Posted on 04/12/2024 5:03:26 PM PDT by Chad C. Mulligan
ASTANA, Kazakhstan — If the choice was death or a bullet to the leg, Yevgeny would take the bullet. A decorated hero of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Yevgeny told his friend and fellow soldier to please aim carefully and avoid bone. The tourniquets were ready.
The pain that followed was the price Yevgeny paid for a new chance at life. Like thousands of other Russian soldiers, he deserted.
“I joke that I gave birth to myself,” he said, declining to give his full name for fear of retribution. “When a woman gives birth to a child, she experiences very intense pain and gives new life. I gave myself life after going through very intense pain.” *snip* Record numbers of people seeking to desert - more than 500 in the first two months of this year - are contacting Idite Lesom, or “Get Lost,” a group run by Russian activists in the Republic of Georgia. Last spring, just 3% of requests for help came from soldiers seeking to leave; in January, more than a third did, according to the group’s head, Grigory Sverdlin.
Overall, Sverdlin’s group says it has supported more than 26,000 Russians seeking to avoid military service and helped more than 520 active-duty soldiers and officers flee - a drop in the bucket compared with Russia’s overall troop strength, but an indicator of morale in a country that has made it a crime to oppose the war.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
“They wanted to force me to go fight against the free people of Ukraine,” he said to his camera. “Putin wanted me to be in a bag, but it’s his uniform that will be in a bag.”
He shoved his military uniforms in two black trash bags and threw them in a dumpster.
It's clear that Putin is losing and will be dead from cancer anyway.
Ukraine is emerging as one of the great manufacturing centers of the world.
I saw it on the bottle of vitamins at Walmart this week it said:
“Product of Albania, Bulgaria, China and Ukraine”
The war’s over now the cheap stuff will come from Ukraine instead of China...
ZEEPER FOLLIES PINGLIST!
(((PING!)))
... to be added to the best Zeeper-provided entertainment since Paul Shanklin parodies, ping me bro.
...give them all Green Cards and airline tickets to America, we can use them here better than Putin can there.
Messico’s population could use a reload now that all Mehicans live in the US. They can try going there.
.
They’re advancing on all fronts, right?
Victory over Russia soon?
So they don’t need anything from us.
Now, I see the name Washington Times, and I just move along.
Stage 6 elbow cancer.
Nastier than pancreatic cancer.
In Chicago, the term was covered by a satirical website dedicated to the Lincoln Park Chad Society, a fictional social club based in Chicago's upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood.[5] A Chad was initially depicted as originating in Chicago's affluent North Shore suburbs (Highland Park, Evanston, Deerfield, Northbrook, Glenview, Glencoe, Winnetka, Wilmette, or Lake Forest), receiving a BMW for his 16th birthday, obtaining a law or business degree from a Big Ten university, belonging to a fraternity, moving to Lincoln Park, marrying a "Trixie", and then moving back to the North Shore suburbs.[6]I wish you and Trixie well in your macho excursion to liberate Ukraine.
Well hells bells, Russian deserters, come on over to America.
Dementia Joe will welcome you as he welcomes all scum to come here.
bttt
The system is pretty different than the one we have in the USA, and it's being updated. It appears that the Russians are only now setting up something like our Selective Service Registration. Until very recently they have not had a universal and uniform database of people to draw from.
The current estimate is that 25% of the Russian military is made up of conscripts.
All armies have deserters, and all conscription systems have draft dodgers.
The article is mostly annecdotal, but there are a few numbers given:
So, that's about a 3% rate of draft dodging vs the total of conscripted soldiers.
The last time the USA had conscription the rate of draft dodging was far higher than what Russia is experiencing. According to Wikipedia about 1/2 of the 27 million men eligible for the draft in the Vietnam evaded it (this includes using exemptions, which were eliminated as the draft went on.
570,000 men were classified as draft offenders in the Vietnam era. 210,000 were charged with a crime.
There were also between 60,000–100,000 men who emigrated from the United States.
So, Russia still has much less of a problem than the USA had in the early 1970s. In America that draft became so unpopular, and draft dodging so common, that the USA was more or less forced to drop conscription and go to the All Volunteer Military (AVM) in 1973.
There is no sign of anything like that happening in Russia. Both Russian sources and outside observers report that Russia is recruiting thousands of volunteers to replenish its ranks in Ukraine. Prior experience isn’t always required (Source: CNN)
Meanwhile: in Ukraine the draft is massively unpopular, there is massive draft evasion, and the Ukrainian government has just recently lowered the age of the draft, and ended the rule that allowed Ukrainian men to get out after three years. This change is very unpopular as you can imagine. It's basically a death sentence for everyone drafted into the Ukraine military. You are in until you die.
Ukraine is turning into an repressive authoritarian State, so perhaps they can carry on with this conscription law. But if Vietnam is any example, eventually the government of Ukraine will fall. Either soft or hard.
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