Posted on 03/14/2023 1:57:42 AM PDT by Libloather
Russia is reportedly preparing to deploy women prisoners to the front line for the first time.
Due to heavy losses in the war, Vladimir Putin has sought ‘alternative sources of replenishment of manpower’, the Ukrainian armed forces general staff claims.
‘Last week there was a movement towards the Donetsk region of a train with reserved seats for transporting prisoners. One of the carriages [was for] convicted women,’ said a statement.
Earlier this week, there were reports the Kremlin had moved female convicts to Kuschevka in Krasnodar region, close to the war zone.
Here some female prisoners – released under a special scheme linked to the war effort – were put to work as farm labourers in field as well as ‘greenhouses and cowsheds’, possibly deployed in supplying the military.
Olga Romanova, of Russian Behind Bars Foundation, believes around 100 women were sent to Ukraine.
Male prisoners have been recruited in Russia in their tens of thousands and offered a deal which reduces their sentences if they serve – and stay alive – for six months at the frontline.
Last month the Ukrainian general staff said that Russia was actively ‘trying to recruit convicted women to participate in the hostilities’.
This was to ‘compensate for losses in personnel’, they said.
Some had been recruited from a women’s penal colony in Snezhnoye, in occupied Donetsk region.
Even before the war broke out, and amid long-term personnel shortages in the Russian Armed Forces, the Kremlin has made little efforts to enlist women.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Ukraine - Media Start To Acknowledge Reality
Finally some truth about the real state of the Ukrainian military is sneaking into main stream media. It is as bad, still not fully disclosed, as we have described it again and again.
As the Washington Post provides:
Ukraine short of skilled troops and munitions as losses, pessimism grow
I'll leave out the propaganda bits and go for the factual beef. The quotes are long but needed to grasp the depth of horrible situation.
The opening paragraph:
The quality of Ukraine’s military force, once considered a substantial advantage over Russia, has been degraded by a year of casualties that have taken many of the most experienced fighters off the battlefield, leading some Ukrainian officials to question Kyiv’s readiness to mount a much-anticipated spring offensive.
That spring offensive is as likely to happen as the announced relief campaign to unblock Bakhmut. The later is bugged down in mud which will only become worse over the next few weeks.>{? The spring campaign will be made up of green recruits which will use a wild mix of weapons they are not familiar with. Unless there are some 'western' surprises I see no way how it can overwhelm the well prepared Russian defense lines.
Back to the piece:
[Á]n influx of inexperienced draftees, brought in to plug the losses, has changed the profile of the Ukrainian force, which is also suffering from basic shortages of ammunition, including artillery shells and mortar bombs, according to military personnel in the field.
“The most valuable thing in war is combat experience,” said a battalion commander in the 46th Air Assault Brigade, who is being identified only by his call sign, Kupol, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol. “A soldier who has survived six months of combat and a soldier who came from a firing range are two different soldiers. It’s heaven and earth.”
“And there are only a few soldiers with combat experience,” Kupol added. “Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded.”
Such grim assessments have spread a palpable, if mostly unspoken, pessimism from the front lines to the corridors of power in Kyiv, the capital.
Ukrainian losses, estimated to be nearer to 200,000 than to 100,000 dead with even more wounded, are especially felt at the lower command level. One can not just take a salesman or teacher from the street and put them into a junior command role.
Kupol said he was speaking out in hopes of securing better training for Ukrainian forces from Washington and that he hopes Ukrainian troops being held back for a coming counteroffensive will have more success than the inexperienced soldiers now manning the front under his command.
“There’s always belief in a miracle,” he said. “Either it will be a massacre and corpses or it’s going to be a professional counteroffensive. There are two options. There will be a counteroffensive either way.”
It indeed will need a miracle for the counteroffensive to become anything but a massacre.
One senior Ukrainian government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid, called the number of tanks promised by the West a “symbolic” amount. Others privately voiced pessimism that promised supplies would even reach the battlefield in time.
“If you have more resources, you more actively attack,” the senior official said. “If you have fewer resources, you defend more. We’re going to defend. That’s why if you ask me personally, I don’t believe in a big counteroffensive for us. I’d like to believe in it, but I’m looking at the resources and asking, ‘With what?’ Maybe we’ll have some localized breakthroughs.”
“We don’t have the people or weapons,” the senior official added. “And you know the ratio: When you’re on the offensive, you lose twice or three times as many people. We can’t afford to lose that many people.”
Bkmk
Or else they will send the Moskva cruiser !!1
True. But Russia’s incompetent Navy only increases the chance that nukes are used. And they will use nukes if they deem necessary to protect those interests. This is not a movie or a video game. It is real.
Wow, two sources that DON’T say anything about “press gangs”!
You have a remarkable imagination, not to mention an irrational contempt for a people trying to defend their country as it is being invaded and leveled to the ground.
Vladimir Vladimirovich will end up just like Adolf and Benito - either swinging from a rope or with a bullet hole in his head. So keep rooting for him, but get ready to be disappointed.
I heard the Russian Navy’s new flagship will have a glass bottom.
So its sailors can see the previous flagship.
You can blindly swallow whatever narrative you want. It’s a free country.
I on the other hand have pretty good pattern recognition skills and have seen this movie before. Reality isn’t what they are playing on your TV. Why do you believe all the known lying media? Seems lazy and gullible to me.
LOL, again, you start and finish the whole conversation within your own head without even anyone else involved.
Oh my- so much whataboutism that has nothing to do with the fact of Russia invading its neighbor - my vaccination status, media reporting, corruption, and even Donald Trump. Wow, nice job, Vatnik!
Oh, regarding Ukrainian corruption. Yes it’s bad - Ukraine rained 116th of 180 countries on Transparency International’s corruption perception index. But it also is reported trending better. Guess who was worse? C’mon, guess: it was Russia at 137 out of 180. Oh, and it’s getting worse.
You failed.
So you honestly believe that the corruption rankings of Ukraine (116 out of 180) is accurate? Even in light of the Obama orange revolution where they overthrew the elected government there? After that factually occurred, you don’t think there were any thumbs on the ranking scale and believe what is reported? Really?
Alrighty then. You believe the Clinton and Obama camp. Got it.
I hope you’re ready to send your kids over there to fight over your beliefs.
Ooops, my bad, wrong illegal overthrow of the Ukraine government. The corruption is so bad it’s hard to keep them straight.
Obama did indeed overthrow their government, as Bush did. To you that makes it Ok?
Ukraine is a cabal/swamp playground. It has been for a long time. Russia invading was directly the result of NATO encroaching on its borders. The bio labs were probably also a factor. Putin doesn’t want to swamp to release the next variant on his border.
But hey, play semantics with the name of the overthrow, as if that matters.
And he didn’t send them to the US southern border ..like some 100+? other country have.
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