Posted on 07/30/2025 9:30:32 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
...a recruit can get up to 5.2m roubles (£47,000) in the first year of service, plus up to 4m roubles for injuries.
...he stormed out, drunk, upset and barefoot - with a plastic bag containing their savings in cash.
...stopped by the traffic police who noticed the bag and demanded a bribe. They took almost everything - 2.66m roubles (£24,000).
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
One morning at work, a gaggle of guys checking out a shiny new King Ranch Super Delux...
Turns out the chump cleaned out his 401 (k) against all advice.
Russia has forced its way into Ukraine and after months of fighting the Russian army needs to bolster its numbers by bringing in conscripts to step up to the front lines. But life as a Russian conscript is brutal as you will see in today's dark new video that reveals a shocking side to the Russian conflict.
About $63,000
Russian soldiers are incredibly brutal to civilians because they themselves faced brutality in the military-dedovshchina.
Throughout the first year of their military service, hundreds of thousands of new recruits in the Russian armed forces face grossly abusive treatment at the hands of more senior conscripts. Under a system called dedovshchina, or “rule of the grandfathers,” second-year conscripts force new recruits to live in a year-long state of pointless servitude, punish them violently for any infractions of official or informal rules, and abuse them gratuitously. Dozens of conscripts are killed every year as a result of these abuses, and thousands sustain serious—and often permanent—damage to their physical and mental health. Hundreds commit or attempt suicide and thousands run away from their units. This abuse takes place in a broader context of denial of conscripts’ rights to adequate food and access to medical care, which causes many to go hungry or develop serious health problems, and abusive treatment by officers.
Dedovshchina is distinguished by predation, violence, and impunity. During their first year of service, conscripts live under the constant threat of violence for failing to comply with limitless orders and demands of dedy. Many conscripts spent entire days fulfilling these orders, which range from the trivial, like shining the seniors’ boots or making their beds, to the predatory, such as handing over food items to them at meal time, or procuring (legally or illegally) money, alcohol or cigarettes for them. First-year conscripts face violent punishment for any failure—and frequently not only for their own individual failure, as punishment is often collective—to conform to the expectations of dedy. As a rule, punishment happens at night after officers have gone home. Dedy wake the first-year conscripts up in the middle of the night and make them perform push-ups or knee bends, often accompanied by beatings, until they drop. First-year conscripts also routinely face gratuitous abuse, often involving severe beatings or sexual abuse, from drunken dedy at night. Dedy sometimes beat new recruits with stools or iron rods.
While dedovshchina may once have served the purpose of initiation, it has in the past twenty years degenerated into a system in which second-year conscripts, once victims of abuse and deprivation themselves, enjoy untrammeled power to abuse their juniors without rule, restriction, or fear of punishment. The result is not enhanced esprit de corps but lawlessness and gross abuse of human rights. The collapse of dedovshchina as an initiation system has occurred at both the command level and at the conscript level.
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/russia1004/2.htm
You would think by now the Russians would have figured out that maybe this is not the best system?
The Russian Army eliminated two-year terms of conscription in 2008, so there are no longer any two-year conscripts. My understanding was that this was at least in part due to an initiative to reduce or eliminate dedovshchina.
The disconnect of zeepers from reality is astonishing. Like Micigan Fans who think the Hammer will not fall. Studying both groups, it takes a desire to force one’s mind into a corner rejecting everything contrary to the viewpoint held and eventually they tune out everything that does not support their ideas or beliefs. Given the war in into the 4th years, many things have changed for the better or worse, but those locked into the singular ideal mindset missed the change. They only know what they started with and what they have been told by like minded fellow travelers...
Maybe the Russian vets need to overthrow their government.
Not the first time.
Your article has nothing to do with buying new cars, but it does reveal a new recruiting method, and it doesn’t mention any limits on the criminality allowed to be forgiven for going to the front.
“”Nikita Khursa reported the two officers who took his money to the police.
They were charged with robbery and abuse of power, but the case never reached court.
Both officers signed up to join the army and went to Ukraine, avoiding prosecution under a new law that allows criminal suspects to fight instead of facing charges.””
Well. The Soviet Union killed more of its citizens and soldiers than the Germans ever could have.
Operation Keelhaul comes to mind.
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