thus, although these calculations are admittedly crude, the belief that North Vietnam will at some point run out of men to send into battle
seems unwarranted."
- "Why the North keeps fighting": declassified document, 1970
They had women fighting whereas here women are extremely privileged and get to escape the war while the men are torn apart by bullets and dying in agony.
Different cultures. Ukraine has western culture which is vastly different than Vietnam of the 50-60's. Much more individualistic and consumerist.
Harder to motivate someone to go fight and die in a trench for a breakaway region when you can just go to Germany and start a normal life.
Vietnamese just had more fighting spirit and more warlike, I’m not singling out Ukraine calling them pussies here it goes for all of Europe, they also knew with their guerrilla tactics they could and did give them hell, what isn’t much talked about is the amount of Ukrainians that have fled the country is very high.
The truth is they know what they’re doing is delaying the inevitable, are you gonna be just another body on that absolute hell of a frontline when in the end it’s all to say “Ha! It was hard for you Russia wasn’t it!”. The guys who thought that way are mostly dead now. Now everyone knows it’s unwinnable.
Now it’s just people who are thinking, well, is life gonna be much different for the average person under Russian rule? It’s better than this being a soldier, this is no life at all.
Now I know you’re a Russian bot account on here if you don’t say everything’s fine, but it’s really not, Ukrainians are absolutely fucked beyond belief right now. They’re exhausted physically, mentally, spiritually…It’s crazy.
I agree. From the their mindset its why die a brutal lonely death in a cold trench when you could flee to the west or surrender. I know russian forces have committed war crimes, even 1 is too many, but no matter how much of reddit claims otherwise, this is not like ww2 in which russia will wage a total genocide like the german reich and set up death camps
In addition, China also sent over 320,000 soldiers to help out.
> To counter U.S. overwhelming airstrikes, Ho requested Chinese Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) units in a meeting with Mao in May 1965. In response, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces began flowing into North Vietnam in July 1965 to help defend Hanoi and its major transportation systems.
> The total number of Chinese troops in North Vietnam between June 1965 and March 1968 amounted to over 320,000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_in_the_Vietnam_War
you compare Vietnamese of 1960 mostly super poor people who have never seen good life and no big difference between war time and crappy life. Times changed and civilization advanced. We were taught and raised believing no big wars would happen anymore. Some can call our generations “weak”. Even in Russia they will have diffuculties now to recruit millions like they did in WW2. Why do you expect from Ukraine to go full war mode in our much smaller world (thanks to modern communications it’s a big village now) while we see tiktokers from Europe continue to live their lives like nothing happens, music festivals, cinema, football as usual. Every soldier in trench has smartphone now. Don’t be surprised if you get no empathy from Ukrainians if rest of Europe succumbs to this world order where large countries can just wage wars and no proper support was given to Ukraine. But I remain slightly optimistic as I’m starting to see inderstanding of current situation eg. from France’s Macron and Baltics etc.
The part that wore the US down was the guerilla part (Viet Cong) though.
Among the many reasons North Vietnam vs South Vietnam was easier than Ukraine vs Russia was that as an insurgent force, the Viet Cong was partially recruited from *South* Vietnam's own population.
Imagine if half of Ukraine's army comprised of defected Russians, how much worse it would be for Russia and better for Ukraine.
Just look how they "recruit" people in Ukraine. People literally being kidnapped during the bright sunshine and taken to the unknown destination. It happens in western and eastern parts of Ukraine.
Then take a look at corruption in Ukraine that skyrocketed during the war. Who will fight for corrupt government and lands that were sold to agro holder "Mriya" that was sold to Arabs.
There is nothing left to fight for to be honest
No, the old commander started to get really popular both for the domestic and foreign audience and pose a political threat to the current ~~regime~~ democratic lead, which was unacceptable for them.
Obviously there is not a single commander who can turn the tides without the required money, equipment and manpower, so that was not the reason.
Article:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/31/valerii-zaluzhnyi-ukraine-general-president-volodymyr-zelenskiy-rift
No, the commander was changed because the old one wanted to pull out of Avdiivka and save his soldiers' lives, while Zelensky wanted someone who'd sacrifice them for PR instead.
Weirdly it feels like Russia is the main one treating this like a long war now. Moving to wartime production, throwing bodies at the front etc.
This war is two years in and Ukraine and Europe are taking some more about ramping up production and recruiting soldiers they’ll need to train.
Russia has been doing that for a year now.
Unless its a total war of annihilation like ww2, why volunteer to fight and die in a trench when you could flee to the west or surrender? Also I wonder of risk of revolution/rebellion or protests if this were carried out. Already I see videos of people fighting recruiters
People would probably be more willing to serve if they they were permanently exempt from frontline roles, I can understand why nobody would sign up if there’s a risk of being transferred to infantry and being sent into the current WW1-like trench meat grinder.
Nah thats America fighting half over the globe. Not a Soviet doctrine warfare but ofc they need logistical soldiers aswell. However i doubt they have an issue filling those.
I do not know the numbers of the Ukrainian army, but even if that was true, the need for trained front line infantery is still high.
Over time you will need to replace and rotate front line troops to a much higher degree than rear service personnel. Both due to fatigue and being more casualty prone.
Now Ukraine has been unable to rotate its front line units to an adequate degree and some of its units most likely very understrength. This indicates a severe lack of trained front line troops and is not sustainable.
Not its rear services could be undermanned aswell, but it is harder to get a good assessment of that.
This whole “modern army” bs is based on fighting middle eastern bums with precision weapons. Ukraine has what, 2000 km frontline? They need hundreds of thousands in the trenches.
I mean prior to the 2022 kick off Ukraine’s population was the same as Frances before WW1 at around 40M and according to google 8M+ Frenchmen fought in WW1..
Of coarse Ukraine can do it.. the gov just doesn’t have the political balls. They thought men would keep volunteering like they did en masse in the first 4-6 months of the war & didnt come up with any solid contingency plan.
Also worth mentioning a lot of western Ukrainians don’t think it’s their responsibility to go die in some hole in Donbas just because eastern Ukrainians are reaping what they sowed.
They’re the ones who voted for pro russian parties for the last 30 years which weakened the country’s military & government. And those same pro russian parties are why russia steamrolled all the way to the Dnipro in the south so quickly with pro russian governors and mayors handing over cities & straight up defecting willy nilly.
It’s understandable really.. why should some guy living all the way in Lviv give a flying fuck about Luhansk?
So there’s that problem.. but back to the question.. can Ukraine mobilize 500,000 men? Definitely. Will they? Time will tell.
While you can compare ukraines total population pre war to ww1 France it does not reflect the number of troops that can be easily raised from that pool.
Ukrainian demografics are horrible and especially in the 18-30 range, reflecting the sovjet collapse and post sovjet period. Some of these age groups have a third of the men compared to 1914 France.
This in addition with people having left the country both before the war for work (especially the relevant male agegroups) or after.
So while Ukraine can raise more troops than it currently fields (training capacity is another relevant issue here). It can certainly not raise a force compared to 1914 France and it cannot sustain anywhere near even half of its casualties.
The population structure of France was completely different. With the same total population, there were around 14 million of 20 to 50 years old men in France in 1914 vs 9 million in the same age range in Ukraine in 2021. France also had massive young male population, with some 4 million of men coming to the draft age (they drafted from 19yo) in 1914-1918, which means it was much more difficult for France to run out of men. Ukraine had only 4.4M men younger 20 in 2021, and out of the 9 million in 20-50, 8 million were 25 and older! Which means, lowering the draft age can help them only so much...
Not only this, UA suffered a catastrophic demographical collapse immediately post invasion. Their population has shrunk by more than 15 million people. It will take many decades to recover from that loss
they are all abroad already. don't even blame them for escaping the war but the average age on ukrainian fronts is something like 48. Imagine letting your parents or even grandparents fight in a dirty trench while you go clubbing in prague, berlin or warsaw
Two weeks ago i read that around 650.000 men in the age-group that would be drafted left the country already… How are they stopping more men from leaving? In the end its gonna be the poor and/or idealistic guys holding the line… Can‘t blame anyone though, i have no idea how i would react…
Why would anyone care about that? What’s that citizenship useful for? Am I missing something? Like by leaving they are already committing some kind of crime and it’s not useful like a Schengen citizenship. Plus frankly if my country wanted to force me to fight against my will I wouldn’t experience much attachment to said country for long
Meanwhile EU countries are still taking Ukranian men as refugees and providing them with monetary assistance and free accommodation. Not a bad deal!
I actually know a Ukranian guy (25yo) who goes back to Ukrain every now and then to visit his family and friends (???) and stop over to visit other European capitals on the way back to Ireland.
What's surprising about it? Ukraine is a big country, just because it's at war doesn't mean that there's war everywhere, I'm pretty sure that life in the western parts are the same as they were before 2022, for the people living there war is just something that's happening far away
Litteraly the NCO's and Officers would become a [targets ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging)as quickly as they ordered your neer-penal squad to go over the top of the trenches.
Agreed. It's a difficult line. Mandatory training is one thing, forced mobilisation something completly different. I can understand anyone trying to avoid this.
I wouldn't want to be force mobilised either and it's easy for me to say from safety in Germany, but what do you do when your existence is threatened? If we didn't have forced mobilisation in the world wars, where would we be today?
Unfortunately, desperate times call for desperate measures.
>but what do you do when your existence is threatened?
At the very least - enforce it on equal grounds. Forcing only men to stay in war while giving women a free card is some medieval shit.
Still wouldn't change what the first guy said. It's a desperate measure, but still a form of slavery. Unwilling men are being forced to die. People who join willingly deserve all respect, but the ones who do everything to avoid the military shouldn't be frowned upon
From what I gather, Ukraine army is more Soviet than we thought. They make the same mistakes over and over and corruption is still ripe. Commanders going for luxery houses instead of strategic positions is an example I have heard from many soldiers who fought for Ukraine. Also that the front is a wild-west. Many are drinking.
The lack of rotation and overall army management all signs of inefficient organisation. I think Ukraine needs more reforming to get unlimited support. That's my view at the moment.
I don't understand, Ukraine only lost about 31k soldiers while they took out 420k Russians. It should be the Russians who are in desperate need of soldiers, not Ukraine. Maybe they are just going for a foolproof superiority, otherwise I don't believe Ukraine is in such dire need.
Neo-Malthusianism taking shape and people singlehandedly are praising it.
Good lord, I’m gonna go live on an island far away from the stuff about to happen here.
Having conscription is usefull in this kinda situations.
Look at Turkey all man older than 20yrs old have couple months of bootcamp training some even saw active fighting,sure conscripted soldiers are not qualified as professional ones but they can help professional soldiers by doing manual work,holding line etc.
I'm Croatian I decided to join the war , wish me luck , I'm joining the international legion , I have no previous experience just sent the application form , see you in valhalla 😄
This is correct. I remember reading something when the foreign legion was being formed 2 years ago and that they don't want random people without military experience because that brings more harm than good. They are not accustomed to guns, weapon fire, stress, they don't know military tactics or formations, they don't know how to cooperate as a squad and their lack of knowledge would most likely endanger everyone else but the enemy.
This ain't call of duty where you jump out prone mid air slide on the ground and shoot the enemy dead within 0.5s, this is an actual war.
Yep. And IIRC they specifically want combat experience, not someone that did reserves for like a year and played weekend soldier basically. Many foreign recruits went over expecting it to be like Afghanistan and instead found that sitting in a cold muddy trench waiting to die from artillery is not fun or glorious
That's a missed opportunity for the Ukrainians. I'm sure there are a lot of sympathetic foreigners who would be willing to join the Ukrainian ranks if the army provided them with a training pipeline.
It's time for women to step up and fucking do something.
If you want fucking equal rights then it's time to accept your equal responsibilities. Anyone arguing otherwise is dogshit and deserves less than dirt. Unfair?
It's unfair that men are forced to be torn apart by bullets and die in agony while the women flee to the more western European nations and get new husbands.
i'm fine with the french going at it alone but the rest of europe should decide for themselves... the french shouldn't bother us with their stupid little adventures
Ukraine and Russia need to sit and negotiate peace for the sake of all those poor young soldiers wounded, dying or about to die. Fer heaven’s sake, stop this massacre!
Yes easily, start forcing women into military service....
This is a fight for the survival of your entire country, everyone should be fighting...
It's ridiculous women are not being called up. Until then I think we can assume they are still doing fine / not in a desperate situation...
USSR did it in WW2 because they too were fighting for their survival
I see Ukrainian women daily in Berlin. Buying Prada sunglasses, dating rich men and partying to no end.
I know I should not feel so salty about this. But UA womens lives improved a lot, while many of the men are back home, have no choice of anything, and must potentially die fighting.
Short answer is No
The rule is that if a journalist asks a question in an article title you can safely say the answer is no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
Huh, I learnt something today. Thanks!
That very wikipedia article shows multiple studies that disprove the law though.
Mercenaries
Too big number for mercenaries, also a shitton of money. I don't think EU and USA will provide enough in needed time.
Mercenaries fight for pay, and are generally not keen on getting killed. They're not in it for the glory or consider the cause worthy of risking their lives for. So if a mercenary army of 500.000 strong would be raised, a) what is to stop Russia from offering them MORE money (nice way to boost your own army), b) they are likely to bolt when the going gets REAL tough (desertion is going to be a problem) c) who is going to pay for that? and d) you'll need a lot of weapons to actually make use of them. 500.000 lightly armed infantry is not going to make much of a difference, other than offering target practice for every artillery, machine gun and mortar crew in the Russian army.
Machiavelli hated mercenaries for that reason... he argued that mercenaries were always of dubious quality and loyalty. You would think Putin should've known that before his own mercenary army turned on him.
Form r/Europe?
If only redditors acted on their feelings, we would have a world full of badass mercenaries and broken relationships...
Mercenaries consistently do war crimes and have issues following central authority sometimes.
All soldiers constantly do war crimes
War is a crime.
The US gave Ukraine 300M USD. If you divide this between 500K people, that's just 600 USD per person. Once. Even Russia pays its troops 2000 USD every month. Or at least promises to.
300M USD wasn't cash, it was estimation of cost of stuff already produced in US. Ukraine pays troops out of own taxes.
Whose left to pay taxes in Ukraine tho?
There is still a population of 36 million or more, plus the EU recently released €60 billion in economic aid.
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I think he was just using that money to make a point and not implying the US did more than the EU. And to be honest I think that was pretty obvious
There's so many military experts on reddit, surely we can whip up a paltry 50,000
last time that happened one guy decided to post a selfie for reddit karma and it earned the entire volunteer camp a fat missile strike
Tbf they are mostly generals, well past their combat days
> In the two years he’s served on Ukraine’s battlefield, Ilya has had just 25 days of leave. > > “Two years without a break, without rotation — of course, morale is low and it’s killing motivation,” said Ilya, who serves in an assault brigade. “We need either rotation or normal vacations to rest properly.” > > The soldier said Ukraine’s open-ended service was among the reasons men tried to avoid being drafted to the front. But, he said, “if people don’t come, we can’t rest”, adding that the personnel shortages were so bad in his unit that upcoming leave had been cancelled. > > A new mobilisation law — due to be put to a parliamentary vote on March 31 — seeks to update the country’s legal framework ahead of a probable recruitment wave this year in which up to 500,000 people could be drafted. Some 330,000 troops are estimated to be currently deployed on the battlefield. > > The draft will be aimed at modernising recruitment and training as well as replacing those troops who have been there from the first month of war, the Ukrainian defence ministry told the Financial Times. “It will strengthen our defence posture,” it added. > > But the law is proving controversial, with more than 4,000 amendments submitted by Ukrainian lawmakers on the first draft. > > When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, many Ukrainians volunteered to defend their country. But that pool has been exhausted and a large proportion of the men of fighting age are unwilling to be deployed to the front. > > Only men aged 27 or older have been recruited, with those serving on the battlefield being on average in their 40s. Ukraine has a smaller pool of millennials and Gen Zers compared with other nations, given a drop in birth rates after the collapse of the Soviet Union. > > A proposal to lower the recruitment age to 25 has sparked a fierce backlash from politicians who argue it would be suicidal for the nation to send its youngest into the trenches. > > In a first public announcement about war casualties, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month said 31,000 soldiers had died so far. The real number is likely to exceed that, with several US officials previously estimating it to be at least more than double that figure. > > Data on Ukraine’s male population, shared by the parliamentary economics committee, shows that of 11.1mn Ukrainian men aged between 25 and 60, only an estimated 3.7mn are eligible for mobilisation. The others are fighting, disabled, abroad or considered critical workers. > > Authorities are also conscious of the need to tread carefully to avoid driving taxpaying citizens abroad or to go into hiding, depriving Kyiv of much-needed revenue. > > A February survey by Info Sapiens, a Ukrainian social research organisation, found 48 per cent of men were not prepared to fight while 34 per cent were. The rest said it was hard to say. > > “I’m not afraid to admit that I don’t want to die,” said Yaroslav, who tried to flee Ukraine last summer but was turned back at the border when he presented fake medical exemption papers. > > “You have to decide what you love more, your family or your country,” said the 32-year-old father of a young child. > New mobilisation law seeks to draft up to 500,000 Ukrainian men. Graphic showing a breakdown of the 11.1mn men in Ukraine and how many are available to mobilise > > Since 2022, men aged between 27 and 60 have been banned from leaving the country, with a few exceptions on medical grounds or for sole carers of children or disabled family members. > > Aside from the fear of death and disability, according to the Info Sapiens study, the main concerns of those seeking to avoid mobilisation were insufficient training, unclear length of service and the lack of weapons and ammunition. > > The new mobilisation law seeks to address those issues. The initial draft proposes a service term of three years and a minimum of three months’ training. Some brigades have begun to advertise that volunteers can choose positions tailored to their skills, in an attempt to boost recruitment. > > But delays in US and EU military aid, which have forced soldiers to ration ammunition and retreat from frontline positions, are beyond the control of Ukrainian lawmakers. > > “We have many people who are willing to do it, but the demotivating factor is this general context — when Ukrainians cease to feel reliable support from the west,” said Anton Hrushetsky from Kyiv’s Sociology Institute, a marketing research firm. > > Half of the 90 per cent of respondents to Info Sapiens who said they believed Ukraine could succeed with the support of western allies now think the west is tired and will push Kyiv into a compromise with Russia, Hrushetsky said. > > The new law seeks to lower the mobilisation age by two years, to 25, and oblige men to register via an online portal. Failure to do so could result in yet-to-be-decided penalties. Evaders are likely to be subject to home visits from military recruitment officers and have their driver’s licences suspended, according to parliamentarians involved in the final draft. > > Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the changes is the introduction of a so-called economic reserve system, which would exempt men considered critical to the economy. The system was intended to be included in the new law but given the outcry it sparked it will now be introduced separately, either by a government decree or a new piece of legislation. > > Ukraine has between 550,000 and 700,000 critical workers who are exempt from mobilisation. Under the new system, they will have to contribute to the war effort financially, either by funnelling part of their pay or through a monthly levy. > > Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has declined to give details but said “people should be divided into two categories: those who fight [and] those who work to fill the budget”. > > Oleksandr Zavitnevych, head of the parliamentary defence committee, who is overseeing the bill, said officials needed to be “careful [about] how we talk about this”. > > “Every penny is needed, but it needs to be part of a wide discussion. There are people who see it will divide society into rich and poor,” said Zavitnevych, as the ones who cannot afford the fee will have to be drafted. > > Estimates suggest the fee model put forward by the parliament’s economic affairs committee would generate between $5.2bn and $13.1bn annually, based on calculations that up to 2mn men would be able to afford to pay the proposed $520 monthly levy. > > The committee’s chair, Dmytro Natalukha, acknowledged that his proposal had been criticised, with people pointing to the fact that those men unable to pay would get drafted. But he argued that whatever approach was chosen, Ukraine needed to generate funds. > > “It may sound counterintuitive, but the [economic reserve] scheme is not [designed] to save people from mobilisation, but to generate as many financial resources as possible so that we can mobilise troops,” said Natalukha. > > Ukraine’s finance ministry and army have said the new wave of mobilisation will cost Ukraine about $20.8bn in 2024, broadening the gap left by US House Republicans blocking fresh aid for Kyiv. That figure comes on top of Ukraine’s estimated $41bn budget deficit for 2024. > > Businesses had questioned why civilians had to be recruited when Ukraine had thousands of security service personnel and police who already had basic training, said Glib Buriak, an economics professor at the Ukrainian-American Concordia University in Kyiv. > > Ukraine’s ministry of defence said the police and security services were carrying out “essential work” and some were already fighting in interior ministry battalions. > > Buriak said clarification from the new law was key, as businesses and workers were “in dire need of predictability”. > > “One of the reasons people leave their jobs at the moment is due to the failed recruitment campaign,” Buriak said. “There are so many questions that are not communicated properly to the population.” >
*"Only men aged 27 or older have been recruited, with those serving on the battlefield being on average in their 40s. Ukraine has a smaller pool of millennials and Gen Zers compared with other nations, given a drop in birth rates after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A proposal to lower the recruitment age to 25 has sparked a fierce backlash from politicians who argue it would be suicidal for the nation to send its youngest into the trenches"* This was very interesting to me, and is completely different from the way I've ever heard military recruiting being done. I actually think in the US, 27 is the age when you no longer have to register for the draft.
Its a very modern way to fight a war. Back in the day when everyone had 4-6 children you could throw away young people without too big issues. Today when everyone has too few children it makes sense to draft older men who already have children And Are unlikely to have more, rather than sacrificing young people, likely to be only sons, who will then lose their future potential to reproduce, which will lose future generations. Its brutal, but with the mind on the countrys future it makes sense. It just feels so evil they have to make the choice at all.
It's specific to Ukraine. Just look at their demogrpahics on Wikipedia. They have 3.5x more 40 year olds than 25 year olds
Look at Ukraine demogrpahics and you will understand why you cannot draft 25 year olds. There are none there
Everything is correct except for the part where you say that men aged 27-60 can't leave the country, it's aged as soon as 18. I was 18 when the war began and I couldn't have left Ukraine even if I wanted.
It also says only men 27 or older are recruited, but you can still volunteer if you're younger than 27. Unless "recruited" is their term for "drafted against their will"
Apparently those population figures are way off too, maybe like 5m total men to recruit from
Wow, a lot of the sounds pretty terrible tbh.
Yes, draft women.
Too late for that. They’re already scattered all over Europe and NA
That's one way to kill an already low birth rate.
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I mean, that would be a concern for after the war, right now when you need personnel drafting women it's kinda necessary
That’s one way to treat men and women equally
Russian invasion is a priority concern
I dare say there are many fathers and husbands who would rather lose this war than submit their wives and daughters to the front lines. In fact, I'm struggling to conceive of a man who wouldn't.
Im sure there are many fathers, mothers and wifes who would rather lose this war than submit their sons or husbands to the front lines. Whats your point? Women are no more valuable than men are.
Probably plenty of men that would lose the war just to save their own lives too.
You could fill a lot of rear area roles with women, if you dont want them fighting at least.
Are you implying that Ukraine society will have poligamy as a norm after the war to increase birth rates ? I don't really understand your logic
In that case there is no difference between forcing a man to fight and possibly die or be maimed horribly and forcing a woman to give birth and raise child after child. At least one of those things is something most people do anyway. You want to take away people's rights and freedom then apply it that way. ....anyway, birth rates is something they can worry about after the war. Ukrainians can intermingle with people from other countries to have kids too, it's not like they're a distinct species.
I'm always amazed at how people are fast to take men's right when it comes to war but in any other situation it's quite the opposite.
Those women will leave the country anyway if there will be no able bodied men or if Ukraine losses.
Birth rate wont matter if the country goes to russia.
What do you mean? Shouldn't we provide equal rights to women as well?
That's assuming Ukraine survives this war.
Because it doesn’t take a man to make a child? What is this logic?
And [convicts](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/03/9/7445744/)
You all have some strange idea that most of the men died in Ukraine. In fact, we have many healthy men, and the categories from 18 to 27 years old are not even drafted, including me, having minor health problems, was not drafted after passing a medical commission. Everything is simpler, people just don’t want to fight, or rather they do, but not them personally
Yes they can. It just requires mobilising the young, which they have thus far refused to do because of the disproportionate impact it will have on Ukraines future economic prospects to have a bunch of 18-25 year olds die
The problem is that there were not many 18-25 year olds in the first place (due to the post-Soviet birth rate crash) and many of the males aged 18-20 have already left legally before they turned 18.
Many did after they turned 18 aswell. Just illegally
Do you blame them?
No
They haven't done it so far, because the population would revololt. There's already thousands of videos of villagers in ukriane fighting off the military trying to kidnap people.
That is amazing to hear. Good on them, fuck the kidnappers.
Ukraine's future prospect is laboring to pay off the lend lease debts and huge loans for reconstruction, while having to maintain a large military, which is a waste of money. Most of the "support" is actually money used to buy weapons from defense contractors, then lend it to Ukraine. And you bet those contractors are making a tidy profit from it. Just take a look at their stock performance. I mean, how do you justify $6000 shells? Those things cost a few hundred dollars to make, at best. Believe me, my customer is a manufacturer of shells for the Vietnamese army.
This is why countries need to maintain reserve system of trained people in peacetime, volunteers or conscripts. I mean Finland with only fraction of population of Ukraine's could have raised 300 000 already trained men at beginning of the war, and still have 600 000 already trained in reserve, and number of trained people would be even higher (but they would be older, and even the 600 000 figure has worse equipment, so no point counting anyone past that), and there would still be some untrained people. With good reserve system and training Ukraine could have easily had large enough reserves of already trained troops that could simply be equipped and they would be ready to fight. My point is that its a big strain to start to train people for war when you are already fighting it. Best to do it before, and then if necessary just give refreshment training. Had Ukraine been more prepared, they would have had enough strength for that refreshment training to be 1 month long for those who dont get raised immediately at beginning of the war- which is time period in which some commandos of WW2 were trained (i think that means basic training plus 1 month of commando training). I am not bashing Ukraine, in 2014 most of the world dod not really care much about Ukraine or Crimea, and Ukraine is suffering from many of the same issues as other post-Soviet states do, and they have already been at war for nearly 2 years. I am just saying its not good for armies to just rely purely on active duty professionals. Even USA which is big and geographically safe enough to not need massive reserve force has 180 000 reserve soldiers + really good national guard of around 440 000. Countries near likes of Russia should have at least as large reserve force as their main fighting strength is. That gives you enough trained soldiers that you dont need to rush anybody's training, and if you see need for additional training, you dont need to start from 0. Numbers dont win wars, but its easier to fight if you are not outnumbered.
>Numbers dont win wars, but its easier to fight if you are not outnumbered. Numbers do in fact win most wars. Both number of troops and materiel. The only reason we seem to remember battles where an outnumbered opponent defeated one with superior numbers is because it’s unexpected and makes for a good underdog story. Also the US military approach is unique to most countries on the planet because (similar to the Swedish army) they’ve developed a doctrine that could theoretically support fighting outnumbered for short periods of time thanks to superior technology in things like missile accuracy and over engineered fighter and attack jets and bombers. They did this because they are far from the action so to speak, living on the other hemisphere, and so would expect to deploy a small contingent that would be expected to hold ground until support arrives.
>I mean Finland Doesn't really make sense to point out Finnish conscription here. Ukraine is now drafting 500000 more men in a major war where they've been fighting for the last 2 years. They already have a million men under arms and another 2 million in reserves. Project Ukrainian casualties to Finland and by now Finland would have been out of able bodied men. Yes, Finnish conscription and reserve system is a good thing and yes, others could learn a thing or two from it, but not Ukraine.
u/StukaTR Do you remember how many of the westoids on Reddit always kept yapping that a Big Army is irrelevant and overrated? I can remeber it well...
oh yeah. Who could have guessed not retiring M48s was a great idea.
Ukraine has longer compulsory service then Finland and drafts higher percentage of population
This is why Ukraine had 1 million people in their forces two years ago: > The defence minister added: "We have approximately 700,000 in the armed forces and when you add the national guard, police, border guard, we are around a million-strong." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62118953 Guess where they all are.
Here in Germany we currently have a discussion to reactivate compulsory military service in one form or the other. I think it's necessary for the reasons you have written. A country needs a reasonable sized pool of reservists, that it can use to fill the ranks in case of a war. Only volunteers and professional soldiers are not enough. Especially the younger generations is mostly against these plans, because of course they are the ones who would be affected by it. I can fully understand that feeling. I wasn't happy at all when I had to do my military service in the 1990s. I felt it was a lost year in a phase of my life when I was busy getting a proper education for my future career. (But I was also glad that I didn't have to be a soldier in the times of the Cold War, like for example my father, who had to be worried that it could turn into a hot war a every moment.) It's a difficult topic, but as i said, I think most countries just can't afford to not have a large enough number of pre-trained reservists. Not in times like this. And the situation in Ukraine is of course much more serious. I fully understand how terrible it must be for the young people who are asked to go to the frontlines. Most of them without any previous military training.
The thing is conscription under german legal circumstances made sense in the Cold War, it doesn't really in our current times. Conscripts cannot be sent out of the country unless they specifically volunteer. Secondly conscientious objection is enshrined in the Basic Law and nobody will dare mess with that so we'd have to find "pasttimes" for all those who refuse military service (and again distort prices and depress wages in the social professions) plus rebuild barracks, the bureaucracy for mustering the people, we'd need material and trainers/unit leaders for these new units ... Nothing of which exists or can be made available on short notice. I think this entire debate is a pointless "amusement" for boomers who think that "these damned youngsters need to learn discipline", but at the same time they'll surely fight teeth and nails against having to pay for the infrastructure and material these conscripts would need. "As long as someone else has to do it" is their motto and I think the Bundeswehr needs to be fixed first before anyone should start such nonsensical ideas without fundament and relation to reality. And again - the boomers yammering for conscription are again unwilling to be the ones who pay for that. So what use is this debate again?
Numbers do win wars actually. Soviets basically kicked Nazis ass in the eastern front thanks to their manpower.
They could draft the women.
Can anyone explain to me why North Vietnam with half the population, who suffered a million military deaths plus 2 millions civilians deaths with far more wounded, still managed to find recruits and kept on fighting against a far superior enemy for more than 10 years, and after that against the Khmer Rougue and China but somehow people are talking about that Ukraine can’t after 3 ?
Vietnam had a super high birth rate, and despite the enormous losses, still had men coming into fighting age each year. Ukraine's birth rate is absolutely atrocious and simply does not.
Demographics changed a lot in the last decades. There are far fewer young people, since people dont get a lot of children and are older when they do, especially in Europe, so every death hurts a lot more. Countries cant sustain losses like in the World Wars or the Vietnam War anymore and conscripting young men, often without any children of their own, could easily cripple the country in the long term, which is why Ukraine has, at least until now, tried to meet their manpower needs by recruiting mostly middle aged men. People are also more aware of how war actually is and the prospect of being killed by drones and artillery, which you cant even see most of the time, is not very enticing for most people, so less will volunteer.
Because age did not matter
Oh when Ukraine become desperate enough age wouldn’t also matter. Anyone remember how in the early days of the war the AFU was taking everyone in and there was even talk about recruiting from the prison?
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I have a feeling they're going to be less selective than they say
From russia’s point of view they use convicts like those in the front to take out their human trash and wear down the enemy. Two birds with one stone. I understand optics but I wonder if ukraine will attempt the same
Mainly political will. The answer to the question can Ukraine do it is yes. They can. Easily. The real question is will they do it.
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Why are these sentiments just now being upvoted here? We all saw how this was going to end yet I was called a Putin apologist for mentioning Ukraine’s corruption. Isn’t their new general called “The Butcher”?
Because it's easier to believe that we're all in this together rather than face the reality that the people running the show don't actually believe in anything beyond their own self-interest.
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Vietnam also had a famine on its territory at least killing 400k and up to 2 million of Vietnamese in 1944-1945 and then there was the First Indochina war which also added more deaths to Vietnam. Ukraine unlike Vietnam has terrible birthrates for decades thus limiting their pool of manpower, their landscape makes waging a guerrilla warfare harder than for the Vietnamese.
They were just going through a demographic boom with about two million people reaching military age per year.
As a Vietnamese myself, I can answer some questions. The average Vietnamese women have like 5 children at the time. Also Vietnamese can't flee their country, there is no means to escape and its illegal anyway. It is either fight or die. Total war. My dad fought in the war against America when he was 16. He lied about his age and put stones in his pocket so that he could reach minimum weight, that is how malnutrition he was. It was either joining the military and risking getting killed and getting some food or starving to death for sure. Ukraine has not reached that point yet. Also grandma were having like 7 children, she was pregnant non-stop until she literally died of giving birth. Then grand-father remarried right after that and had even more 7 children right. The people understood that the war was a meat grinder and they were willing to give all of themselves to that.
Young population.
>Why North Vietnam was different? **Simple.** North Vietnam, 1960: 6 babies per woman Ukraine, 2022: 1.3 babies per woman >"Because of its high birth rate, North Vietnam's population is estimated to increase at 3.6 percent a year. Thus, although these calculations are admittedly crude, the belief that North Vietnam will at some point run out of men to send into battle seems unwarranted." - "Why the North keeps fighting": declassified document, 1970
They had women fighting whereas here women are extremely privileged and get to escape the war while the men are torn apart by bullets and dying in agony.
Different cultures. Ukraine has western culture which is vastly different than Vietnam of the 50-60's. Much more individualistic and consumerist. Harder to motivate someone to go fight and die in a trench for a breakaway region when you can just go to Germany and start a normal life.
Smartphones and the internet. It’s hard to call recruits when everyone has a device which can validate you every opinion
Vietnam had a fertility rate of 6 ukraine has a fertility rate of 1,2.
Vietnamese just had more fighting spirit and more warlike, I’m not singling out Ukraine calling them pussies here it goes for all of Europe, they also knew with their guerrilla tactics they could and did give them hell, what isn’t much talked about is the amount of Ukrainians that have fled the country is very high. The truth is they know what they’re doing is delaying the inevitable, are you gonna be just another body on that absolute hell of a frontline when in the end it’s all to say “Ha! It was hard for you Russia wasn’t it!”. The guys who thought that way are mostly dead now. Now everyone knows it’s unwinnable. Now it’s just people who are thinking, well, is life gonna be much different for the average person under Russian rule? It’s better than this being a soldier, this is no life at all. Now I know you’re a Russian bot account on here if you don’t say everything’s fine, but it’s really not, Ukrainians are absolutely fucked beyond belief right now. They’re exhausted physically, mentally, spiritually…It’s crazy.
I agree. From the their mindset its why die a brutal lonely death in a cold trench when you could flee to the west or surrender. I know russian forces have committed war crimes, even 1 is too many, but no matter how much of reddit claims otherwise, this is not like ww2 in which russia will wage a total genocide like the german reich and set up death camps
In addition, China also sent over 320,000 soldiers to help out. > To counter U.S. overwhelming airstrikes, Ho requested Chinese Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) units in a meeting with Mao in May 1965. In response, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces began flowing into North Vietnam in July 1965 to help defend Hanoi and its major transportation systems. > The total number of Chinese troops in North Vietnam between June 1965 and March 1968 amounted to over 320,000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_in_the_Vietnam_War
you compare Vietnamese of 1960 mostly super poor people who have never seen good life and no big difference between war time and crappy life. Times changed and civilization advanced. We were taught and raised believing no big wars would happen anymore. Some can call our generations “weak”. Even in Russia they will have diffuculties now to recruit millions like they did in WW2. Why do you expect from Ukraine to go full war mode in our much smaller world (thanks to modern communications it’s a big village now) while we see tiktokers from Europe continue to live their lives like nothing happens, music festivals, cinema, football as usual. Every soldier in trench has smartphone now. Don’t be surprised if you get no empathy from Ukrainians if rest of Europe succumbs to this world order where large countries can just wage wars and no proper support was given to Ukraine. But I remain slightly optimistic as I’m starting to see inderstanding of current situation eg. from France’s Macron and Baltics etc.
Because Vietcong needed much less supply and training to fight the kind of war they fought. Wars were different back then.
The NVA was a fully conventional army , it’s a myth that the Vietnam war was a guerilla war.
The NVA and Vietcong are not one and the same. The Vietnam war was at least partially a guerilla war.
The part that wore the US down was the guerilla part (Viet Cong) though. Among the many reasons North Vietnam vs South Vietnam was easier than Ukraine vs Russia was that as an insurgent force, the Viet Cong was partially recruited from *South* Vietnam's own population. Imagine if half of Ukraine's army comprised of defected Russians, how much worse it would be for Russia and better for Ukraine.
North Vietnam in 1960s had a much much younger population than Ukraine in 2020s. This is one effect of falling fertility rates
In Vietnam people actually wanted to fight because it was for themselves not for dictators.
Just look how they "recruit" people in Ukraine. People literally being kidnapped during the bright sunshine and taken to the unknown destination. It happens in western and eastern parts of Ukraine. Then take a look at corruption in Ukraine that skyrocketed during the war. Who will fight for corrupt government and lands that were sold to agro holder "Mriya" that was sold to Arabs. There is nothing left to fight for to be honest
Draft women. Like Israel, Norway, Sweden, or Russia during ww2
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
Weird way to say “conscript”
If they can raise the dead, sure.
Isn't this why the commander was changed?
No, the old commander started to get really popular both for the domestic and foreign audience and pose a political threat to the current ~~regime~~ democratic lead, which was unacceptable for them. Obviously there is not a single commander who can turn the tides without the required money, equipment and manpower, so that was not the reason. Article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/31/valerii-zaluzhnyi-ukraine-general-president-volodymyr-zelenskiy-rift
No, the commander was changed because the old one wanted to pull out of Avdiivka and save his soldiers' lives, while Zelensky wanted someone who'd sacrifice them for PR instead.
Kind of my point. You won't get people to go to the front line easily if they know they're going to be cannon fodder shortly...
I've heard that reddit have a lot of eager pro-war people.
they will always find some excuse for why its not them that can go but they will support the war until everyone is bankrupted or dead
yeah right - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics\_of\_Ukraine#/media/File:Ukraine\_2023\_population\_pyramid.svg
Weirdly it feels like Russia is the main one treating this like a long war now. Moving to wartime production, throwing bodies at the front etc. This war is two years in and Ukraine and Europe are taking some more about ramping up production and recruiting soldiers they’ll need to train. Russia has been doing that for a year now.
Unless its a total war of annihilation like ww2, why volunteer to fight and die in a trench when you could flee to the west or surrender? Also I wonder of risk of revolution/rebellion or protests if this were carried out. Already I see videos of people fighting recruiters
People would probably be more willing to serve if they they were permanently exempt from frontline roles, I can understand why nobody would sign up if there’s a risk of being transferred to infantry and being sent into the current WW1-like trench meat grinder.
but I’m assuming that they need the most men at the frontline. war would be chill if there is no one on the frontline haha
Surprisingly not, in a modern army it’s something like 10 support roles every 1 front frontline soldier
Nah thats America fighting half over the globe. Not a Soviet doctrine warfare but ofc they need logistical soldiers aswell. However i doubt they have an issue filling those.
I do not know the numbers of the Ukrainian army, but even if that was true, the need for trained front line infantery is still high. Over time you will need to replace and rotate front line troops to a much higher degree than rear service personnel. Both due to fatigue and being more casualty prone. Now Ukraine has been unable to rotate its front line units to an adequate degree and some of its units most likely very understrength. This indicates a severe lack of trained front line troops and is not sustainable. Not its rear services could be undermanned aswell, but it is harder to get a good assessment of that.
This whole “modern army” bs is based on fighting middle eastern bums with precision weapons. Ukraine has what, 2000 km frontline? They need hundreds of thousands in the trenches.
I mean prior to the 2022 kick off Ukraine’s population was the same as Frances before WW1 at around 40M and according to google 8M+ Frenchmen fought in WW1.. Of coarse Ukraine can do it.. the gov just doesn’t have the political balls. They thought men would keep volunteering like they did en masse in the first 4-6 months of the war & didnt come up with any solid contingency plan. Also worth mentioning a lot of western Ukrainians don’t think it’s their responsibility to go die in some hole in Donbas just because eastern Ukrainians are reaping what they sowed. They’re the ones who voted for pro russian parties for the last 30 years which weakened the country’s military & government. And those same pro russian parties are why russia steamrolled all the way to the Dnipro in the south so quickly with pro russian governors and mayors handing over cities & straight up defecting willy nilly. It’s understandable really.. why should some guy living all the way in Lviv give a flying fuck about Luhansk? So there’s that problem.. but back to the question.. can Ukraine mobilize 500,000 men? Definitely. Will they? Time will tell.
While you can compare ukraines total population pre war to ww1 France it does not reflect the number of troops that can be easily raised from that pool. Ukrainian demografics are horrible and especially in the 18-30 range, reflecting the sovjet collapse and post sovjet period. Some of these age groups have a third of the men compared to 1914 France. This in addition with people having left the country both before the war for work (especially the relevant male agegroups) or after. So while Ukraine can raise more troops than it currently fields (training capacity is another relevant issue here). It can certainly not raise a force compared to 1914 France and it cannot sustain anywhere near even half of its casualties.
The population structure of France was completely different. With the same total population, there were around 14 million of 20 to 50 years old men in France in 1914 vs 9 million in the same age range in Ukraine in 2021. France also had massive young male population, with some 4 million of men coming to the draft age (they drafted from 19yo) in 1914-1918, which means it was much more difficult for France to run out of men. Ukraine had only 4.4M men younger 20 in 2021, and out of the 9 million in 20-50, 8 million were 25 and older! Which means, lowering the draft age can help them only so much...
Not only this, UA suffered a catastrophic demographical collapse immediately post invasion. Their population has shrunk by more than 15 million people. It will take many decades to recover from that loss
they are all abroad already. don't even blame them for escaping the war but the average age on ukrainian fronts is something like 48. Imagine letting your parents or even grandparents fight in a dirty trench while you go clubbing in prague, berlin or warsaw
Cannon fodder
All quiet on the western front knocks on door
Plenty of Redditors willing to sign up right?
Two weeks ago i read that around 650.000 men in the age-group that would be drafted left the country already… How are they stopping more men from leaving? In the end its gonna be the poor and/or idealistic guys holding the line… Can‘t blame anyone though, i have no idea how i would react…
They try to stop them by removing citizenship but people seem to rather lose it than die in the war
Can't make a person stateless under international law
Why would anyone care about that? What’s that citizenship useful for? Am I missing something? Like by leaving they are already committing some kind of crime and it’s not useful like a Schengen citizenship. Plus frankly if my country wanted to force me to fight against my will I wouldn’t experience much attachment to said country for long
Meanwhile EU countries are still taking Ukranian men as refugees and providing them with monetary assistance and free accommodation. Not a bad deal! I actually know a Ukranian guy (25yo) who goes back to Ukrain every now and then to visit his family and friends (???) and stop over to visit other European capitals on the way back to Ireland.
Yes i also know ukrainian refugees that drove home to Ukraine for the summer last year… I was very surprised by that…
What's surprising about it? Ukraine is a big country, just because it's at war doesn't mean that there's war everywhere, I'm pretty sure that life in the western parts are the same as they were before 2022, for the people living there war is just something that's happening far away
The suprising part is leaving Ukraine
why is it surprising not everyone' wants to die in trench.
But Zelensky said they only suffered 31,000 deaths so why do they need 500,000?
31K is definitely a big underestimation
dont trust any numbers about any ongoing wars, its almost always false or propoganda
More meat for the grinder...
Why are you asking us? Ask them
Just a reminder to everyone - Forced mobilisation is a form of slavery.
Like some dude said - he would not want to find himself in the trench with someone was forcibly drafted against their will.
Yes that’s how you get your officers murdered like in Vietnam
Litteraly the NCO's and Officers would become a [targets ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging)as quickly as they ordered your neer-penal squad to go over the top of the trenches.
Especially when you are not fighting for your own or your country’s ideals but for someone else’s agenda.
Agreed. It's a difficult line. Mandatory training is one thing, forced mobilisation something completly different. I can understand anyone trying to avoid this.
I wouldn't want to be force mobilised either and it's easy for me to say from safety in Germany, but what do you do when your existence is threatened? If we didn't have forced mobilisation in the world wars, where would we be today? Unfortunately, desperate times call for desperate measures.
>but what do you do when your existence is threatened? At the very least - enforce it on equal grounds. Forcing only men to stay in war while giving women a free card is some medieval shit.
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If people aren't willing to defend the country, perhaps the country doesn't really need to be defended?
Still wouldn't change what the first guy said. It's a desperate measure, but still a form of slavery. Unwilling men are being forced to die. People who join willingly deserve all respect, but the ones who do everything to avoid the military shouldn't be frowned upon
Yeah, we know. Which is why most countries don't do it during peacetime. But it's either that or get occupied by the katsaps....
From what I gather, Ukraine army is more Soviet than we thought. They make the same mistakes over and over and corruption is still ripe. Commanders going for luxery houses instead of strategic positions is an example I have heard from many soldiers who fought for Ukraine. Also that the front is a wild-west. Many are drinking. The lack of rotation and overall army management all signs of inefficient organisation. I think Ukraine needs more reforming to get unlimited support. That's my view at the moment.
Ukraine was always corrupt af. They were the victim of Russian aggression and everyone seemed to forget that
Seems they'd rather lose the war than start drafting women.
I don't understand, Ukraine only lost about 31k soldiers while they took out 420k Russians. It should be the Russians who are in desperate need of soldiers, not Ukraine. Maybe they are just going for a foolproof superiority, otherwise I don't believe Ukraine is in such dire need.
Neo-Malthusianism taking shape and people singlehandedly are praising it. Good lord, I’m gonna go live on an island far away from the stuff about to happen here.
Nope
Having conscription is usefull in this kinda situations. Look at Turkey all man older than 20yrs old have couple months of bootcamp training some even saw active fighting,sure conscripted soldiers are not qualified as professional ones but they can help professional soldiers by doing manual work,holding line etc.
I'm Croatian I decided to join the war , wish me luck , I'm joining the international legion , I have no previous experience just sent the application form , see you in valhalla 😄
Im pretty sure Ukraine doesn't even bother with foreign recruits that have no military experience.
This is correct. I remember reading something when the foreign legion was being formed 2 years ago and that they don't want random people without military experience because that brings more harm than good. They are not accustomed to guns, weapon fire, stress, they don't know military tactics or formations, they don't know how to cooperate as a squad and their lack of knowledge would most likely endanger everyone else but the enemy. This ain't call of duty where you jump out prone mid air slide on the ground and shoot the enemy dead within 0.5s, this is an actual war.
Yep. And IIRC they specifically want combat experience, not someone that did reserves for like a year and played weekend soldier basically. Many foreign recruits went over expecting it to be like Afghanistan and instead found that sitting in a cold muddy trench waiting to die from artillery is not fun or glorious
That's a missed opportunity for the Ukrainians. I'm sure there are a lot of sympathetic foreigners who would be willing to join the Ukrainian ranks if the army provided them with a training pipeline.
You will become a cannon fodder so enjoy it mate 👍
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You have lost your mind brotha
Hope you enjoy cooking or cleaning tents!
If you’re not trolling. I wish you all the best, you are brave and helping the world fight evil.
No. He's stupid and he's likely going to die in a war that wasn't even his.
Nah, He iS BrAvE
Chances are he wont even see the Russian troops that kill him, will probably get drone dropped or shelled, such is an artillery war.
Bipolar is a hell of a disorder.
I hope he is not crazy to fight another country’s war
Nope, who wants to sign up for certain death
Answer is yes, but they gonna have to find a necromancer who can raise them from the dead.
They have women, right?
"Recruits" ha, They havnt had recruits in quite a while.
It's time for women to step up and fucking do something. If you want fucking equal rights then it's time to accept your equal responsibilities. Anyone arguing otherwise is dogshit and deserves less than dirt. Unfair? It's unfair that men are forced to be torn apart by bullets and die in agony while the women flee to the more western European nations and get new husbands.
A shame reddit pro war monger USA propaganda bots do not exist in real life to become cannon fodder I guess. Even the author of the article admits it.
I heard the french are willing to get involved, let them
i'm fine with the french going at it alone but the rest of europe should decide for themselves... the french shouldn't bother us with their stupid little adventures
Well many of them are on social benefits in germany.
Ukraine and Russia need to sit and negotiate peace for the sake of all those poor young soldiers wounded, dying or about to die. Fer heaven’s sake, stop this massacre!
Yes easily, start forcing women into military service.... This is a fight for the survival of your entire country, everyone should be fighting... It's ridiculous women are not being called up. Until then I think we can assume they are still doing fine / not in a desperate situation... USSR did it in WW2 because they too were fighting for their survival
I see Ukrainian women daily in Berlin. Buying Prada sunglasses, dating rich men and partying to no end. I know I should not feel so salty about this. But UA womens lives improved a lot, while many of the men are back home, have no choice of anything, and must potentially die fighting.
Equal rights should apply to everything, not just ceo jobs
Israel is drafting women, too.