Posted on 01/05/2024 10:51:58 AM PST by Mount Athos
After the failure of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive, Kiev finds itself at a major crossroads with no easy options.
The demand late last year by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for the mobilization of an additional 500,000 troops over the next few months signals both resolve and desperation.
If adopted and implemented, the new approach to mobilization will also add significant strain for already stretched Ukrainian state institutions and society.
As publicly confirmed by senior Ukrainian officials, large numbers of volunteers for frontline service simply no longer exist. So the government proposes coercive measures to ensure continuing enlistment.
These range from high fines for draft dodging, to seizure of real estate and the freezing of private bank accounts, to the cancellation of passports of Ukrainian refugees abroad.
The latter group in particular, including an estimated 600,000 fighting-age men living in the EU, will become a key target of Kiev’s mobilization efforts.
Life expectancy of men has reduced from an already low 65 years in 2021 to 57 years in 2023.
Birth rates remain very low, with some demographers estimating a fall to 0.55 babies per family in 2023. Meanwhile, emigration of the most skilled and economically active population has accelerated since the war began. This leaves predominantly the poor to do the fighting while seeing their living standards further decline.
Forced mobilization, the reduction of the rights and freedoms of the population, further economic disruption and social hardship contrast sharply with what is widely perceived as the corruption-fuelled lifestyle of an entrenched and unaccountable elite.
Ukraine’s complete liberation will sooner or later come to be seen in Ukraine and in Western partner capitals as a fantasy dangerously detached from realities on the ground.
(Excerpt) Read more at asiatimes.com ...
All wars are fought by the poor.
Anyone with means left in January 2022
And above them, the really rich oligarchs all have foreign passports, and their wifes/mistresses/kids installed in places like London, Berlin and New York long ago.
Happened to see a little part of the movie Patton while changing channels.
“There he goes, old blood and guts.”
“Yeah, his guts and our blood.”
But that Third Army of his saved thousands from death or enslavement by Nazis.
Of course it is. We don’t see the Vindman twins, Rev Mom, Graham, and others going over to fight the civil war. Just the people too poor or too slow to avoid getting caught up in it.
The most important fact is mentioned quite clearly and will be discounted by the senile Joe war cheerleaders- the Ukies are losing, hugely. My rub is senile Joe’s narrative that the Ukies are winning, his outright deception and control of western MSM.
Senile Joes Ukie war is weakening America severely in every sector. His Afghanistan debacle pales to his Ukie debacle. His funding of the most corrupt nation in Europe,with taxpayers money, MUST stop.
Wars are always fought by the poor. Look up the New York City draft riots of 1863. Bunch of poor Irish didn’t want to be conscripted into the Union Army while wealthy men could pay a $300 fee (about $7,100 in today’s money) and completely avoid it.
Okay, so...just like every other war in human history.
and others going over to fight the civil war.
——-
Exactly, I see you have studied this conflict. When the Ukies started bombing the ethnic Russian provinces in 2014, yes 2014, is when this civil war started….and instigated and fueled by the US and NATO….well, I hope they learn a lesson about what our Founding Fathers said about getting involved in foreign wars…and yes, they are, even if they don’t acknowledge the huge mistake.
The Ukie death toll is appalling, as is the US strategy of wiping out every Ukrainian to “ weaken” Russia….Russia is emerging stronger than ever.
But, very few wars, let alone successful ones, are fought by conscripts forced to the frontlines at the point of a gun.
Well, the only reason we’re poor is because the bonehead in the White House keeps stealing our money and giving it away to NON-AMERICANS AND FOREIGNERS.
“When the Ukies started bombing the ethnic Russian provinces in 2014, yes 2014, is when this civil war started…”
Can you be any more transparent in your bias, Ivan?
Here are the FACTS:
On February 27, 2014 in Crimea, Russian military (Russia had been leasing a military installation on Crimea) and local pro-Russia militias began to seal off Crimea from the rest of Ukraine; and then three weeks later, on March 21, 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea.
Then, in the first two weeks of April, 2014 armed Russian-backed militias and paramilitaries seized Ukrainian government offices in the Donbas region, and then declared the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR). This was rebellion, and a declaration of secession and independence from Ukraine. THAT started the civil war in Ukraine. Ukraine responded to the seizures and declarations militarily on April 15, 2014.
You see, Ivan; when armed elements of a region declare secession and independence from their country that is the very definition of civil war.
Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’ has been right for decades.
….at least you acknowledge this conflict is a civil war, and been on going since 2014. The LPR and DPR did vote for their Independence from Ukraine, an overlooked fact.
“...at least you acknowledge this conflict is a civil war, and been on going since 2014.”
Acknowledge it? I’ve been saying it for years. It was a civil war fomented and encouraged and supported and armed by Russia. Where do you think the separatists got the SA battery they used to shoot down the civilian airliner MH-17 in July, 2014, killing all 300 on board? Or, are you going to claim that the separatists were so creative and ingenious they built it in a garage? Come on, Ivan; you know the score.
“The LPR and DPR did vote for their Independence from Ukraine, an overlooked fact.”
It was an ILLEGAL vote (just as the Crimean “vote” was illegal). Because, Ivan, the Ukrainian constitution states that such referenda must be put to the voters of Ukraine in general (i.e., all of Ukraine), and not just those in the separatist regions. Why? because secession affects the entire country, Ivan.
But, I suspect you know that, as well. Of course, it conflicts with your narrative; thus, you ignore it.
Ivan, it started out as a civil war; then, of course, it turned into an invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
That’s why I laugh at those of you who wax indignant that the Korean War and the Vietnam War were both “civil wars.” The difference is, that North and South Korea, as with North and South Vietnam, were created by the international community (which included your beloved Russia, though under the guise of the Soviet Union). No such internationally created and recognized division occurred in Ukraine.
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