Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Part 5

Terry Green3 said:I'd say it's more comparable to WWI.

Not even close.

gentlestag15 said:Now that’s what I call a massive mobilization wave.

Shoigu basically went on record saying they'll only pull in reservists with actual service history or specific technical skills, then followed up by noting there's a pool of 25,000,000 guys out there who've already served and have those specialties.

We aren't talking about just one or two million people here—we're talking about a huge chunk of the male population in Russia under sixty.

But honestly, who actually has combat experience?
That would probably include anyone who’s finished basic training, even if they’ve never seen a day of actual combat.
Maybe even those guys doing support roles under military contracts back home, which doesn't necessarily mean they're frontline fighters.🤔
Those people are likely what they consider reservists.

Sergei Shoigu has indicated that during the partial mobilization announced by Vladimir Putin, approximately 300,000 reservists will be called up in Russia.

According to the head of the Department of Defense, Russia possesses a massive pool of potential recruits—nearly 25 million people—with just over 1% of them being subject to this specific partial mobilization.

The minister clarified that this call-up is targeted specifically at those who have already served, possess specialized military skills, and have actual combat experience.

Shoigu added that there are currently no plans to mobilize students or general conscripts for the conflict.

https://meduza.io/news/2022/09/21/sh...ch-rezervistov

Now we’re finally gonna see if the Russians are actually brave or just a bunch of cowards... If they don't push back now, there's no turning back. We need to slam the door on them to the rest of the West for the next 20 years. Everyone.
Athletes, politicians, artists, musicians, regular folks—doesn't matter. They can stay stuck in Russia and keep playing Putin's games all they want. We've had enough.

Brenda Murphy3 said:But they aren't... they're just the backups... though honestly, I haven't got a clue how many of them there are or who specifically made the cut.

Look, everyone finished their service and everyone's on some kind of roster. Now comes the mass exodus from Russia.

Kyle Nelson2 said:Nobody seems to be taking the possibility of a total turnaround in the war seriously.

What are you even talking about?

Are you seriously suggesting that nobody is looking at the chance for the Ukrainians to completely dismantle the Russian military? Or that people inside Russia aren't weighing that exact same option?

Brenda Murphy3 said:The thing is, those eras aren't even remotely comparable to what we're seeing today.

It's one thing when Nazis show up on your doorstep or right in your hometown, and you grab the locals, hand them a rifle, and tell them to defend their own streets... it's a completely different beast when you're mobilizing people, handing them weapons and food, managing all the logistics, and then shipping them hundreds or thousands of miles away from their homes into a foreign country...

We are talking about two totally different concepts here.

I mean, look, at the start of the war, you had Ukrainians tossing Molotov cocktails at Russian armor, so now it's just about waiting for the Russians to hit back just as hard, hoping that in maybe six months, the tables will finally turn in their favor.☕

Terry Green3 said:I'd say it's more comparable to WWI.

True. This time around, it’s the Ukrainians who are ready to mobilize on short notice. On the aggressor's side, you don't have that same level of German discipline, so chaos is practically a guarantee.

Brenda Murphy3 said:What are you even talking about?

Are you seriously suggesting that nobody is looking at the chance for the Ukrainians to completely dismantle the Russian military? Or that people inside Russia aren't weighing that exact same option?

It’s just... honestly, it feels like absolutely nobody is even entertaining the slightest chance that the Russians could turn this whole situation around.

Paul Sanders5 said:Look, everyone finished their service and everyone's on some kind of roster. Now comes the mass exodus from Russia.

I don't think when people say "reservists," they mean what you're talking about here...

The reservists are basically former professional soldiers.
I suspect they’ll start by calling up those who resigned right after the invasion began—specifically the ones who refused to deploy to Ukraine and walked away from their service. This is their "reward"; I wouldn't be surprised if they're shoved straight into the front lines.
Next up will be the veterans who left the military years ago. Now, the question is whether they’ll be sent directly into combat, or if they’ll be relegated to "cold support" roles in Russia—think guarding warehouses and military installations spanning from the Baltic all the way to the Far East. Meanwhile, the soldiers who have been stationed there without seeing actual combat—the non-combat personnel, the administrative staff—will likely be the ones shipped off to Ukraine.
Predictably, people will start hiding—moving across the country, fleeing to cities thousands of miles away to stay off the radar. Given how slow and disjointed the Russian bureaucracy is, finding someone becomes an impossible task while one military office waits days just to send a memo to another.
The bureaucrats running these military offices will be rubbing their hands together; corruption is going to thrive. They’ll take bribes to scrub names from lists, shuffle files around, or simply declare someone unfit for service.
It’s reminiscent of how Matt Spallatin used to dodge military service back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa-E...el=netko_treci

Putin really gave those reporters at The Washington Post a good scare, didn't he?

We are nowhere near a resolution here. Putin controls both the machinery of state and the security apparatus. His system is insulated; he doesn't step foot on the battlefield, staying comfortably ensconced in repression, well-fed and far from the front lines, with the power to imprison anyone in his path. That machine is utterly loyal to him.

The Russians have engineered their own dictatorial monster, building a surrounding infrastructure that is practically indestructible.

Meanwhile, ordinary people are sent to the trenches where their only focus is survival—they'll be forced to kill just to stay alive and avoid a prison cell.

It's a tragedy for everyone involved.

I wouldn't bet against Russia ultimately emerging as the "winners." After years of this grueling war, there's no rush for Putin and his regime. This is their status quo, and I suspect they are actually thriving on it; their grip on power and capacity for repression only seem to grow.

A revolution? I highly doubt it.

Kyle Nelson2 said:It’s just... honestly, it feels like absolutely nobody is even entertaining the slightest chance that the Russians could turn this whole situation around.

Look, I think that’s always an option on the table, but you have to ask: what kind of price is Putin's regime actually willing to pay? And more importantly, can that regime even survive the fallout?

It’s technically possible, sure, but how realistic is it? Honestly, I haven't got a clue...

Just as I suspected, those sanctions aren't having any real impact at all. A "hungry" Russia would have likely risen up in protest the moment mobilization was even mentioned. ☕

Brenda Murphy3 said:I don't think when people say "reservists," they mean what you're talking about here...

That makes sense, I guess, but honestly? It feels like anyone who’s ever stepped foot in uniform is basically on the hook for recruitment now. Are they really gonna sit around gambling with their lives and just wait for the draft notice to hit their mailbox? Personally, I don't think so. 😁

But anyway, what's actually shifting regarding Ukraine? Is Russia finally fully committed to this whole war thing? 😲

And is the EU finally going to bite the bullet and adopt that "with us or against us" stance?

Nancy Gomez26 said:If someone intends to use long-range or even medium-range projectiles, how is the opposition—or NATO, who are monitoring all launches—supposed to know they are specifically aimed at Ukraine? At the exact moment of launch, you have to decide whether to counterstrike, yet you have absolutely no way of knowing the true target. That is why you don't play games with this. The Russians understand this dynamic perfectly well; their verbal outbursts are mostly just self-soothing or perhaps an attempt to intimidate the uneducated masses.

The Kalibr is designed to carry tactical nuclear warheads.
They've already fired hundreds of them at targets in Ukraine.
There’s no way to tell what kind of payload it's carrying until the damn thing explodes.

What you're talking about applies to strategic missiles that head straight into the stratosphere upon launch. Those get detected instantly.

Christian Torres3 said:Not even close.

I don't know. Personally, I'm expecting the Russian military to collapse and Putin to fall just like Romanov did.

wiredtiger8 said:The Kalibr is designed to carry tactical nuclear warheads.
They've already fired hundreds of them at targets in Ukraine.
There’s no way to tell what kind of payload it's carrying until the damn thing explodes.

What you're talking about applies to strategic missiles that head straight into the stratosphere upon launch. Those get detected instantly.

Yes, that's the danger.

It looks like they’re finally going to tighten up those border crossings with Finland. Apparently, they’re still handing out tourist visas to Russians. 🍿

Jessica Peterson2 said:At my workplace, every single one of Putin's supporters suddenly decided to sprint toward HR... all just to verify their "Software Engineer" status because Putko promised that specific category wouldn't be mobilized. They haven't quite given me an answer as to why they're so desperate to avoid being sent to the Donbas 🤷

I have to point out that since I’m constantly in contact with Russians and Belarusians through work, neighbors, friends of friends... and so on...
Right at the start of the aggression, almost everyone was verbally endorsing the invasion. People were busy praising Putler's supposed intelligence, his capabilities, or mocking his stupidity—basically echoing the exact same nonsense we read on forums years before the war actually started.
It occasionally even spiraled into pathetic outbursts of nationalistic "vomit" that went way beyond any decent standard of civilized expression.

However, as this aggression drags on longer and longer, I've noticed a shift. After about two or three months, that frantic interest in verbally supporting the invasion plummeted. It turned into a sort of... "just play music and let me work" mentality. Forget the news.

Lately, I've been noticing a slight undertone of condemnation toward Putler and the aggression, along with an underlying fear of war...

Best regards,