Ukraine has accused the Kremlin of using negotiations to delay while reinforcing its position on the battlefield.
Summary
Vladimir Putin ordered the conscription of 160,000 men—the largest draft since 2011—despite ongoing U.S.-mediated ceasefire talks with Ukraine.
The move raises doubts about Russia’s commitment to diplomacy, with Kyiv accusing Moscow of using talks to buy time for battlefield gains in Sumy, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine claims Russia intends to escalate the war, citing forced contracts for conscripts. Losses remain high on both sides, with Russia reportedly losing over 100,000 troops in 2024 alone.
More meat for the meat grinder. And unlike Ukrainians Russia does have a choice to stop the war - all they need to do is stop and leave.
Ukrainians die to protect their homeland against invasion. Russians die for needless oligarchic aspirations of dominion of the elite. It's not the same thing for either side, as many like to make it seem as if Ukraine has any responsibility in the matter.
Any loss of life on Russia's side is completely optional, and due to Putin's whims. Not that it matters to the vultures surrounding Ukraine.
Not to justify it, but at this point Putin has maneuvered himself and Russia's economy into a situation where if the war stops and another doesn't start, the Russian economy will collapse and Putin will most likely end up dead. He made himself quite powerless in a way.
Between Zelensky publicly stating Putin has health issues and will die soon, and the recent incident with Putin’s limousine, he may not have a whole lot longer in any event. One can only hope…
Ukrainians die to protect their homeland against invasion. Russians die for needless oligarchic aspirations of dominion of the elite. It’s not the same thing for either side, as many like to make it seem as if Ukraine has any responsibility in the matter.
I think what some people are arguing about is that ukraine government practices much resemble these of the russian government. Ukraine government is also drafting people by force and arresting any male between 18-60 who tries to leave the border. Many people died as a result trying to flee.
smart guy, knows now usa will not help, unless you have rare minerals so countries without minerals are in danger. And regarding peace I do not think he is interested in peace, he wants young men dying so he can also accept his own inevitable death eventually.
HitlerPig is watching and learning. When he launches his wars, they will definitely be accompanied by a draft.
I will state this unequivocally: I will NEVER allow my son to be drafted into a MAGA War of Economic Oppprtunity. And if they somehow grab him and press him into military slavery, I will have nothing left to lose, and I will become a very dangerous individual to my son's slavemasters. And I won't be alone.
I predict an uptick of Rafale, EF2000, and JAS-39 sales in Europe, and that the models offered will be wired for nuclear delivery should the need arise.
I feel awful that our government is breaking bad over on this side of the pond… but at the same time, I think open violent revolt and civil war would be a believable scenario if orangeboi actually tries to Molotov-Ribbentrop all of fucking Europe with Putin. So I don’t think he’s gonna actually try that.
I think Vladdy knows that the threat of war is much more of a nuisance to Europe than actually fighting and losing soldiers. This is just for threat posturing at borders.
The real war is being fought with unmarked soldiers, unsuspicious russian cargo vessels, heavily propagandising one country (Hungary), while leaving others virtually alone (France) to saw division, etc.
Nobody wins a war from the west. They know they have to go asymmetric, and they are, and the longer it takes Europe to realise that, the longer they will suffer. They also know wars are over 50% psychological.
Poppycock. Russia would never invade the EU or a NATO member, I don't know why people always raise this silly idea. For starters there's no gain, for seconds they'd get their ass handed to them.
Yeah, but how many 18-40 year old men are still in rural Russia that haven’t already been fed to the meat grinder or were lucky enough to get out of the country first?
Sooner or later these conscriptions are going to hit bigger cities, although they’ll likely be used to backfill non-combat positions while others are sent to Ukraine. But even that can go on for only so long…
At least 5 million, depending on how you define rural russia and how skewed the gender & age structures actually are.
Population of russia is 143 million, 35% of which are between 18 and 44, half of which are men. That comes to 50 million, 20% of who live outside the European Russia, bringing the final count to 5 million.
And as only 21.5 million people live in the Moscow metropolitan area, so if everything outside that is counted as rural you'd have over 20 million.
In both cases the issue is logistics, equipment and training, not the lack of bodies to throw in the grinder.
And also RIP Ukrainian demographics. It's great to see Russia hurting, and they deserve their scars, but it's gonna take a very long time for Ukraine to recover too. They'll have EU support, but EU's economy probably isn't gonna be in great shape either. And you can't buy babies.
Ukraine will likely get assistance from more than just EU countries. And once things are safe again I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ukrainians around the world returning home to help rebuild etc. You can’t say the same of Russia I don’t think.
Ukraine had a very robust economy before the war, exporting everything from food to military hardware. Given what they have learned about UAV’s, etc. in the past 3 years they likely stand to regain a strong military industry once again after this is all settled. They’re already manufacturing some of their own military gear for the war, and once the war is over it should be fairly easy for them to turn all that into an export industry.
One of the reasons russia could invade ukraine is because they have an army of conscripts. Rulers and politicians use people as their paws. Be wary of any ruler or government drafting people by force even when their claim is "defense", not being drafted by force does not limit the ability of individuals to defend themself.
100k loss is a crazy amount of death... Sadly, looking at population numbers, Russia is about 143 million people, so it shouldn't be as hard as I thought it would be for them to find more people to send to slaughter.
Take a look at their demographics, and add the millions who have fled or died or been so maimed they can't work and well you'll see why there is a labour shortage already just to have ordinary things up and running. Now imagine having enough tax revenue to take care for the elderly ...