Russia to Hire Contract Soldiers in Bid to Avoid Unpopular Draft. Russia is preparing to enlist more contract soldiers as it presses its invasion of Ukraine, aiming to avoid at least for now another mass call-up that could undermine popular support for the war
They’re called mercenaries.
America came up with the stupid contractor term during their war on Brown people, I mean “terror”.
As American mercenaries were running around committing atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mercenaries are illegal, contracted military isn’t
And it lets you commit war crimes without fault
“They banned mercenaries so we’ll just call them something different”
Potato…
Typical military euphemism. It’s not “war department”, it’s “defense department”.
Mercs, PMCs, same old thing with a fresh new “friendlier” label.
Totally different, this one favours corporations not workers
But both are still getting paid as private. So, mercenaries either way. And it isn’t like Russia hasn’t committed war crimes brazenly.
The older I get, the more I witness Kafkaesque.
LOL, hire from where?
Poor countries you can exploit: Nepal, Kazakhstan, India, Usbekistan, etc.
So when are they going to enlist some Somali pirates
popular support of the war
This baffles me
It shouldn’t. Russia controls all of its media. To Russians, Putin is fighting a war to free their ancestral homeland from Nazis.
Russians aren’t all just nice people fooled by state media, either. They have their own version of MAGAt over there, and those dudes are saying “Ukraine is ours historically. The west can go fuck the selves if they don’t like it.”
This allows them to feel simultaneously strong in their local sphere and relevant on the world stage. These feelings are desperately needed by complete assholes who have almost nothing good about themselves or their country to point to.
Not only its own media, but almost all russian language media throughout the world is monitored and controlled by the russian government. If the only language you know is russian, it’s very hard to get unbiased information.
Also older generations that lived through the 90s know what a collapse of the Russian state means. For them it is a terrifying thought to have to live through that … again.
To top that off, It is not as if they have any alternatives. Even Navalny was a right wing scumbag who though Crimea belonged to russia … and he was considered the good guy.
Russians are pussies. Not like war is popular in any country, but if you’re going to support it at least be willing to commit to it. In America we protested and they haven’t done a draft in over 45 years and we still have plenty of ‘patriots’ still willing to fight our wars. Or just involve some proxy nation. With Russia, it’s either you support it or straight to jail and few Russians have the balls to stand up en masse let alone leave the country.
Ridiculous comparison. The situation in the US is completely different and there is way more freedom of thought and assembly. In Russia, the smallest sign of resistance is squashed with extreme brutality.
It’s not possible to organize a mass anti-war movement under these conditions like it was in the US.
I feel like the game “Civilization” understood the concept of “war weariness” but never took on the dynamic of proxy wars. It’s surprising because this is such a common way for things to get done today, and they’ve scoured that game for every dynamic they can add to it.
Just play EU, Victoria or a similar Paradox historical strategy game instead.
