Russia invades Ukraine

[Travis B.]

Giving people who desperately don't want to fight guns and telling them to fight, with almost certainly little to no training and little to no logistical support of the kind needed to fight a war, in a war they have absolutely no interest in risking death in is a good way to bring about a revolution, one way or another. Putin must be either really desperate or really stupid to risk that.

[Richard W]

See the ISW's analysis I linked above. Russia is talking about mobilizing 300,000 men— few of whom have any desire to go. You can turn a conscript army into an effective fighting force, but it takes a year or more.

Isn't Russia calling up reservists? These men have already served (mostly as conscripts), and should therefore mostly just need a refresher, apart from the issue of physical fitness.

[Travis B.]

See the ISW's analysis I linked above. Russia is talking about mobilizing 300,000 men— few of whom have any desire to go. You can turn a conscript army into an effective fighting force, but it takes a year or more.

Isn't Russia calling up reservists? These men have already served (mostly as conscripts), and should therefore mostly just need a refresher, apart from the issue of physical fitness.

Obviously you haven't been keeping up with the news. They're pulling people off the streets to conscript them, and even conscripting freshly arrested anti-war demonstrators. Yeah, like putting guns in the hands of anti-war demonstrators is a brilliant plan on their parts.

[Richard W]

See the ISW's analysis I linked above. Russia is talking about mobilizing 300,000 men— few of whom have any desire to go. You can turn a conscript army into an effective fighting force, but it takes a year or more.

Isn't Russia calling up reservists? These men have already served (mostly as conscripts), and should therefore mostly just need a refresher, apart from the issue of physical fitness.

Obviously you haven't been keeping up with the news. They're pulling people off the streets to conscript them, and even conscripting freshly arrested anti-war demonstrators. Yeah, like putting guns in the hands of anti-war demonstrators is a brilliant plan on their parts.

Conscripting them or mobilising them? Generally, being a Russian reservist is a liability to mobilisation, rather than a matter of having regular refreshers. I believe conscripts can't yet be sent to fight outside Russia, though that's a reason for annexing parts of Ukraine. Conscripts can already be sent to fight in the Crimea, though.

[Travis B.]

Isn't Russia calling up reservists? These men have already served (mostly as conscripts), and should therefore mostly just need a refresher, apart from the issue of physical fitness.

Obviously you haven't been keeping up with the news. They're pulling people off the streets to conscript them, and even conscripting freshly arrested anti-war demonstrators. Yeah, like putting guns in the hands of anti-war demonstrators is a brilliant plan on their parts.

Conscripting them or mobilising them? Generally, being a Russian reservist is a liability to mobilisation, rather than a matter of having regular refreshers. I believe conscripts can't yet be sent to fight outside Russia, though that's a reason for annexing parts of Ukraine. Conscripts can already be sent to fight in the Crimea, though.

You're being too generous here w.r.t. the Russian gov't. They're grabbing whatever fresh bodies they can to fill their ranks at this point, including people they had explicitly claimed before that they would not conscript, such as students.

[zompist]

See the ISW's analysis I linked above. Russia is talking about mobilizing 300,000 men— few of whom have any desire to go. You can turn a conscript army into an effective fighting force, but it takes a year or more.

Isn't Russia calling up reservists? These men have already served (mostly as conscripts), and should therefore mostly just need a refresher, apart from the issue of physical fitness.

See this ISW backgrounder. In short: no, reservists are not trained. The report says that in 2019, out of 2 million people who had served, only 5000 had received ongoing training. A program to increase this was started in August of last year but probably fell far short of its goals; besides, it's likely that the actually trained reservists were called up and deployed back in the spring.

(By contrast the US army reserves require 2 weeks of training, plus 11 weekends, every year. A Russian who spent a year in the army in peacetime 20 years ago is not a trained soldier.)

[Ryusenshi]

Apparently, several regions (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia) are "holding" referendums on whether or not they want to quit Ukraine and join Russia instead. Or, really, the Russians are holding referendums. Once again, Russia tries to play on Western sensibilities. My take is that referendums like this one should indeed happen: if a territory is disputed, or if a region has an independence movement, instead of fighting a war over it, the correct solution would be to ask the people concerned what they want. If the people from Donetsk and Luhansk really were oppressed by the Ukrainian government and saw an annexation by Russia as liberation, surely they would vote so in a referendum, and the West should abide by the results. This could be part of a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine.

Of course, a referendum held in the middle of a war isn't exactly unbiased. Especially while Russia is actively deporting the population and sending its own people.

[Travis B.]

Apparently, several regions (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia) are "holding" referendums on whether or not they want to quit Ukraine and join Russia instead. Or, really, the Russians are holding referendums. Once again, Russia tries to play on Western sensibilities. My take is that referendums like this one should indeed happen: if a territory is disputed, or if a region has an independence movement, instead of fighting a war over it, the correct solution would be to ask the people concerned what they want. If the people from Donetsk and Luhansk really were oppressed by the Ukrainian government and saw an annexation by Russia as liberation, surely they would vote so in a referendum, and the West should abide by the results. This could be part of a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine.

Of course, a referendum held in the middle of a war isn't exactly unbiased. Especially while Russia is actively deporting the population and sending its own people.

Even if there wasn't a war, though, given the circumstances such referendums would never be free and fair, as it would always involving the big neighbor trying to influence things on the other side of the border through whatever underhanded means they would inevitably use. It is not like the Scottish and Quebecois referendums, which actually were free and fair.

[Richard W]

(By contrast the US army reserves require 2 weeks of training, plus 11 weekends, every year. A Russian who spent a year in the army in peacetime 20 years ago is not a trained soldier.)

But it should be a lot quicker to return him to close to his former proficiency level - the standards seem not to have been raised, and the equipment seems not to have changed. I also read that the Russians were preferably looking for those with combat experience, though there may not be many such untapped reservists.

[MacAnDàil]

Well, sure, after all Elisabeth the Second of England and the First of some other places just died and that didn't remove the unelected (but not authoritarian any more) system in place.

But nothing's perfect. There is, though, better and worse. All three people you mentioned no longer being in power would be an improvement, even if the countries would not become model democracies.

Fair... but I don't know, the way westerners speak about magniciding puting or breaking up russia or stuff... I just feel russia is really dangerous. kind of like the us, if it broke up in a sort of catastrophic social systems failure, or if enough political instability comes to happen, I can't shake the feeling that nukes might start flying. I feel for the ukranians getting their country invaded, but... I don't know, man, nukes flying.

This is closest we have in ages to nukes flying. I don't see why the other hypothetical scenarios would be worse.

[Ares Land]

I don't think there are any serious plans for regime change in Russia. Not that we'd know if there were any

[Ketsuban]

If the people from Donetsk and Luhansk really were oppressed by the Ukrainian government and saw an annexation by Russia as liberation, surely they would vote so in a referendum, and the West should abide by the results. This could be part of a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine.

If.

The referenda in occupied Ukraine are transparently fraudulent, manufacturing a new casus belli after the fact since nobody bought the "Ukraine's government is a gang of Nazi thugs planning to murder Russian speakers in Ukraine en masse and the people in Donetsk and Luhansk will welcome our liberation" line. If there's a genuine desire for Donetsk and Luhansk to be part of Russia, the correct time to hold referenda is before you special-military-act another sovereign nation. A free and fair election can't happen at gunpoint.

[Raphael]

So, looks like we're now about five minutes away from all being killed in a nuclear fire. I wonder if zompist will use those five minutes to write another post about how there's nothing to worry about because Russia's conventional military is in such a bad shape and Putin has made oh-so-many mistakes.

[Ares Land]

So, looks like we're now about five minutes away from all being killed in a nuclear fire.

Are we? I mean, more than usual?

So far what I've seen is the 'look what NATO made me do' stuff we're pretty used to right now.

[Linguoboy]

So, looks like we're now about five minutes away from all being killed in a nuclear fire. I wonder if zompist will use those five minutes to write another post about how there's nothing to worry about because Russia's conventional military is in such a bad shape and Putin has made oh-so-many mistakes.

According to the Doomsday Clock, we only have 100 seconds. Of course, they've been saying that since January. Not sure if that'll be more or less comforting to you.

[Raphael]

Are we? I mean, more than usual?

So far what I've seen is the 'look what NATO made me do' stuff we're pretty used to right now.

Various people who know a bit about how things are usually done in Russia have pointed out at various times that the Russian state apparatus is often very procedural. That is, of course Russian government officials don't care about things like the rule of law, but they do care, at least partly, about following "proper procedures". Now, Russia might not have procedures in place for using nuclear weapons while waging a war elsewhere, but they do seem to have procedures in place for using nuclear weapons if "Russia itself" is supposedly "threatened". Which, in their twisted view of things, it now is.

Note that I really, really, really want to be wrong about this, so I'd really, really, really like people to post convincing arguments against my points here. But I'm not seeing that so far.

[Ares Land]

I heard it was one of the motives for the annexion which makes a lot of sense. Russia has trouble holding on to these by conventional means and they're using nuclear dissuasion to keep the war going.

I don't think we'll see any nukes being used. But they're clearly applying pressure.

(I suppose they're hoping for a long stalemate that would force NATO to negotiate. It's a strategy that'd make sense anyway.)

[Ryusenshi]

The "referendums" show 99% supporting annexation in Donetsk and 98% in Lu(h/g)ansk. Wow. It's almost funny how dictators think super-high scores show their legitimacy... even though actual democracies never have this sort of lopsided results, and even 70% of the vote is considered a landslide victory.

(Yes, I know, we once had a President with 80% of the vote. Those were special circumstances.)

[zompist]

So, looks like we're now about five minutes away from all being killed in a nuclear fire. I wonder if zompist will use those five minutes to write another post about how there's nothing to worry about because Russia's conventional military is in such a bad shape and Putin has made oh-so-many mistakes.

Have you been taking Moose's hyperbole as a model? It's six hours since your five minutes began. Also six months since you've been worrying about nuclear war.

Here's the ISW on Putin and nukes: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgr ... annexation

A little more pessimistic: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/28/opinions ... index.html tl;dr: strategic nuclear war ("all being killed in a nuclear fire") is very unlikely; tactical nukes are possible, but also far easier to track and stop remotely.

[Vilike]

tactical nukes are possible, but also far easier to track and stop remotely.

We may not become direct targets of nuclear attacks, but we Europeans are downwind of any possible explosion. At the very least it can ruin future mushroom-picking seasons.