So Russia's great and wise leader, Vladimir Putin, has called for partial mobilisation. Isaac is going to tell us how criminal such a decision was, any moment now. — Olivier5

Unlike your good self, I don't feel the need to use discussion forums just to tell the world how I feel about things. — Isaac

:rofl:

Oh yes, when it was Ukraine and it's conscription/mobilization, @Isaac had much to say. Yet when it's Russian leaders not keeping their promises and mobilizing their reservists, nope, he hasn't got anything to say. Especially when some of those opposing the mobilization are protesting the mobilization or fleeing the country. Or someone even shooting the leader of the local draft committee in siberia. All events I would presume would be something notable to this discussion. Especially if the war isn't popular, how much can the government threaten the conscripts even in theory.

Nah. Good ol' tankie won't do that!






Oh @Isaac, you are so funny.

when it's Russian leaders not keeping their promises and mobilizing their reservists, nope, he hasn't got anything to say. — ssu

No one has presented any arguments to the contrary. There's nothing to say.

What is this obsession with having every thought committed to social media? Do you also find it odd that I haven't declared to the world how I feel about my breakfast?

Someone wrote an OP on conscription in Ukraine. I responded. I presume that's what people expect when they write an OP.

If you want to discuss the Russian conscription, write a post about it. If I disagree with you, I'll respond.

Otherwise, could you and @Olivier5 please desist from trying to divine what I think based on what I don't write. This is a discussion forum, not my fucking diary.

On the contrary, the events in Russia compared to Ukraine are very insightful. So let's get back to the OP:

But when a country imposes conscription on its citizens, it begs the question, for whose interests is the country acting? Is the country mobilizing to save its citizens, or is it mobilizing to save the existing power structure? — _db

Here the actions of the citizens themselves tell a lot how they view this.

Yes, when Ukraine mobilized it forces and prevented every military aged man from leaving, there were also examples of (male) citizens wanting to leave the country. But usually these were foreigners, who for example had gotten the citizenship to work in Ukraine and didn't have family in Ukraine. Yet if there were some instances of this in the case of Ukraine, it was nothing like now in Russia where it's estimated that quarter of a million people have fled Russia since February 24th. Even my country is getting thousands of military age men here daily trying to avoid the mobilization.

In Georgia (where Russian's apparently don't need a visa), it's even more obvious.


Far more dangerous it is if the mobilization is focus on minorities and poor and isn't universal. The rich getting off by corruption and the poor going to the front is something that isn't good for social cohesion. This creates a lot of social tensions. In riots in Dagestan, one of the poorest parts of Russia, are likely caused by this.



Hence it's actually the people and the conscripts themselves who answer @_db's question in the OP. If they feel that the mobilization is done to protect them, then there's no problem. If on the other hand the mobilization is to save the elite, the power structure, then the mobilization is on shaky grounds.

Partial Mobilisation means they call up people on the payroll in the territorial army basically. The people fleeing are likely fleeing to avoid the next step - full mobilisation.

The western media is reporting it like all Russian men of fighting age are being pushed into the military. This is absolutely not what ‘partial mobilisation’ means. Are the Russians sticking to ‘partial mobilisation’ or actually enforcing a ‘full mobilisation’ policy? That is another question.

Conscription? I a not a massive fan of it. I can understand arguments both for and against it. It would be interesting to see how opinions varied between men and women on this matter.

The people fleeing are likely fleeing to avoid the next step - full mobilisation. — I like sushi

What is full mobilization? 25 million people in the case of Russia? I think they worry that the partial mobilization will call them.

The tiny little problem is that those 25 million men, even if Russians, aren't just sitting idly in a bar drinking vodka. Even 1 million to the army means basically 1 million crucial jobs lost from the society. That makes a huge economic loss for the economy. Then Russians should look at their history and notice what can happen if a many million strong army is demoralized and in no mood to follow the leaders. And the simple fact is that the limited arms and equipment limits the size of the army.

In fact, we can see totally clearly this from the case of Ukraine. It's happy with a reserve of 700 000 and large part of that isn't mobilized and not on the front. Yet when you take all the military aged men, you are talking about over 7 000 000 men in Ukraine. Russia has military aged men 33 million and of whom theoretical reservists are 25 million. Even a million strong force would be a huge problem to arm, train and deploy. And notice then that would be far bigger than the Putin's security system policing the people.

I was just pointing out that ‘partial mobilisation’ is about putting people on the military payroll into battle. If someone is willing to sign up and take money that is their choice.

If you are in the Russian territorial army or not I would not blame you for running, but I would ask such people to think before grabbing a quick buck next time maybe. I have seen some suspect reports about calling up people who are not in the TA, but needless to say any hint of this kind of story will get wide attention in western media whether it is fully validated or not.

I was just pointing out that ‘partial mobilisation’ is about putting people on the military payroll into battle. If someone is willing to sign up and take money that is their choice. — I like sushi

Actually it is to mobilize reservists, those who already have served their military service (conscription). Those that are on the military payroll have already been through. The idea was to use only these volunteer soldiers and not the conscripts in Ukraine. But the likely fact is that conscripts, those that aren't raw recruits, have been used in Ukraine for a long time already.

The fact that students have been put into service, who have since Soviet times been free from conscription just tells how badly the process has been.

You can see from the photos, that obviously not everybody now mobilized is in his twenties:




Russia doesn't have a territorial army (?), that's what I guess the UK has.