Ukraine on Wednesday lowered the military conscription age from 27 to 25 in an effort to replenish its depleted ranks after more than two years of war following Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The new mobilization law came into force a day after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed it. Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed it last year.
It was not immediately clear why Zelenskyy took so long to sign the measure into law. He didn’t make any public comment about it, and officials did not say how many new soldiers the country expected to gain or for which units.
Conscription has been a sensitive matter in Ukraine for many months amid a growing shortage of infantry on top of a severe ammunition shortfall that has handed Russia the battlefield initiative. Russia’s own problems with manpower and planning have so far prevented it from taking full advantage of its edge.
While Putin is undoubtedly an aggressor and the reason this entire thing is happening (and it would be amazing if someone finally stopped him), Zelensky does have power over the situation.
It’s just that he’s not gonna give anything up as well, so it ends up in a stalemate. One side tries to prove Russia’s a power to be reckoned with, the other - that you can’t just attack a country while everyone is okay with it (something that has been then dispoven in many, many cases, unfortunately, so it’s not as world-tilting as some might think)
Out of two evils, Ukraine is certainly the more righteous. But there’s a line after which you’re fine fighting with a madman who’ll be fine evaporating your entire population over something you might rather give up (and that’s not the existence of Ukraine, mind you) to save countless lives.
Zelensky has been offered to start peace talks by just about everyone in the world, not just Russian side itself, yet there he is, sending more and more men to war, men who don’t want to be there, who are not ready to sacrifice their lives in this conflict, who value themselves more than some plots of land. When you have to force people to die in order to prove your point, maybe it’s time to think again.
And of course, Putin does the same thing over a much stupider cause; this is by no means a pro-Putin or even pro-Russian argument. This is an argument for life, for the people who die in the trenches, while world leaders can’t decide who’s more right. Fuck it, stop the war, and do the talking.
P.S. Feel free to downvote if you like, but I’d be happy to see valid arguments, not just arrows down.
1.Interesting point, could you please link the polls? Also, how recent are they? From what I’ve personally gathered, the sentiment is quite divided, with the highest support among fleeing civilians and western Ukrainians and lowest among families of drafted men and people remaining on the country’s east.
2.Lives of civilians are not threatened by peaceful Russian takeover. While there may be a concern about people serving or supporting Ukrainian armed forces throughout the war, one that needs to be directly discussed, the rest should be perfectly fine. Ukrainians inside Russia are treated no different from ethnic Russians, and the only kind of “cleansing” that is possible is likely assimilation.
3.Peace with Ukraine should absolutely have NATO involved one way or the other. Ukraine needs security guarantees, and obviously not from Russia. Luckily, as far as I’m aware, NATO is willing to directly back Ukraine up when peace is established, and ascension is on the table. Then, kicking Ukraine becomes nearly impossible.
I wouldn’t call the opinion of people staying underground in Avdivka until the very day it fell more representative than those who fled to the west and want to return. Of course they will have more attritted morale, less capable of seeing how the thing can still be won.
And you have the mass graves to prove that I presume? I already mentioned Bucha, now let me also mention that Russia practically eradicated the male population of the occupied territories by throwing them in the meat grinder with WWI weapons. The “LPR forces” etc. were just another version of their penalty battalions.
Not a thing Russia is willing to agree to. Or I should rather say Putin: The existence of a democratic Ukraine, even as a rump state, is a threat to his regime security.
We’re crossing very quickly into the level of speculation, which is not a good ground for discussion.
Still, if you need my opinions: Nothing stops Zelensky and NATO to call for joint peace talks with Russia; in fact, many NATO member countries suggested exactly that. It is then remained to be seen on what Russia answers, but the attempt should be there, and there’s a high chance it will be answered in a positive way. Russia has no interest in keeping this war going, too, and has little perspective of breaking the stalemate in a short time.
The LPR/DPR forces are not civilians, and I’m talking about peaceful transition of some of the occupied territories into Russia, which is totally unrelated to what you say. Still, from the perspective of those forces, they were already fighting there with those weapons, but now they got actual military backing.
No war can truly be won, and if what it takes for Ukrainian victory is many more years of war and millions of lives, as well as unfathomable economic losses, is it worth it? That’s not to mention that nothing indicates Ukraine is likely to win and restore its territory at all.
You mean Russia does a complete 180 all of a sudden, that is. If they want to, sure, they can give us a call but until they actually do it doesn’t make sense to “call for peace talks”: Has been done, Russia refused anything that would be acceptable to anyone else.
Indeed not. They’re civilians forced at gun-point and point to the heads of their family to pick up arms and be counted as combatants. When Ukraine shoots them, they’re not civilians. When they get forced into service, they are civilians.
What do you mean? According to Russia those territories already are Russia. Even parts that aren’t occupied.
Yes. Because if you don’t stop a bully in their tracks you embolden them and there’s going to be a next victim.
The Brits have a word for people like you: Appeasers. It’s not a nice word.
No 180 required. Russia is willing to come to peace, and will probably require succession of Donbass, which is something Zelensky is adamant about not doing despite being offered that way out.
For all I’m aware, LPR/DPR combatants are not forced into service at gunpoint. You know who is? Ukrainian soldiers (and some Russian ones, too).
I mean internationally recognized transition and end of the war.
Who’s gonna be a next victim, if I may ask? Just about every neighbor of Russia to the West is already part of NATO (except Belarus, and, well, Ukraine), and most of those on the South and East have some form of guarantees of their own or ability to stand up for themselves and kick Russia’s ass.
The aftermath of this conflict is that the countries at highest risk already defended and prepared themselves, so that Putin cannot call for another war.
Also, let’s avoid turning it personal. Either keep it civil or end it. I offer you an option to leave the discussion if it triggers you.
Ah, yes, the “stop fighting and let me kick you” school of pacifism.
If nothing else, he’s a politician. Politicians want to stay in power, not be disposed off by their people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_mobilization_in_the_Donetsk_People's_Republic_and_the_Luhansk_People's_Republic
If NATO drops Ukraine Putin will consider NATO weak, a paper tiger, and not hesitate attacking NATO land. Especially if the US loses the rest of the bit of sense they have and re-elect Trump. They of course won’t get anywhere with that and it will be nigh impossible to keep the Poles from marching straight to Moscow, the mad bastards aren’t afraid to get nuked over it, but that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t try.
And no Georgia and the -stans aren’t really up to defending themselves, not against a Russia which had a couple of years to lick their wounds.
Fair pick against “let us kick each other to death”
The will to stay in power population be damned is bloody dictatorship.
Thank you for info on LPR/DPR mobilization. Worth noting it happened in all participants of the conflict, however.
NATO is very much not a paper tigerz and the risk is just not worth taking.
Just curious, what do you think should be on the table at the peace talks?
For me, it should be the following:
Russia leaves Ukraine including Crimea and vows to never invade again. I know it didn’t work when Ukraine gave up their nukes for the same vow but one can hope.
Russia pays Ukraine back for all the damage it has done. They were the aggressors, they need to pay up.
All prisoners who were taken to Russia, including children, are to be returned.
No interference if Ukraine wants to join NATO and the EU.
I’m not an expert in peace talks, but I feel the above is fair.
It is completely fair, but the problem is, it’s in no interest for Russia.
Peace talks must include benefits for all sides, otherwise they’ll fail.
I’d say Ukraine should at least recognize Crimea as Russia, and very likely Donbass too, or at least give it certain level of autonomy. The rest of Ukraine is actually of less interest to Russia, so stopping there would probably more than satisfy Putin.
Ukraine, on its hand, should receive NATO security guarantees, preferably ascension, without Putin standing in the way of it. Russia should also pay reparations to Ukraine and release all prisoners, yes. Ukrainian side must release Russian prisoners too.
Regardless of the side Donbass ends up on, Russia must participate in recovery of the region with finances and manpower.
I completely disagree. Russia should receive nothing for what they have done.
Imagine this, Russia decides that Alaska is theirs even though it was sold to the U.S. in 1867. They invade and make it half way into the state. Should the U.S. have peace talks with Russia and say you can have half the state or keep fighting and push them completely out? I guessing most Americans would say F off Russia, get out of our country.
Russia leaving Ukraine is the only justifiable outcome from this invasion. If a child breaks his siblings toy maliciously, you don’t reward them for doing a bad thing. You punish that child for their actions. Putin is nothing more than a spoiled child, you shouldn’t reward him for his bad behavior.
I feel like the mistake many make is comparing war to school bullies and children breaking toys.
There’s a big difference, though. In a war, people die. And sometimes, it may actually be wiser to give something up to save people’s lives, and then regroup in a way to prevent that from ever happening again than to try and “punish” a country with great ability to cause a lot more damage.
By trying to “teach Putin a lesson”, we tend to ignore the fact that he’s not a particularly good pupil and he rules a major army that currently razes Ukraine to the ground.
The problem is that Russia has far more resources than Ukraine and they have an upper hand in this war. They do not wish to leave empty handed. As sad as it is, for peace to happen Ukraine is going to have to lose something.
Putin already said he doesn’t want peace when the opponent has a shortage of ammo so this discussion is irrelevant anyway.
I wish we did more for Ukraine, it’s deeply saddening to see the news :(
It’s absolutely in Russia’s interest, even the reparations – they can pay them in mining concessions, noone would mind. Russia is paying 300 million a day for the war, that’s two top-notch brand-new hospitals built from scratch. Per day.
It’s not in Putin’s interest, though. The days for “Comrade Vladimirovich, we think it is time to rest on your laurels and retire to your Dacha” is over, he’s gone too far for that, even a regime-internal coup would mean he’s done for.
Good point on the distinction - while Russia loses on that, Putin loses much more. Essentially, he just cannot afford to lose.
Even still, Russia itself won’t be better off if it just leaves and pays back everything - it’s not only reparations, but also all the infrastructural investment etc, as well as trust of the people of Crimea (who really were supportive of the annexation, can tell you that from the ground) and many on the Donbass, as well as the crucial military base of Sevastopol, which was probably big part of the reason for the annexation to begin with - it’s so important, in fact, that Sevastopol is the only city besides Moscow and Saint Petersburg with a special federal status.
Crimea is also dominated by ethnic Russians (65%), not Ukrainians (15%), which further exacerbates the issue.
The problem is so bad even Navalny said it’s not easy to “just” return Crimea. Because it really isn’t, it’d be a shitshow now, with locals standing up against it, and Russia having to sacrifice much more than just a meaningless peninsula.
If anyone should get a say about what happens with Crimea then it’s the Tatars. Also you can’t trust any of the post-occupation numbers, plenty of reason to not tell FSB agents that you think you’re Ukrainian. People very much are in support of not being put through filtration camps, yes.
Ah. And you’re willing to give up the Kurill islands lmao. Have you ever considered that that’s not in any way comparable. Also, that Japan has kinda given up on the raping themselves through the population bit.
They’re half a google away.
Russia’s position in the Baltic is a) fucked anyway and b) Russia has enough resources to relocate to Novorossiysk. I mean that’s where the fleet is right now anyway isn’t it it seems to be big enough for the three and a half ships that haven’t yet been promoted to submarines. The position in the Baltic is also fucked, to the point that Kaliningrad turned from asset to liability: It’s not surrounding the Baltic states any more, instead Finland and Sweden in NATO mean that it’s completely encircled. You still have Syria… though with the Siloviki deliberately ignoring ISIS-K that might not last forever, either. As said: They’re cunning, not smart. All tactics no strategy no big picture thoughts.
Meanwhile, China is eyeing the eastern warm-water ports. Tsar Putin will be known to history under the cognomen “the foolish”. If you’re out to preserve the Russian empire, cutting your losses now is the right call, before it’s too late and the whole thing collapses just like the district heating which could be fixed for something like three day’s worth of war costs. Have you any notion of what kind of long-term damage that kind of thing causes. You talk about Sevastopol, where are you going to get people to build a fleet from when mothers freeze with their babies in their apartments.
You know what I think what’s happening here? You’re legitimately hoping for an end to the war and even Putin, but somehow expect Ukraine to do it for you. You’d like them to do it quickly, so you expect them to surrender. “Oh but it’s because reasons, and complications”, you say, smugly, unaware that all it’s about is you rationalising outsourcing your rebellion to the Ukrainians because you are still depoliticised. The Kremlin guards have fewer weapons than Ukraine and watch this.
Why should that be Tatars of all people? Crimean tatars comprise about 10% of the population, and are already disproportionally vocal, which irritates a lot of people on the peninsula. If anything, majority of Crimean population sees them as problem rather than leading source of power, and while I can’t fully agree with that notion, it doesn’t change the fact that power to Crimean Tatars is a bad idea. They should be protected - to a degree - but letting them singlehandedly decide the future of the place is critically questionable.
You can check pre-occupation numbers on Crimean population collected by Ukraine, you’ll see the same picture. It’s not that FSB is warping data or people are scared - it’s that Crimea was only controlled by Ukraine for 60 years (1954-2014), and most of that history is was part of USSR anyway, so there wasn’t enough time to replace populations. Also, again, literally nothing bad happens to people of Ukrainian nationality inside Russia. Like, I have a branch of Ukrainian family here, it’s not dissidence to be of some origin. Ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea remained ethnic Ukrainians in Russian statistics.
Kurill islands were not to scale. You can change it to Kamchatka and Primorsky Krai, for example. Should make a fair share.
I found one poll by Gallup - https://news.gallup.com/poll/512258/ukrainians-stand-behind-war-effort-despite-fatigue.aspx - which proves your point on majority of Ukrainians supporting the war, althouth it also notes the support is dropping, from 70% in 2022 to 60% in 2023 - and no numbers for 2024. I’d like to see what the sentiment is now - whether it gets to 50%, stays strong or falls down. It also demonstrates what I said earlier about highest support coming from regions largely directly unaffected by war. Besides, I also wonder how much the omnipresent SBU influenced the answers - we have to be fair and consider censorship and watching eyes on both sides of the conflict.
Sevastopol is an important point of access to the Black sea, allowing quicker deployment and easier portection of eastern part of the sea. Kaliningrad is still very relevant, as it is not encircled per se, but rather a reachable point inside the lines of potential enemy. I wouldn’t write it off for the potential of suprise actions in case of rapid delopments. I’m not a military expert, though, and can be wrong on some of that.
District heating failures are and were common, it’s just that they came more into focus. The issues with the system appeared long before the war, and fixing it costs way more than “three days of war costs”. And while I agree that those measures should have been taken long before and better instead the war, but we are where we are, and Crimean question is important and at the same time clusterfucked no matter how you look at it. You just try to make a case on why Russia should ignore it, consequences be damned.
I did watch the video. Both you and the author seem to be missing the point while trying to make it a lesson for the West (which currently degrades democracy under way more freedoms than Russians), thinking Russians are still politically indifferent, that they closed themselves off from the horrors of the war. Quite the opposite - the war turned to protest even those demographics who always stayed silent, and the horror of coming to war with a brotherly nation, one in which many of us have relatives in, rippled throughout society. My own relatives had a rocket coming into neighboring house. But the divide and conquer tactics succeeded already, and the only way you can proceed with from here is to silence or to jail, not to any meaningful civil victory. There’s simply not enough coordination to pull off a protest that would actually shake society. People are angry, afraid, and everything else, they generally despise Putin - but there’s so much control mechanisms that it’s nearly impossible to actually come together and make a change. And individually, your protest normally lasts a few seconds, and then you get to enjoy your prison time.
Also, the concept of common responsibility has been given in a way that smells of a blame game. No, not all Germans were responsible (in a sense of worthy of taking blame for the regime) for what happened in the Reich, it’s those who paraded it that actually got responsible, and others failed to stop them - bad that they didn’t, but shifting blame on them wouldn’t be fair. We can learn from their mistakes, and should learn from ours, on how to not get here in the first place, and take advantage if the system cracks.
The Russians certainly shouldn’t get a say, they’re settlers in occupied territory, one way or the other, starting with Katherine the Great. You can’t just deport people, settle your own, and say “Well, guess they’re the majority now they get to say what happens to the land”.
As said: Russification started way before that. After Ukraine’s independence the Tatar population in fact rebounded with people Stalin had deported moving back. Crimea voted to leave the USSR just as much as the rest of Ukraine, if anything the discussion was about being independent, not about staying with Russia. Independence (from Ukraine) then became less and less of an issue as Ukraine treated Crimea well, and independence would be difficult for such a small and import-dependent nation anyway.
Bullshit. The last time the silent demographics turned loud you had yourselves a February revolution. You’re not even at 1905 levels, yet.
There’s a crucial distinction to be made here: No, the war crimes etc. are not my responsibility. I wasn’t even alive back then. But it is my responsibility to shape culture and politics in a way such that fascistic tendencies within the culture never surface (if you’re up for it, read Emmanuel Todd, Germany is dominated by stem families). Otherwise yes a resurgence would be my fault.
1999 might still have been excusable, but Putin castling with Medvedev? Everyone’s alarm bells should’ve gone off: “We’re headed towards totalitarianism, again”. Bow before the great father of the nation and let him rail your wife.
If we follow the “original settlers” logic, we need to return Crimea to Tauris, or, in lieu of those in the modern world, Greeks, who settled there about 2 millenia earlier than Tatars and were later conquered by Romans, Khazars and Russians, and only then Tatars, who very much didn’t give a damn about anyone who lived there before them. “Original settlers” is always a bad justification, because various plots of land were inhabited by different people over the years. And currently, majority of Crimean population is Russian.
Right - many Tatars have returned, boosting Crimean Tatar population from ~1% to ~10%. That’s what should be their share in political power. Or should Crimean Greeks seize all the power? Crimea never was an independent republic, it was only reformed in early 1991 to an autonomous region - which was, however, still part of Ukrainian SSR and then remained an autonomous region of Ukraine. As such, talks on joining Russia would essentially be an act of separatism, sparking conflict to try and get into Russia that probably wouldn’t accept them to not provoke international backlash among huge crisis.
As per how Ukraine treated Crimea - the most pronounced side, one you probably think most about, is further support for Crimean Tatars; however, the Russian population (which, I remind you, is 6,5 times that of Crimean Tatars and a dominant nationality on the peninsula), as well as many Ukrainians themselves, were very much not happy about this development, sparking conflicts, so the benefit of such policy remains questionable. Actually, one of the hopes behind the transition was that Putin would better manage the Tatar question.
Economically, Crimea has won a lot over the transition to Russia, with massive infrastructure development, increase of wages, free trade with other regions of richer Russia, and increased flow of tourists fueling the economy. Also, Crimeans got easier access to Russian universities, which generally rank higher than Ukrainian ones.
I didn’t say that protests were massive - although for the level of control that government currently exerts and lack of oppositional leadership, the scale was indeed impressive. I’m saying that many people came to protest for the first time, because when this happens, no level of political ignorance can overwhelm THIS. When 1917 happened, people were starving to death. You would either die from a bullet, or from starvation. People chose bullets.
There is a lot that should have been done differently before the current moment, and it is people’s responsibility to not let that happen. But there we are, what now?
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For the aggressor to benefit is encouraging more aggression, not less.
For the aggressor not to benefit means war will continue on.
oh no, aggressors lose all the time.
You missed the point. Here, aggressor isn’t forced to capitulate, and there’s little that can be done aboiut it right now except putting thousands into meat grinder for some subtle hope of victory years into the future.
If you were the one who has “power over the situation”, please tell us: Which parts of your country would you be willing to hand over to Putin, when he comes asking for them?
Donbass, most likely.
That’s what Putin needs the most and at the same time the region with worst sentiment towards Ukraine, even among ethnic Ukrainians (not to mention ethnic Russians comprising ~40% of the population). There can be a lot of speculations about the true sentiment of the locals (to many of whom I talked and they mostly just don’t care or are pro-Russian, but barely ever actively pro-Ukraine), but this is the place that fought Ukraine off long before the massive Russian invasion.
Now, Donbass is a source of quite a few natural resources, which is one of the key reasons Ukraine even cares about it despite the popular local sentiment (besides territorial integrity, that is), but in order to return facilities under control, it’s not enough to stop the war and officially declare it being Ukraine, it also requires the state to keep fighting local forces who are still not happy about the perspective - something that current Ukraine is questionably capable of.
So, Donbass it is. Russia happy, Ukraine free of a lot of headache, people don’t die, yay.
Going by this comment I’ll guess you’re American.
Thus let me repeat the question as you didn’t answer it: Which part of The United States would you be willing to hand over to Putin? He’s shown interest in Alaska, you’re up for that?
I’m Russo-Ukrainian (Ukrainian father, Russian mother) living in Russia and having close ones on both sides.
Assuming Russia somehow has military superiority, Alaska is razed and US military has to mobilize everyone, lowering the age for drafts to fill the gaps in dying manpower, yes, I would consider that possibility.
And if Japan somehow dominates weakened Russia, it would make sense to give up Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, or whatever they strike for, in order not to turn entire country into a meat grinder.
In both cases, it would also require a third party to provide security guarantees against further invasions.
Not commenting on the main things you said, but it’s also very likely that america specifically is taking this as an opportunity to test and drain russia’s resources in a kind of extended proxy war, so there’s really no incentive to make a concerted effort to stop the current state of affairs, in any way. Especially as we’re seen as the good guys domestically, you know, it’s a pretty easy thing to garner support for.
Here’s an argument: there is no peace with Putin’s Russia ever. This isn’t the first time Putin has invaded Ukraine. He has proven time and again that “peace” with him is just a timeout while he re-arms. Then he bites off another chunk and goes “Why do you keep fighting? Don’t you want peace, you monster?”
As I said numerous times in this thread, Ukraine should have NATO security guarantees, preferably ascension. That resolves the issue.