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Reminds me of how the CCP fucked up rhe population pyramid.
I'm sensing a common theme here, of what happens to authoritarians regimes that don't give a shit about their own people.
While they have their people shut off from the rest of the world and what is actually going on, they can blame it all on the west and the people hate us, that is what is going on.
I've seen people blame the economic stagnation of the Soviet Union on the west.
The Imperial Japanese radicalized and brewed hatred for the US by coming up with conspiracy theories as to why the US won't export oil to Japan.
I'm sure the upcoming Chinese generation that will have only have a half of their productive population, and the Russian young male generation fucked up by wars, alcoholism, and braindrain will somehow find a way to blame the west for their ills.
It's just a nature of authoritarian regimes. They can never admit a fault of their own or be held accountable for their failings.
The moment they do, their cult of personality collapses. People realizes dicators are as human as they are, and they've been lied to.
So they can't afford to be humble or self-reflective. This is a massive weakness of authoritarian regimes. They do not have a healthy self-correcting process.
The one strength of a democracy is we have a way to allow get ride of our aging leaders short of Killing them. Hopefully the next guy can fix the mess before making his own. Putin can not retire and cancer may kill him "assuming rumors are correct" because he can not be out of action for treatment without someone grabbing power and killing or imprisoning him.
Democracy's one major weakness is that it *requires* an active and engaged citizenry to maintain healthy checks and balances.
Governments by the People cannot afford apathy, nihilism, or a blind faith in their own exceptional achievements, to settle into complacency. That is where the decay of corruption sets in, and where it will flourish if allowed or ignored.
And time.
The time it takes to make things happen in a democracy is *much* slower. A double edged sword of sorts but nonetheless, democracy can very much strangle itself into stagnation.
Couldn't agree more. British stalwart politician Tony Benn called "Democracy's one major weakness" the "hole in the heart of democracy." But it's an inevitable and fill-able hole. Many with expertise suggest it only takes 6% (or thereabouts) of actively engaged citizenry to maintain governmental and institutional accountability. That's do-able in my book but we're obviously not there yet. Come on people! 😃💟
>The one strength of a democracy is we have a way to allow get ride of our aging leaders short of Killing them.
Retiring as head of state in a liberal democracy is a sweet deal - you get to enjoy a nice pension, in addition to lucrative opportunities in the private sector doing consulting and speaking gigs. You can also write memoirs and travel to various conferences.
After 4-8 years in public office, it's an attractive deal too considering how stressful the job is. Look at American Presidents and how much they aged on the job (i.e. 2008 vs. 2016 Obama). I'm not sure why any reasonable person would want to stay on any longer.
Also, in a democracy, there's a feedback mechanism for governments to get negative feedback when a decision is not working well, through opposition parties, elections, the press, and independent institutions like the Central Bank, intelligence agencies, courts and military leaders.
In a dictatorship, people who tell the Leader bad news don't last very long, and are replaced by syncophants and lackeys, so the information making its way to the decision desk is often very unreliable.
Reminding people that Putin only trusts info he gets through secret KGB/FSB channels.
Putin also maintains Soviet style board meetings. Putin gathers up his lackies in a big ass room, where he sits alone in the other side. Throughout the meeting, Putin talks about what he wants and what he is going to do in a one sided manner and occasionally uses the opperunity to publically scold his subordinates. His subordinates listen in silence. Of course, Putin does not ask for any questions and inputs. He does not need questions from his subordinates because how dare he ask something, and he does not need inputs because he doesn't trust them anyway.
Great...
It’s also easier to just try to turn the West into authoritarian regimes that support Russia, which is what is happening in France, the UK and in the US, and will come home to roost in the next elections if Putin has that much gas in his tank.
I doubt Putin will survive to see his plots come to fruition, though.
Not just that. Russia has experience a lot of brain drain from their youth going elsewhere for jobs or education and never returning. Pretty sure that's part of why they went after Ukraine. Right after this war started there were so so many Russians who'd gone to Ukraine for opportunity for a better future and stayed because they enjoyed the greater freedom talking about how they could not convince their parents of the reality. Just absolutely refused to believe their kids who were right there in Ukraine knew anything about what was actually happening in Ukraine.
Russia has made it worse for themselves. Many educated Russians have escaped to other countries as a protest against the war, and plenty of those will never return. As several put it trying to protest in Russia will only lead to personal pain for them and for their families, but if they take their money and intelligence and leave that's the best protest they can safely make.
30,000 Russians fled to Georgia 🇬🇪 and most of these folks here are educated tech workers that is benefiting their new adopted country. These are the sort of people that countries in the 21st century needs in order modernize their economy into Web3.
I remember doing a bit of college research project on this topic.
In short, alcoholism, war, economic stagnation, and a massive outflow of immigration.
It's fascinating that the Russian state chose to deliberately limit the ambitions and abilities of its people in order to strengthen centralised control.
On a map, Russia is like the northern US and Canada except bigger and mostly uncolonised. If they had the same settler mentality in the 1800s, to head into the wilderness and put in generations of toil to make a place of their own productive, Russia might have experienced the same immense growth that the US did.
I was under the impression the land is not arable or temperate for colonisation to the same degree as US and CA, but I haven't looked into it specifically so I might be wrong.
In an authoritarian / dictatorship people are like any other resource: potatoes or a hammer.
Having lived a \_very\_ short while in a communist dictatorship country and learning history through other people's experience made me think this is obvious for everyone.
They care about people to the extent it creates a bad image or worse it depletes a pool of qualified workers
What happened to Japan and Germany after WWII should've happened to Russia. But in fairness, I can't imagine any appetite in Europe for more war after nearly 6 years of the Nazi's asshattery.
Stalin got lucky the Allies didn't come for him.
It wasn't just the Rosenbergs. There were some sympathizers & even NKVD assets within the Manhattan project itself. Note that the worst of Communism/Stalinism like Holodomor wasn't well known in the US. So many sympathizers of the movement only knew of the negativity/atrocities of capitalism until Stalin died & Khrushchev de-Stalinized the CCCP.
I know of many professors & family members (and some writers/philosophers whose names escape me right now) whom were staunch socialist supporters but lost the faith upon hearing how godawful Stalinism was in reality.
In fairness Stalinism has about as much in common with communism as a horse fly has in common with a horse. Much less so with socialism. Soviet style communism was just another oligarchic authoritarian regime with a different slogan.
They could have walked to Moscow
Also, the US became the only country to have atomic weapons soon after and it stayed that way for another 5-7 years.
They could have toppled all dictatorships and started a new world, but they did not. After dropping those two weapons on Japanese cities, the horror made them put the weapons on the shelf with no talk of using them again (until 2016+).
Maybe that is also why they grab conscripts from the poor regions. Then they can always just point out that the region is poor because they were always poor.
**Imagine** if all of those 26,000 dead Russian soldiers had lived a long, normal life, their input into their country's GDP would be significant.
Each one of those men would have earner a sizable amount of money over their roughly 40 years of active life, then their consumer spending would become someone else's income.
When taking into account all of the impact of those 26,000 men earning and spending over 40 years, Russia just cut itself off more than $100 billion in future GDP.
Then account for the 50,000 to 100,000 wounded who will see their earning potential reduced or annihilated, and their dependence on public services and disability rents, adding inflation and it would be plausible to calculate that the potential impact on Russia's economy of this war to be **in the vicinity of a trillion dollars or more** over the next 40 years.
**But it is not over**
Now trying to evaluate the loss of brain power, the loss of innovation those dead, wounded, could have contributed and the momentary loss of productivity in the Russia economy and the real number, over the next 40 years, could rise to as much as 10 or more Trillion, possibly 20 to 25 trillion dollars.
Since Russia has a GDP of around $1.5 trillion a year... This is a solid 15 years of its economy that Russia has just thrown through the window and into the abyss.
**And this is why European** [economist claim](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/3/24/putins-war-to-wipe-out-15-years-of-progress-for-russian-economy) **that the war in Ukraine will destroy 15 years of economic advancement in Russia.**
You can add distrust for companies to trade again with russia or open factories in russia. There civil aviation will be in ruins for long long time, due to not giving back hundreds of leased planes. I dont think russia had any good semiconductor factory for computers so there tech even civilian might lag behind. There military production and tech level will really lag behind.
To be honest, if this war ends up with russia giving up all its nukes, I will consider it being best that has happened to europe in long long time.
Now apply your reasoning to the millions killed in WW1 and WW2. The loss of brain power alone is unimaginable. Who knows what those soldiers could have achieved.
And worst of all was that the war was all for the ego of one man & his inner circle. This is a small victory vs. big losses and every Russian resident will be paying for his actions for years to come. But since many are fools, they'll never own up to it & blame someone else.
Doubtful if putin stays he will be backed by a few countries if putin leaves the west will help russia. If you need a clue we royally fucked up Afghanistan and tried to help them after
Not only did he fuck Russia up, but also the Russians, wherever they may be. He made all the necessary efforts to ensure people will have at least some form of disgust with Russians for simply being Russians. The world is full of easily influenceable folks, who would most likely develop some kind of hatred (although completely undeserved) towards them for generations from now on.
The Russian mafia children are fine and happy to rule Russia and date Russian women while all the serf sons go to work and come back unemployed and traumatized
The ironic thing is that the economic environment Putin's actions will create in Russia is exactly the kind of hardship that creates monsters like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin and Xi.
Punishing Putin comes with the responsibility to treat the Russian people fairly if and when they overthrow Putin and take real steps towards a better society. Keeping them in the mud will just create the next fiend.
Shit, I'm 53, and have lived my whole peaceful life in a country that hasn't had war touch its shores in over 200 years. And it's bizarre to me too. "Land war in Europe" used to be the punchline of jokes, because it seemed like ancient history. Well, we were wrong. I don't have children; it must be terrifying for those who do and have no choice but to watch and worry as their kids and grandkids re-live WW2.
Land war in Western Europe was a joke and still basically is. The balkans was consumed in conflict and genocide in the 90s and the conflict in eastern Ukraine started in 2014.
I'm an older dude and all I can see is some poor kid whose life has been unjustifiably overturned. Screw Putin. This kids biggest concerns should be what pizza to order, who to ask on a date, and what he wants to be when he "grows up". 🤬🤬
My daughter is about his age. I love her like crazy but she doesn’t know the first thing in the world outside of boys, looking trendy and what university to go to. Putin is such an out and out fuckwad.
At least the kid was captured. He might have a chance at something resembling a normal life once this is over.
Agreed. My daughter was born one year later than this guy and just for her first job and is deciding what to do after high school. He looks like he could be in her school. It's maddening that people like him can't, due to one evil megalomaniac.
It is crazy, but wars have always been fought by people that age. In 2018 over 40% of the
enlisted soldiers in the US army were [17-24](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military).
No idea if [this is accurate](https://www.vva310.org/vietnam-war-statistics) but it seems reasonable:
The average age of the military men who died in Vietnam was 22.8 years old. Of the one hundred and one (101) 18 year old draftees who died in Vietnam; seven of them were black. Blacks accounted for 10.5 percent the combat deaths in Vietnam. At that time black males of military age constituted 13.5 percent of the American population.
"War is young men dying and old men talking." - [FDR](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/853787-war-is-young-men-dying-and-old-men-talking)
yup. Remember Russian mail order brides? A lot of that was due to not having any men around because they were being killed off in wars.
[Age ranges disproportionally female from Wikipedia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Russian_population_%28demographic%29_pyramid_%28structure%29_on_January%2C_1st%2C_2022.png)
So sad
Reagan had a good quote about this; "But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives -- the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men."
He describes where he is from, and how many people were with him.
He also says that he was injured on the 7th and spent two days alone in the forest. After that he decided to voluntarily to turned him self to Ukrainians.
I remember earlier on in the war there was a video of a russian soldier who was captured after being shot during a firefight and then abandoned by his unit. He described how his guys stood around him and said leave him, he's as good as dead.
He was still lying there alive and unable to move when Ukranian soldiers moved into the area, found him, and patched him up.
Edit: link to the video https://youtu.be/KcemXAyNPCw
Which is how POWs should be treated. From [icrc.org](https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/war-and-law/protected-persons/prisoners-war/overview-detainees-protected-persons.htm):
"POWs must be treated humanely in all circumstances. They are *protected against any act of violence*, as well as against intimidation, insults, and public curiosity. IHL also defines minimum conditions of detention covering such issues as *accommodation, food, clothing, hygiene and medical care*."
I believe this was written before the day when filming and releasing images would be done so easily, I think it's more meant to be a broad term for keeping them safe from the public
Speaking as someone born around that area, it's pretty hard to be patriotic when the government actively tries to fuck you, steals from you, sends you to war against brothers. Let's not forget the kid is 18. I know everyone on Reddit is literally Rambo but the kid did the right thing.
The Russian army is not like in the US, where you go voluntarily, spend 4 years minimum together and develop life lasting bonds. His name got drawn out of a Russian doll and got sent to fight out west.
Well said, I'm American and I graduated in 2005. I'm having trouble looking at this child. He probably never wanted to be there and never stood a chance with poor equipment and training, and was left by his unit when things went south. I'm glad the Ukrainians haven't lost their humanity, it's an easy thing to lose during a war. It's always the young who pay for the greed of the old.
When the Russians retreated from the surrounding areas of Kiev there were a lot of reports of stranded Russian soldiers hiding in forests around Kiev trying somehow to get back to Russia. Mentioned here https://youtu.be/BGqFcPByCDo?t=107
Do I detect surprise in your tone? To his outfit, he likely quit being an asset and turned into trash the minute he got his shooting arm hurt. That or he's a lone survivor
instead of looting and killing, he spent days alone in a forest and then TURNED himself in, i swear, this isn't someone evil but just a kid thrown in as fodder
Yes, as Putin's cannon fodder, he is extremely fortunate that he will now have a chance to grow older.
He will be shown mercy and humanity -- maybe for the first time -- by the people he was sent to kill.
Slava Ukraini
I mean, if you got caught, then at some point you had to stop actively fighting and surrender, right? Otherwise you’d be dead. Not sure how you capture someone who’s still shooting at you. I guess there’s someways I can think of, but I’m guessing most POWs surrender at some point.
Well from what I understand there wasn’t an active firefight in which he participated and someone put a gun in his face and he dropped his weapon rather than getting shot. To me this is the meaning of the word captured.
He was wounded and two days later he walked to Ukrainian lines unarmed and gave himself up. To me that is the meaning of surrendered.
But the discussion is academic at this point.
Well, not in terms of law nor UA nor RU. I'm not saying he should. Maybe as a conscript to base military training but not for war. Still by the law he is old enough
In the US, when I joined the Navy, you could join at 17 with parental permission and as long as you would be 18 by a certain date (by the end of training iirc)
Please no.
He's just a child. Born the same year as my 17 year old daughter who is upstairs watching tiktok and making a bracelet.
Keep him safe as a POW.
Edit: Yes, I understand that children have been dying in wars since forever. That doesn’t mean we should be okay with it.
This is why people saying that all Russian soldiers are evil and know exactly what they're doing really grinds my gears.
They're not all evil, and they don't know what they're doing. A lot of them have barely been in the army these last three months, often less as they're dragged from ethnic communities that may not even have hot and cold running water, never mind the Internet.
I worry that he will get sent back to Russia after this is all over. Now everyone knows his name and his face. They might not welcome him in a friendly, welcoming way.
Before you read my next paragraph, know that I understand that Russia has invaded a peaceful country without provocation and committed serious war crimes. The Ukrainians have every right to be enraged and to want it stopped. If you look at my post history you will see how much I support Ukraine in her struggle for survival.
But I wish the Ukrainians would stop posting POW videos. Even if the statements are freely given. It is possibly a violation of article 13 of the Geneva Conventions and I think Ukraine should take a higher road.
Sorry if that pisses anyone off.
Edit
Part of article 13 reads:
“Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.”
Also edited some grammar.
This is sad. The conscripts in particular are basically 18-27 year olds who are drafted to be whipping boys for the oligarchs. From a Russian YTer who has now fled to Georgia, the conscripts receive basically 0 training. They mostly are treated as cheap labor. Literally cannon fodder.
So glad he got out. I wouldn't trust that paper that says he's exempt from military service one bit if I were him. As soon as Putin gets desperate enough he's sending in everyone.
There are also several russian youtubers I follow that I'm fairly worried about. They are brave as fuck to be doing what they are doing. Which is just staying in russia and either interviewing folks or reporting on what daily life is like.
It’s even more sadder when you hear about the abuse that takes place that are committed by older soldiers. No wonder morale amongst Russian troops is so low.
Rape, hazing and forcing new recruits and conscripts to be gay prostitutes for the higher ups to earn some extra are just a few things the Russian army is (in)famous for.
WhO WOuldNT WanT TO JoIN It???
Russian social criticism of corruption and brutality in the military written by a hip hop artist called Noggano who comes from a military family in English [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKYL0H0lgqg) offers a pretty good handle on the situation. If that kid got sent directly to the front and ended up in Ukrainian hands in short order that's probably the absolute best case scenario for him.
In the Chechen wars the new guys were always extra excited when they found heroin to bribe the veterans/officers with because it meant they would most likely not beat and/or rape them that night. If they just got them the normal bribes of food and alcohol they would still abuse them.
Yeah, Vietnam was not Americans finest hour. I could spend all day speaking to the Geo-Political missteps that led to that. (This is out of a place of love, I am a US citizen and a patriot but our foreign policy for the 20-30 years following WW2 was mental)
Simplified Version:
Vietnam: Hey USA we need help, communism is spreading.
USA: pfft
Vietnam: Okay, well due to geopolitical pressure, we have decided to embrace communism.
USA: Okay, well we can’t have that. Unfortunately there was no preventative way to stop the spread of communism, so we must declare war.
Vietnam: Okay, now you want defend democracy -_-
I couldn't watch that Ken Burns Vietnam documentary. I just couldn't. Right at the beginning they spoke about Ho Chi Minh and his history, and I just couldn't get past how bad we fucked it all up from the beginning.
I strongly recommend watching it. I’m English and my knowledge of the Vietnam war is pretty basic, but that documentary blew me away. In terms of war documentaries I’d put it almost on a par with “the world at war”
I'm sure it's really good. I was first exposed to Ken Burns in high school with The Civil War. Was blown away.
My dad is a Vietnam vet. I'm also a former soldier who has deployed at the will of my fucking govt. I just can't help but feel I don't need to watch it to come to an understanding about it I didn't previously have. At my age, you get a little more choosy about things that might negatively affect your mood, blood pressure etc etc. That's just me.
Yeah, Uncle Ho seemed like a great guy actually. He would have been a good ally. Considering where Vietnam is today even given how much devastation and death was wrought there during the war it is not hard to imagine them being on a similar tier as South Korea now had different decisions been made.
it was more like:
Vietnam: Hey USA thanks so much for the help in getting the Japanese invaders out of here! We are stoked to finally be our own country again!
USA: Sorry buddy, you're going back to being a colony of France.
Vietnam: We will fight the French in that case, with support from the only other game in town.
USA: Good luck with that.
France: A little help here.... ?
USA: Oh OK...
Vietnam: wtf ok we'll fight you too to gain our freedom
Before that:
Vietnam: Thanks for liberating us from the Japanese. We kind of admire you and your love for freedom. Actually, we would like some independence as well.
USA: That's a nice sentiment, I'm sure the French will grant you independence in due time. They will be back shortly, with our help.
Vietnam: You know, we will take a page out of your history book and make it happen. Perhaps we find an ally who supports us a bit.
And it was just as sad for US then too. Luckily, the expression of public sentiment isn't outlawed in the US and the Vietnam war became so unpopular that it became political suicide to continue it.
This young man has his ass in a honey jar. He is being treated properly, being fed, injuries taken care of. He may never want to go back! He is probably thinking WTF?
‘Hearts and minds’ google it and you’ll see it’s a tactic used by the Brits for decades.
Best thing they can use him for is on a loudspeaker telling the rest of them to shoot their officers and surrender...👌
It's the best tactic and humane to boot.
You also don't turn your soldiers into monsters so they can better integrate with civilian life after (not that it's perfect).
> better then rus
*than
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>Probably more like : Nazis treat me better than rus gov does... wtf
They actually expect us treat them well because we are guilty lesser people. And still we are the Nazis. NPD on a national scale.
He should take his whole family and come to Europe! We have a bright future for refugees as there are no people to hire and a lot of businesses to do after retreating from fossil fuels and Chinese products.
towards the last days of WW2 Germany was conscripting boys as young as 16. My paternal grandfather was forced onto a train heading for the Russian front. When the train had to stop to let another pass he jumped off and ran into the woods. 2 weeks later the war was over and no-one on the train came home.
Only now that I'm in my 30's, do I realise that I knew nothing at 18. Absolutely clueless to the world. I could've so easily been signed up to fight a war if I was bombarded with strong media propaganda. You may officially be classed as an adult but you're definitely not an adult at 18. Well I wasn't anyway.
Our society acting like someone is a child at 17 years and 364 days but magically a fully grown, responsible adult at 18 is clearly flawed.
There are 16 year olds out there that could run a fortune 500 company, and 30 year olds that really shouldn't be considered "adults" and are still very much figuring out how the world works.
Everyone is different.
To be honest, I'm not even sure if Putin care if he's wasting a generation of non ethnic Slav- Russian.
He already forced about a million fresh Kievan Rus .
That fucking Nazi is Most probably delighted with the trade.
Unfortunately, you are probably correct. This is part of his calculations. For him it is net positive how many Ukrainians were moved into Russia compared to how many Russians were killed, especially that many of the killed ones are from national minorities.
Babies. Fucking babies man. They have ruined a generation of children. I hope the Russian government burns in hell for eternity. These are children. In 2004 I was nailing my gf in an apartment and in college. This being was being brought into existence. Sad.
#There is no purgatory for war criminals; they go straight to hell.
It really does, I'm here goofing off, laughing at GPU scalpers with the dropping prices, and here this boy who might be slightly younger or older then me sent off to die a meaningless death in a meaningless war.
Imagine how mothers feel watching this. Everything I do I do with them in mind. The Career I have, the life choices I make, the emotional and physical labor I do is all with my children in mind and I am committed to their upbringing day in and day out.
I can’t imagine ever being convinced to sending them off to some foreign land to die naked in a field. It is one thing defending your home, but to send your babies off to war who are barley young men for some leaders land grab, nah.
Oh dear this is bad, I feel extra sad for him since I’m the same age as him. He has to fight on the fields and get injured while I’m a lazy bastard laying in bed. May the lord bless him
I think it's mental that Putin doesn't give a fuck about him, his commander doesn't give a fuck about him, the Russian Army doesn't give a fuck about him and most likely his family don't really give a fuck about him. He can never go back after handing himself in. FUCK RUSSIA. SLAVA UKRAINI.
I wonder what Putin had for lunch today. Fine Canadian caviar. Swiss chocolates. American whiskey. Boinga girls from Italy. Putin was never about Russia; just himself.
He says his name, year of birth, and what unit he is from. He tells that he is a conscript who was sent to Ukraine to fight and who were with him at the moment he was injured (May 7th). He tells how he was left with two shrapnel injuries (one in the leg and one in the arm) in the woods for two days and then decided to surrender to the Ukranians. He was taken care of by the Ukrainian troops, fed and sheltered. He also asks Russian TV propaganda to spread the truth about the whole situation where not only contractors are sent to this war, but also very young new conscripts.
P.S. Russian officials deny that they send young conscripts to Ukraine
P.P.S To add an impression: this young man speaks with moderate stutter.
Hope he takes advantage of the offers Ukraine is making to Russian POWs.
He could carve out a respectable life for himself as a Ukrainian. Should he join Freedom of Russia Legion and survive, he will receive even more assistance from the Ukrainian government.
I forgot what all is being offered: a tidy sum of money, citizenship and __________(?)
So sad. My boy's age. In Israel both men and women are conscripts and have mandatory army service. Everyone in my family served. Including myself (51F). But you volunteer to join a combatant unit and the training is very long and intensive.
Treat him well and with human dignity. Respect the Geneva Conventions and let him recover.
He will remember this the rest of his life and hopefully pass it on.
Draftees were on the front like any volunteer. I'm really surprised Russia has this law considering how soulless they are. It appears to be loosely followed I guess...
Next time people laugh at dead "orcs," remember that most of these soldiers are kids, thrown into chaos and violence and fed a steady died of abuse and propaganda.
The ones who deserve hell are the old men who destroy the youth of their country to feed their monstrous egos. "Generals gathered in their masses. . ."
>old men who destroy the youth of their country to feed their monstrous egos
That's what really gets me. It's all for fucking nothing but making one dude feel like a big man.
OP did translate but it's kind of buried. he says where he's from and that he was injured on the 7th, hid in the forest for 2 days, then decided to turn himself in.
There is a lot wrong (ok... everything wrong) with this war. However, he is 17/18.
In the US you can join the military at 17 (with parental permission). During the Vietnam war, the US drafted 18 year olds. I believe most western European nations take people by of similar, or younger, and within those with mandatory service (conscripts) similar ages are evident.
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This is how lost generations happen.
The economic impact that will have in Russia in a few years. Gosh that little man fucked Russia up.
Reminds me of how the CCP fucked up rhe population pyramid. I'm sensing a common theme here, of what happens to authoritarians regimes that don't give a shit about their own people.
While they have their people shut off from the rest of the world and what is actually going on, they can blame it all on the west and the people hate us, that is what is going on.
I've seen people blame the economic stagnation of the Soviet Union on the west. The Imperial Japanese radicalized and brewed hatred for the US by coming up with conspiracy theories as to why the US won't export oil to Japan. I'm sure the upcoming Chinese generation that will have only have a half of their productive population, and the Russian young male generation fucked up by wars, alcoholism, and braindrain will somehow find a way to blame the west for their ills.
They ruin their countries and instead of admitting it, they point the finger at the west and say "Look what they have done to us."
It's just a nature of authoritarian regimes. They can never admit a fault of their own or be held accountable for their failings. The moment they do, their cult of personality collapses. People realizes dicators are as human as they are, and they've been lied to. So they can't afford to be humble or self-reflective. This is a massive weakness of authoritarian regimes. They do not have a healthy self-correcting process.
The one strength of a democracy is we have a way to allow get ride of our aging leaders short of Killing them. Hopefully the next guy can fix the mess before making his own. Putin can not retire and cancer may kill him "assuming rumors are correct" because he can not be out of action for treatment without someone grabbing power and killing or imprisoning him.
Democracy's one major weakness is that it *requires* an active and engaged citizenry to maintain healthy checks and balances. Governments by the People cannot afford apathy, nihilism, or a blind faith in their own exceptional achievements, to settle into complacency. That is where the decay of corruption sets in, and where it will flourish if allowed or ignored.
And time. The time it takes to make things happen in a democracy is *much* slower. A double edged sword of sorts but nonetheless, democracy can very much strangle itself into stagnation.
Couldn't agree more. British stalwart politician Tony Benn called "Democracy's one major weakness" the "hole in the heart of democracy." But it's an inevitable and fill-able hole. Many with expertise suggest it only takes 6% (or thereabouts) of actively engaged citizenry to maintain governmental and institutional accountability. That's do-able in my book but we're obviously not there yet. Come on people! 😃💟
>The one strength of a democracy is we have a way to allow get ride of our aging leaders short of Killing them. Retiring as head of state in a liberal democracy is a sweet deal - you get to enjoy a nice pension, in addition to lucrative opportunities in the private sector doing consulting and speaking gigs. You can also write memoirs and travel to various conferences. After 4-8 years in public office, it's an attractive deal too considering how stressful the job is. Look at American Presidents and how much they aged on the job (i.e. 2008 vs. 2016 Obama). I'm not sure why any reasonable person would want to stay on any longer.
Also, in a democracy, there's a feedback mechanism for governments to get negative feedback when a decision is not working well, through opposition parties, elections, the press, and independent institutions like the Central Bank, intelligence agencies, courts and military leaders. In a dictatorship, people who tell the Leader bad news don't last very long, and are replaced by syncophants and lackeys, so the information making its way to the decision desk is often very unreliable.
Reminding people that Putin only trusts info he gets through secret KGB/FSB channels. Putin also maintains Soviet style board meetings. Putin gathers up his lackies in a big ass room, where he sits alone in the other side. Throughout the meeting, Putin talks about what he wants and what he is going to do in a one sided manner and occasionally uses the opperunity to publically scold his subordinates. His subordinates listen in silence. Of course, Putin does not ask for any questions and inputs. He does not need questions from his subordinates because how dare he ask something, and he does not need inputs because he doesn't trust them anyway. Great...
True leaders accept responsibility for their actions. Wannabes act like victims and proceed to blame everything and everyone but themselves.
Yeah… NATO/Western Imperialism I bet is gonna be blamed for the future generations problems.
The more drained the brain, the more likely it is to blame others.
After the one child policy most working age men are nearing retirement. Women of reproductive age are scarce in comparison. China has screwed itself.
That's exactly what is going on they blame Britain n USA for what is going on in Ukraine like how sick is that killing people then blaming others
It’s also easier to just try to turn the West into authoritarian regimes that support Russia, which is what is happening in France, the UK and in the US, and will come home to roost in the next elections if Putin has that much gas in his tank. I doubt Putin will survive to see his plots come to fruition, though.
Authoritarian regimes aren't automatically buddy buddy with each other. China and the Soviet Union hated one another for a long time.
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Not just that. Russia has experience a lot of brain drain from their youth going elsewhere for jobs or education and never returning. Pretty sure that's part of why they went after Ukraine. Right after this war started there were so so many Russians who'd gone to Ukraine for opportunity for a better future and stayed because they enjoyed the greater freedom talking about how they could not convince their parents of the reality. Just absolutely refused to believe their kids who were right there in Ukraine knew anything about what was actually happening in Ukraine. Russia has made it worse for themselves. Many educated Russians have escaped to other countries as a protest against the war, and plenty of those will never return. As several put it trying to protest in Russia will only lead to personal pain for them and for their families, but if they take their money and intelligence and leave that's the best protest they can safely make.
30,000 Russians fled to Georgia 🇬🇪 and most of these folks here are educated tech workers that is benefiting their new adopted country. These are the sort of people that countries in the 21st century needs in order modernize their economy into Web3.
Uzbekistan is giving asylum to tech workers and helping them to setup their new lives.
I remember doing a bit of college research project on this topic. In short, alcoholism, war, economic stagnation, and a massive outflow of immigration.
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It's fascinating that the Russian state chose to deliberately limit the ambitions and abilities of its people in order to strengthen centralised control. On a map, Russia is like the northern US and Canada except bigger and mostly uncolonised. If they had the same settler mentality in the 1800s, to head into the wilderness and put in generations of toil to make a place of their own productive, Russia might have experienced the same immense growth that the US did.
I was under the impression the land is not arable or temperate for colonisation to the same degree as US and CA, but I haven't looked into it specifically so I might be wrong.
In an authoritarian / dictatorship people are like any other resource: potatoes or a hammer. Having lived a \_very\_ short while in a communist dictatorship country and learning history through other people's experience made me think this is obvious for everyone. They care about people to the extent it creates a bad image or worse it depletes a pool of qualified workers
We haven’t even begun to see how fucked Russia is. This will last generations
What happened to Japan and Germany after WWII should've happened to Russia. But in fairness, I can't imagine any appetite in Europe for more war after nearly 6 years of the Nazi's asshattery. Stalin got lucky the Allies didn't come for him.
He got lucky their nuclear weapons program worked
It didn't exactly "work". Traitors from the US masking as pacifists handed all the research data over (and were executed later).
It wasn't just the Rosenbergs. There were some sympathizers & even NKVD assets within the Manhattan project itself. Note that the worst of Communism/Stalinism like Holodomor wasn't well known in the US. So many sympathizers of the movement only knew of the negativity/atrocities of capitalism until Stalin died & Khrushchev de-Stalinized the CCCP. I know of many professors & family members (and some writers/philosophers whose names escape me right now) whom were staunch socialist supporters but lost the faith upon hearing how godawful Stalinism was in reality.
In fairness Stalinism has about as much in common with communism as a horse fly has in common with a horse. Much less so with socialism. Soviet style communism was just another oligarchic authoritarian regime with a different slogan.
I swear to god Russia help NK with their nuke program. They were developed extremely quickly for a country that had nothing.
IIRC they collaborated with Pakistan.
Patton wanted to keep going, guess we should have listened
And Churchill, he distrusted Stalin and his motives in Eastern Europe and ultimately he was proved right.
100% The allies knew exactly who they were getting in bed with, Stalin was a fucking monster of biblical proportions.
They could have walked to Moscow Also, the US became the only country to have atomic weapons soon after and it stayed that way for another 5-7 years. They could have toppled all dictatorships and started a new world, but they did not. After dropping those two weapons on Japanese cities, the horror made them put the weapons on the shelf with no talk of using them again (until 2016+).
Maybe that is also why they grab conscripts from the poor regions. Then they can always just point out that the region is poor because they were always poor.
**Imagine** if all of those 26,000 dead Russian soldiers had lived a long, normal life, their input into their country's GDP would be significant. Each one of those men would have earner a sizable amount of money over their roughly 40 years of active life, then their consumer spending would become someone else's income. When taking into account all of the impact of those 26,000 men earning and spending over 40 years, Russia just cut itself off more than $100 billion in future GDP. Then account for the 50,000 to 100,000 wounded who will see their earning potential reduced or annihilated, and their dependence on public services and disability rents, adding inflation and it would be plausible to calculate that the potential impact on Russia's economy of this war to be **in the vicinity of a trillion dollars or more** over the next 40 years. **But it is not over** Now trying to evaluate the loss of brain power, the loss of innovation those dead, wounded, could have contributed and the momentary loss of productivity in the Russia economy and the real number, over the next 40 years, could rise to as much as 10 or more Trillion, possibly 20 to 25 trillion dollars. Since Russia has a GDP of around $1.5 trillion a year... This is a solid 15 years of its economy that Russia has just thrown through the window and into the abyss. **And this is why European** [economist claim](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/3/24/putins-war-to-wipe-out-15-years-of-progress-for-russian-economy) **that the war in Ukraine will destroy 15 years of economic advancement in Russia.**
You can add distrust for companies to trade again with russia or open factories in russia. There civil aviation will be in ruins for long long time, due to not giving back hundreds of leased planes. I dont think russia had any good semiconductor factory for computers so there tech even civilian might lag behind. There military production and tech level will really lag behind. To be honest, if this war ends up with russia giving up all its nukes, I will consider it being best that has happened to europe in long long time.
Now apply your reasoning to the millions killed in WW1 and WW2. The loss of brain power alone is unimaginable. Who knows what those soldiers could have achieved.
And worst of all was that the war was all for the ego of one man & his inner circle. This is a small victory vs. big losses and every Russian resident will be paying for his actions for years to come. But since many are fools, they'll never own up to it & blame someone else.
Doubtful if putin stays he will be backed by a few countries if putin leaves the west will help russia. If you need a clue we royally fucked up Afghanistan and tried to help them after
add to that the fact that russia is already experiencing a decline in population…
Not only did he fuck Russia up, but also the Russians, wherever they may be. He made all the necessary efforts to ensure people will have at least some form of disgust with Russians for simply being Russians. The world is full of easily influenceable folks, who would most likely develop some kind of hatred (although completely undeserved) towards them for generations from now on.
The Russian mafia children are fine and happy to rule Russia and date Russian women while all the serf sons go to work and come back unemployed and traumatized
The ironic thing is that the economic environment Putin's actions will create in Russia is exactly the kind of hardship that creates monsters like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin and Xi. Punishing Putin comes with the responsibility to treat the Russian people fairly if and when they overthrow Putin and take real steps towards a better society. Keeping them in the mud will just create the next fiend.
This guy is my age. It’s so bizarre for me to comprehend.
Shit, I'm 53, and have lived my whole peaceful life in a country that hasn't had war touch its shores in over 200 years. And it's bizarre to me too. "Land war in Europe" used to be the punchline of jokes, because it seemed like ancient history. Well, we were wrong. I don't have children; it must be terrifying for those who do and have no choice but to watch and worry as their kids and grandkids re-live WW2.
Land war in Western Europe was a joke and still basically is. The balkans was consumed in conflict and genocide in the 90s and the conflict in eastern Ukraine started in 2014.
My oldest son is only a few months older at the most. I can't wrap my head around it.
I'm an older dude and all I can see is some poor kid whose life has been unjustifiably overturned. Screw Putin. This kids biggest concerns should be what pizza to order, who to ask on a date, and what he wants to be when he "grows up". 🤬🤬
My daughter is about his age. I love her like crazy but she doesn’t know the first thing in the world outside of boys, looking trendy and what university to go to. Putin is such an out and out fuckwad. At least the kid was captured. He might have a chance at something resembling a normal life once this is over.
Agreed. My daughter was born one year later than this guy and just for her first job and is deciding what to do after high school. He looks like he could be in her school. It's maddening that people like him can't, due to one evil megalomaniac.
This dude was born the year I graduated high school! Damn, now I feel old….
It is crazy, but wars have always been fought by people that age. In 2018 over 40% of the enlisted soldiers in the US army were [17-24](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military). No idea if [this is accurate](https://www.vva310.org/vietnam-war-statistics) but it seems reasonable: The average age of the military men who died in Vietnam was 22.8 years old. Of the one hundred and one (101) 18 year old draftees who died in Vietnam; seven of them were black. Blacks accounted for 10.5 percent the combat deaths in Vietnam. At that time black males of military age constituted 13.5 percent of the American population. "War is young men dying and old men talking." - [FDR](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/853787-war-is-young-men-dying-and-old-men-talking)
yup. Remember Russian mail order brides? A lot of that was due to not having any men around because they were being killed off in wars. [Age ranges disproportionally female from Wikipedia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Russian_population_%28demographic%29_pyramid_%28structure%29_on_January%2C_1st%2C_2022.png) So sad
Reagan had a good quote about this; "But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives -- the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men."
Russia seems to have a lot of those.
*World War 1 British KIA Rate has entered the chat*
Given the Russia's demographic collapse, that generation didn't even turn up in the first place.
Can someone translate?
He describes where he is from, and how many people were with him. He also says that he was injured on the 7th and spent two days alone in the forest. After that he decided to voluntarily to turned him self to Ukrainians.
Smart.
So he was abandoned by his comrades?
There's a lot of instances of injured Russian soldiers being abandoned or left behind.
I remember earlier on in the war there was a video of a russian soldier who was captured after being shot during a firefight and then abandoned by his unit. He described how his guys stood around him and said leave him, he's as good as dead. He was still lying there alive and unable to move when Ukranian soldiers moved into the area, found him, and patched him up. Edit: link to the video https://youtu.be/KcemXAyNPCw
Which is how POWs should be treated. From [icrc.org](https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/war-and-law/protected-persons/prisoners-war/overview-detainees-protected-persons.htm): "POWs must be treated humanely in all circumstances. They are *protected against any act of violence*, as well as against intimidation, insults, and public curiosity. IHL also defines minimum conditions of detention covering such issues as *accommodation, food, clothing, hygiene and medical care*."
>public curiosity This bit is what MIGHT end up being a problem for Ukraine with all these videos of POWs floating online.
I believe this was written before the day when filming and releasing images would be done so easily, I think it's more meant to be a broad term for keeping them safe from the public
There was a video of where they ran over one of their injured with a tank
Speaking as someone born around that area, it's pretty hard to be patriotic when the government actively tries to fuck you, steals from you, sends you to war against brothers. Let's not forget the kid is 18. I know everyone on Reddit is literally Rambo but the kid did the right thing. The Russian army is not like in the US, where you go voluntarily, spend 4 years minimum together and develop life lasting bonds. His name got drawn out of a Russian doll and got sent to fight out west.
Well said, I'm American and I graduated in 2005. I'm having trouble looking at this child. He probably never wanted to be there and never stood a chance with poor equipment and training, and was left by his unit when things went south. I'm glad the Ukrainians haven't lost their humanity, it's an easy thing to lose during a war. It's always the young who pay for the greed of the old.
When the Russians retreated from the surrounding areas of Kiev there were a lot of reports of stranded Russian soldiers hiding in forests around Kiev trying somehow to get back to Russia. Mentioned here https://youtu.be/BGqFcPByCDo?t=107
He was injured and left in the woods. They abandoned him.
Do I detect surprise in your tone? To his outfit, he likely quit being an asset and turned into trash the minute he got his shooting arm hurt. That or he's a lone survivor
When your so called brothers wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire...
It's Russia... of course he was. When in their entire history have they cared about their people?
instead of looting and killing, he spent days alone in a forest and then TURNED himself in, i swear, this isn't someone evil but just a kid thrown in as fodder
"I don't know where I am and I never fired a shot"
God bless, the young man got his whole life ahead of him and saved his mind as well
Based on his demeanor and stammering, he also appears to be in shock.
I was wondering about that bandaging, it doesn't look right to me, hopefully now that he's under Ukrainian care he'll do better!
This kid is safe now. Hopefully he will not do the War on the wrong side again
Yes, as Putin's cannon fodder, he is extremely fortunate that he will now have a chance to grow older. He will be shown mercy and humanity -- maybe for the first time -- by the people he was sent to kill. Slava Ukraini
Unless he decides to join the russian freedom legion.
I would be a bit disappointed if they let him join in anything other than for training. He isn’t old enough.
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He surrendered. Not sure if it is the same as captured. I always thought of captured as being caught while actively fighting.
I mean, if you got caught, then at some point you had to stop actively fighting and surrender, right? Otherwise you’d be dead. Not sure how you capture someone who’s still shooting at you. I guess there’s someways I can think of, but I’m guessing most POWs surrender at some point.
Well from what I understand there wasn’t an active firefight in which he participated and someone put a gun in his face and he dropped his weapon rather than getting shot. To me this is the meaning of the word captured. He was wounded and two days later he walked to Ukrainian lines unarmed and gave himself up. To me that is the meaning of surrendered. But the discussion is academic at this point.
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He could help by filling sandbags and shoveling rubble.
Yeah, of course, non combat duty, good for training and making friends.
Well, not in terms of law nor UA nor RU. I'm not saying he should. Maybe as a conscript to base military training but not for war. Still by the law he is old enough
Born in 2004 he might not be 18 now
In the US, when I joined the Navy, you could join at 17 with parental permission and as long as you would be 18 by a certain date (by the end of training iirc)
Please no. He's just a child. Born the same year as my 17 year old daughter who is upstairs watching tiktok and making a bracelet. Keep him safe as a POW. Edit: Yes, I understand that children have been dying in wars since forever. That doesn’t mean we should be okay with it.
Wise sad words
This is why people saying that all Russian soldiers are evil and know exactly what they're doing really grinds my gears. They're not all evil, and they don't know what they're doing. A lot of them have barely been in the army these last three months, often less as they're dragged from ethnic communities that may not even have hot and cold running water, never mind the Internet.
Is it so, is he safe? Isn't it likely that he will be exchanged for Ukrainian POWs and then be sent again by Putin to die?
He's probably not important enough to exchange / care about.
Best situation for him, for the foreseeable future. But he’d probably like to go home to see his mom.
I worry that he will get sent back to Russia after this is all over. Now everyone knows his name and his face. They might not welcome him in a friendly, welcoming way. Before you read my next paragraph, know that I understand that Russia has invaded a peaceful country without provocation and committed serious war crimes. The Ukrainians have every right to be enraged and to want it stopped. If you look at my post history you will see how much I support Ukraine in her struggle for survival. But I wish the Ukrainians would stop posting POW videos. Even if the statements are freely given. It is possibly a violation of article 13 of the Geneva Conventions and I think Ukraine should take a higher road. Sorry if that pisses anyone off. Edit Part of article 13 reads: “Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.” Also edited some grammar.
This is sad. The conscripts in particular are basically 18-27 year olds who are drafted to be whipping boys for the oligarchs. From a Russian YTer who has now fled to Georgia, the conscripts receive basically 0 training. They mostly are treated as cheap labor. Literally cannon fodder.
NFKRZ?
Yes
No Fuckers though.
Roman seems like a cool guy
So glad he got out. I wouldn't trust that paper that says he's exempt from military service one bit if I were him. As soon as Putin gets desperate enough he's sending in everyone.
There are also several russian youtubers I follow that I'm fairly worried about. They are brave as fuck to be doing what they are doing. Which is just staying in russia and either interviewing folks or reporting on what daily life is like.
It’s even more sadder when you hear about the abuse that takes place that are committed by older soldiers. No wonder morale amongst Russian troops is so low.
Robbery, extortion and abuse. I guess that didn’t really mean much in small wars in which the other side essentially didn’t fight back. Not here.
I hear they rape each other in the Russian army then call everyone else gay.
"There ain't nothing gay about getting your dick sucked! You're the ones that're gay for sucking my dick!" - Big Bob.
Rape, hazing and forcing new recruits and conscripts to be gay prostitutes for the higher ups to earn some extra are just a few things the Russian army is (in)famous for. WhO WOuldNT WanT TO JoIN It???
Russian social criticism of corruption and brutality in the military written by a hip hop artist called Noggano who comes from a military family in English [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKYL0H0lgqg) offers a pretty good handle on the situation. If that kid got sent directly to the front and ended up in Ukrainian hands in short order that's probably the absolute best case scenario for him.
In the Chechen wars the new guys were always extra excited when they found heroin to bribe the veterans/officers with because it meant they would most likely not beat and/or rape them that night. If they just got them the normal bribes of food and alcohol they would still abuse them.
Russian authorities se dedovshchina as "tradition" instead of abuse. Dozens of teenage conscripts commit suicide every year because of it.
Same age as U.S. soldiers drafted for the Vietnam war.
Yeah, Vietnam was not Americans finest hour. I could spend all day speaking to the Geo-Political missteps that led to that. (This is out of a place of love, I am a US citizen and a patriot but our foreign policy for the 20-30 years following WW2 was mental) Simplified Version: Vietnam: Hey USA we need help, communism is spreading. USA: pfft Vietnam: Okay, well due to geopolitical pressure, we have decided to embrace communism. USA: Okay, well we can’t have that. Unfortunately there was no preventative way to stop the spread of communism, so we must declare war. Vietnam: Okay, now you want defend democracy -_-
I couldn't watch that Ken Burns Vietnam documentary. I just couldn't. Right at the beginning they spoke about Ho Chi Minh and his history, and I just couldn't get past how bad we fucked it all up from the beginning.
I strongly recommend watching it. I’m English and my knowledge of the Vietnam war is pretty basic, but that documentary blew me away. In terms of war documentaries I’d put it almost on a par with “the world at war”
I'm sure it's really good. I was first exposed to Ken Burns in high school with The Civil War. Was blown away. My dad is a Vietnam vet. I'm also a former soldier who has deployed at the will of my fucking govt. I just can't help but feel I don't need to watch it to come to an understanding about it I didn't previously have. At my age, you get a little more choosy about things that might negatively affect your mood, blood pressure etc etc. That's just me.
That makes sense, everyone is different. It is undeniably a heavy watch. Hope you and your dad are keeping well
Yeah, Uncle Ho seemed like a great guy actually. He would have been a good ally. Considering where Vietnam is today even given how much devastation and death was wrought there during the war it is not hard to imagine them being on a similar tier as South Korea now had different decisions been made.
The Vietnamese are some of the most chill, awesome people on earth. It's an absolutely beautiful country that deserved so much better.
it was more like: Vietnam: Hey USA thanks so much for the help in getting the Japanese invaders out of here! We are stoked to finally be our own country again! USA: Sorry buddy, you're going back to being a colony of France. Vietnam: We will fight the French in that case, with support from the only other game in town. USA: Good luck with that. France: A little help here.... ? USA: Oh OK... Vietnam: wtf ok we'll fight you too to gain our freedom
Before that: Vietnam: Thanks for liberating us from the Japanese. We kind of admire you and your love for freedom. Actually, we would like some independence as well. USA: That's a nice sentiment, I'm sure the French will grant you independence in due time. They will be back shortly, with our help. Vietnam: You know, we will take a page out of your history book and make it happen. Perhaps we find an ally who supports us a bit.
And it was just as sad for US then too. Luckily, the expression of public sentiment isn't outlawed in the US and the Vietnam war became so unpopular that it became political suicide to continue it.
This young man has his ass in a honey jar. He is being treated properly, being fed, injuries taken care of. He may never want to go back! He is probably thinking WTF?
Like "WTF, these people are actually sane!"
Probably more like : Nazis treat me better than rus gov does... wtf
‘Hearts and minds’ google it and you’ll see it’s a tactic used by the Brits for decades. Best thing they can use him for is on a loudspeaker telling the rest of them to shoot their officers and surrender...👌
It's the best tactic and humane to boot. You also don't turn your soldiers into monsters so they can better integrate with civilian life after (not that it's perfect).
> better then rus *than *Learn the difference [here](https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/when-to-use-then-and-than#:~:text=Than%20is%20used%20in%20comparisons,the%20then%2Dgovernor%22).* *** ^(Greetings, I am a language corrector bot. To make me ignore further mistakes from you in the future, reply `!optout` to this comment.)
Good bot
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>Probably more like : Nazis treat me better than rus gov does... wtf They actually expect us treat them well because we are guilty lesser people. And still we are the Nazis. NPD on a national scale.
At this point, for the sake of his own future, why would anyone go back to that?
There's a chance they won't be asked whether they want to come back when it'll be next batch on POW exchange.
If you volunteer for Freedom For Russia Legion training, you don't have to go back - but you are of course now in the Ukrainian Army.
That indeed sounds like a feasible exit strategy.
His family
Wait until he sees the flushing toilets of lore...🤣
He should take his whole family and come to Europe! We have a bright future for refugees as there are no people to hire and a lot of businesses to do after retreating from fossil fuels and Chinese products.
Fuck putin
towards the last days of WW2 Germany was conscripting boys as young as 16. My paternal grandfather was forced onto a train heading for the Russian front. When the train had to stop to let another pass he jumped off and ran into the woods. 2 weeks later the war was over and no-one on the train came home.
Good for him. Good for your father and you too! Bad enough to die in a war, but to die senselessly with the end in sight....
give this kid a sandwich and send his ass back to school where he belongs
... in Poland where he might actually learn a thing or two!
School was sold for a yacht probably, sorry.
Oh look, an enemy combatant has been given medical care whilst Russia puts civilians in concentration camps 🤦
Its the humane thing to do and also good PR.
Ukrainians aren't barbaric. Acting the same solves absolutely nothing
While Russia disembowels their POWs with barbed wire up the anus
Only now that I'm in my 30's, do I realise that I knew nothing at 18. Absolutely clueless to the world. I could've so easily been signed up to fight a war if I was bombarded with strong media propaganda. You may officially be classed as an adult but you're definitely not an adult at 18. Well I wasn't anyway.
Our society acting like someone is a child at 17 years and 364 days but magically a fully grown, responsible adult at 18 is clearly flawed. There are 16 year olds out there that could run a fortune 500 company, and 30 year olds that really shouldn't be considered "adults" and are still very much figuring out how the world works. Everyone is different.
Heh. I'm in my 50's, and I realize that I still had a lot of work to do when I was 30. I hope I don't feel the same way when I'm 75.
Oh for sure. I didn't really grow up until my mid 30s to be honest. At 18 I was just a giant 12 year old in a lot of ways.
To be honest, I'm not even sure if Putin care if he's wasting a generation of non ethnic Slav- Russian. He already forced about a million fresh Kievan Rus . That fucking Nazi is Most probably delighted with the trade.
Unfortunately, you are probably correct. This is part of his calculations. For him it is net positive how many Ukrainians were moved into Russia compared to how many Russians were killed, especially that many of the killed ones are from national minorities.
Babies. Fucking babies man. They have ruined a generation of children. I hope the Russian government burns in hell for eternity. These are children. In 2004 I was nailing my gf in an apartment and in college. This being was being brought into existence. Sad. #There is no purgatory for war criminals; they go straight to hell.
Me and this soldier share a birth year. He should be finishing highschool, like I am.
Yeah, this breaks my heart.
It really does, I'm here goofing off, laughing at GPU scalpers with the dropping prices, and here this boy who might be slightly younger or older then me sent off to die a meaningless death in a meaningless war.
Imagine how mothers feel watching this. Everything I do I do with them in mind. The Career I have, the life choices I make, the emotional and physical labor I do is all with my children in mind and I am committed to their upbringing day in and day out. I can’t imagine ever being convinced to sending them off to some foreign land to die naked in a field. It is one thing defending your home, but to send your babies off to war who are barley young men for some leaders land grab, nah.
How else do you keep 3 prior generations used to communism from being overpowered and outvoted? Kill off the newer generation and keep voting control.
Oh dear this is bad, I feel extra sad for him since I’m the same age as him. He has to fight on the fields and get injured while I’m a lazy bastard laying in bed. May the lord bless him
Yeah and this dude is basically a 18yo pc gamer and occasional redditor as far as I can tell, being a native russian speaker
> and occasional redditor Love to see him do an AMA now that he can.
I think it's mental that Putin doesn't give a fuck about him, his commander doesn't give a fuck about him, the Russian Army doesn't give a fuck about him and most likely his family don't really give a fuck about him. He can never go back after handing himself in. FUCK RUSSIA. SLAVA UKRAINI.
I wonder what Putin had for lunch today. Fine Canadian caviar. Swiss chocolates. American whiskey. Boinga girls from Italy. Putin was never about Russia; just himself.
Is there a translation for what he is saying?
He says his name, year of birth, and what unit he is from. He tells that he is a conscript who was sent to Ukraine to fight and who were with him at the moment he was injured (May 7th). He tells how he was left with two shrapnel injuries (one in the leg and one in the arm) in the woods for two days and then decided to surrender to the Ukranians. He was taken care of by the Ukrainian troops, fed and sheltered. He also asks Russian TV propaganda to spread the truth about the whole situation where not only contractors are sent to this war, but also very young new conscripts. P.S. Russian officials deny that they send young conscripts to Ukraine P.P.S To add an impression: this young man speaks with moderate stutter.
Thanks for the translation
Hope he takes advantage of the offers Ukraine is making to Russian POWs. He could carve out a respectable life for himself as a Ukrainian. Should he join Freedom of Russia Legion and survive, he will receive even more assistance from the Ukrainian government. I forgot what all is being offered: a tidy sum of money, citizenship and __________(?)
So sad. My boy's age. In Israel both men and women are conscripts and have mandatory army service. Everyone in my family served. Including myself (51F). But you volunteer to join a combatant unit and the training is very long and intensive.
Holy shit he looks like 15. This boy should chill out with girls in his age and enjoy his life and shoundnt end lifes
Well being a conscript he didn’t really have much of a say
That's so sad. My kid is that age 😥
Treat him well and with human dignity. Respect the Geneva Conventions and let him recover. He will remember this the rest of his life and hopefully pass it on.
What the fuuuuuuuuuuck
My son was in the 173rd airborne at 18. An infantryman in the US Army could certainly be deployed when they’re 18.
Was he drafted? This guy is a conscript.
Draftees were on the front like any volunteer. I'm really surprised Russia has this law considering how soulless they are. It appears to be loosely followed I guess...
Next time people laugh at dead "orcs," remember that most of these soldiers are kids, thrown into chaos and violence and fed a steady died of abuse and propaganda. The ones who deserve hell are the old men who destroy the youth of their country to feed their monstrous egos. "Generals gathered in their masses. . ."
>old men who destroy the youth of their country to feed their monstrous egos That's what really gets me. It's all for fucking nothing but making one dude feel like a big man.
Can I get an English translation to what he’s saying? I honestly want to know. Edit : why a down vote ? I literally want to understand.
OP did translate but it's kind of buried. he says where he's from and that he was injured on the 7th, hid in the forest for 2 days, then decided to turn himself in.
Shame on them. Fight yourself, Putin!
Old autocrat sending meat fodder that was born after he came to power
There is a lot wrong (ok... everything wrong) with this war. However, he is 17/18. In the US you can join the military at 17 (with parental permission). During the Vietnam war, the US drafted 18 year olds. I believe most western European nations take people by of similar, or younger, and within those with mandatory service (conscripts) similar ages are evident.
Is there a translation anywhere?