Summary

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered 160,000 more Russians aged 18–30 be drafted from April 1 to July 15, amid U.S.-brokered ceasefire talks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned the Kremlin is preparing a major offensive in Sumy, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia, accusing Russia of stalling negotiations to gain territorial leverage.

Over 100,000 Russian soldiers are confirmed dead. Ukraine reported 46,000 dead and 380,000 wounded.

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Vlad should call his MAGA supporters to join his cause and it will fulfill their need for violence.

  • Ksin@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The last round of conscription was meet with uncharacteristically loud pushback from the russian public so pushing ahead with even more is interesting. Is the kremlin that confident in the effect of it’s propaganda? or is it just that desperate?

    • Aux@feddit.uk
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      2 days ago

      The Kremlin is confident that they will kill as many protesters as will be required to destroy any uprising.

      • Pilferjinx@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The amount of Russians leaving the country to avoid conscription was very high. You can’t really hide that. There are stories of men being kept hidden to avoid the press gangs. But all of that is probably par for the course considering the amount of soldiers dying on foreign soil.

        • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          Ehh sorry. I assumed/hoped you were talking about something more, that I wasn’t aware of. I know of these protests, but they were not nearly intense enough to disrupt the system. Much of the urban youth that might have led the protests has left the country in the meantime too, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the next round of recruitment is met with even weaker resistance…

      • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        There were protests and hundred of thousands of young Russian men left the country after Putin announced the first “partial” mobilisation. The recruitment process was also botched and conscripted even the disabled and old.

    • Motorheadbanger@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The pushback was for the mobilisation, while this is a start of a routine conscription event, these happen twice every year

    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
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      2 days ago

      Both sides have resorted impressment to refill their ranks, regardless of public pushback men can still get bagged into a van on the street and sent to the front lines.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 days ago

      Oh hey this is a shift for you. Maybe you’re all about Russian military aggression until you find out that you might need to actually get your hands dirty?

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Are they going to be equipped like the Russian soldiers in late WWII? One soldier gets a rifle, the other gets five bullets, and both get helmets the thickness of tin cans.

    • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      That is ww1. Not world war 2. The whole ‘wait for your comrade to die and take his weapons’ did not happen during ww2. It did happen in ww1.

    • Apollo42@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Russian soldiers in late WW2 were typically very well equipped, as were most soldiers by that stage in the war (even German soldiers were pretty decently equipped late war, though mostly due to having almost no soldiers left to equip).

      Late summer 1941 and even at points during Stalingrad, sure there were definitely times when soviet soldiers were being thrown into battle massively underequipped, but this was the exception rather than the rule.

      By 1944 (even by 1943) the Red Army was more mechanised than the Wehrmacht and was better at Blitzkrieg than the Wehr ever were.

      • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        Lend lease really helped with mechanization. The jeeps and trucks they had were indispensable for the war effort. We often talk about guns and bombs, but people don’t realize how important transportation and heavy machinery is.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    As we all know, repeatedly drafting several divisions worth of men is a sign you’re winning the war…

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Territorially? Yes, Russia is winning. But politically, economically and socially? Russia already lost. The deaths of thousands of soldiers in the face of Russia’s demographic crisis will result fewer labour force, which means lower tax revenue. The Russian economy is in war footing and this is already causing inflation because of heightened government expenditure, and businesses struggling to pay the ever increasing wage demands of civilians at home, who replaced the jobs that would have been filled instead by soldiers from the front. With secondary sanctions, even Chinese banks are reluctant to lend to Russia. The future generations of Russians will be paying for the economic and social consequences of the war in Ukraine. In essence, Russia may be winning territorially, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory with generational consequences.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        They still only have 20 percent of the country. After years. At this rate they will run out of people before Ukraine runs out of territory.

  • PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social
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    2 days ago

    And it’s 1 2 3 what are we fighting for don’t ask me I don’t give a damn next stop is Zaporizhzhia

    That’s a lot of meat for the grinder

  • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    This is America’s future. Conscription is in Project 2025 and make no mistakes about it. The Christian Nationalist Death Cult would love to send you to the front.

    • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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      18 hours ago

      Kapo Stephen “PeeWee Himmler” Miller has said that he wants to reduce the population of America from 335 million to 100 million people. An incompetently managed war that is wasteful of human lives is a perfect way to accomplish much of his objective.

    • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The religious nutters will form a White Christian unit copying the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, march with the goose step and all of the sick fucks will have Jerusalem Cross tattoos.

      Conscription will start after the US economy completely swirls down the shitter leaving all sorts of skid marks.

    • index@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      Isn’t conscription already a thing in USA? Many countries silently paused conscription but it’s just there

        • invertedspear@lemm.ee
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          3 days ago

          That’s the other guys point. We haven’t used it since the 70s, but the system is still in place to be used. Easy to fire it up again.

          • tikifire@lemm.ee
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            2 days ago

            My point was at least half or more of the US population has little-to-no-memory of what that was like.

            My dad was drafted during the Vietnam era but I’m in my 50’s and have no actual memory of that time.

            I know it happened but I was really young when they stopped the draft and we’ve had several generations born since then who also have no memory of it.

            It would be politically dangerous for a government to restart a draft absent an actual world war-type situation or a dictatorship.

            • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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              18 hours ago

              That’s what people don’t understand about the Vietnam War. People were against the war, but if it was waged by volunteers, then most people would have accepted it grudgingly. It was the draft that made everybody lose their fucking minds.

              Imagine being a teenaged boy in America, during the 60s, knowing that when you turn 18, you will be eligible for the draft. The government will literally kidnap you from the bedroom in your parents’ house, where you have spent every night of your life. You’ve never experienced any aspect of adult life, you’re probably a virgin, but now you’re given a few weeks of basic training, and sent halfway across the world to a country you couldn’t find on a globe a few months ago, to kill or be killed. The life expectancy of an inexperienced new draftee thrown into the war zone was extremely short.

              Complicating the issue was that many fathers were supportive of the war, because they had fought in WWII, but that was a war with a clear reason and objective. Nobody could clearly articulate why we were in Vietnam, nor what would define a “victory.”

              Obviously, extreme fear defined every young man in America, as well as their families. HitlerPig and his henchmen love instilling fear into people, and a draft is a particularly insidious way to do that. I have no doubt that when HitlerPig launches his wars (there will almost certainly be more than one, it will be a World War, after all), he will gleefully demand a draft, and use it to threaten and punish his enemies.

              I will say this unequivocally: There is no way that I will allow my son to be drafted into a HitlerPig war. And if somehow they get their hands on him, I will have nothing to lose, and will become a very dangerous individual. Of my personal red lines to not cross, that is my bightest and reddest.

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      The Christian Nationalist Death Cult would love to send you to the front.

      To fight for Russia against Ukraine or Israel against Iran. Maybe if they’re in a good mood, you’ll be able to choose which genocide you participate in.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      This is America’s future. Conscription is in Project 2025

      Americans could still prevent that future if a few million of them got off their asses and took action against the fascist takeover of their country.

      But that would get in the way of watching American idol, and HoneyBooBoo reruns, wouldn’t it…

    • MintyFresh@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Lol have you seen kids these days? I’d be surprised if more than 15 percent are fit for service, and of that 15% maybe half would pass a drug screen.

      • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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        18 hours ago

        They won’t care, they’re just cannon fodder.

        Remember, over the next decade, many jobs are going to be replaced by AI and robotics. All the technology exists to convert every fast food outlet to be fully automated. Imagine how many young, unskilled people will be unemployed when the fast food companies shift from humans to robots.

        With all the coming automation, we could see a permanent unemployment rate of 30%, or even more. We will be faced with two solutions: Universal Basic Income (which will be very unpopular with the Sociopathic Oligarchs and MAGA), or reduce the population by the amount of the unemployment rate.

        An incompetently managed war, with an unforgiving draft (unless you are a rich nepo-baby), is a perfect way to accomplish that.

      • ploot@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        Kids in the 1960s were the same, and the USA still sent them off to get killed, maimed, and traumatized for the rest of their lives.

      • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        Have you seen what Russia is throwing out to get blown up? As long as you can absorb some rounds they don’t care.

    • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      According to this article, project 2025 doesn’t do that. It proposes requiring students to take the military ASVAB test. Which honestly isn’t the worst idea. In my high school they recommended people who didn’t know what they wanted to do for a career to take it even if they weren’t going into the military.

      • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        They are planning to make all public school kids take the test but not the private school kids. It will be for conscription. They will know where to throw your ass to make the meat grinder run better. That’s the only reason for this bullshit

          • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Private schools don’t have to follow the same requirements as public schools already. The person above you is just inferring that since they’re already separate in the current system, the new ASVAB requirement would also be separate. But until it becomes an actual law, it isn’t super useful arguing hypotheticals in this context.

        • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          You went to the shit schools, I went to school in the south, they gerrymandered them so the kids of poor parents took them while the rich kids didn’t (and got actual schooling).

          • 7U5K3N@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 days ago

            Yep 100% went to a shit school. I’d not be surprised if the asvab paid the school for each person that took it

        • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          It’s a 3 hour aptitude test. Are you good at math? Are you good at electronics? Etc. I would imagine it’s a minor speed bump to joining the military.

            • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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              2 days ago

              No. The hardest math is some insanely light algebra too. X = 5y kind of stuff.

              It still opens the door to enlistment and being harassed to join the military, conning poor kids into making a mistake.

              • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
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                1 day ago

                I mean, I was harassed to enlist despite actively going to college (officers usually get a commission after college), despite repeatedly telling them I was not interested and never taking the test.

          • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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            3 days ago

            That just means you are the cannon fodder style infantry. You’ll be the guy sent out to catch a drone or two.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Just fail it

            So you can be shuffled in with the grunts rather than the officers?

            The military loves putting dumb-dumbs through basic and stacking them on the front lines to catch stray bullets.

            • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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              3 days ago

              I mean, you can also fail out at basic too IIRC.

              Also, you need a college degree to be a commissioned officer.

                • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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                  2 days ago

                  You can absolutely get chaptered out for failing basic multiple times.