Russia’s police are reportedly rounding up migrant taxi drivers to send them to the war in Ukraine. However, this puts migrants at risk of long jail sentences in their home countries under legislation banning fighting in foreign wars.
This is a legacy of the old Soviet military culture, which treated fuel as a “second currency” for soldiers to dip into as they wished. Fuel theft is a common issue in Russia too (and likely bigger there, given Russia’s status as a fuel producer).
That’s certainly the one that leapt to mind. But even if not, they’re more likely to be exploited by the officers, given the worst tasks available, even if that doesn’t involve combat.
Any kind of combat, even if they escape without physical injury, will leave them scarred. Though the likelihood of physical injury is pretty high too!
But sure, they might be at risk of going to jail at home if they’re forced (literally at gun point) to the front.
The people aboard Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aircraft were reportedly dismembered – and in one case decapitated – by an explosion on board before it crashed. This suggests that they were already dead before they hit the ground and disproves Vladimir Putin’s claims about the crash.
Even of they didn’t do it, if I were in their boots I would make the same claim. Force Russia to deploy more guards, make them more paranoid inland, stretch them thin trying to protect everything.
Putin has glided for too long on his policy of making life in the only parts of Russia that matter to him (Moscow, Saint Petersburg and maybe Sochi) normal. The troops fighting are just people he considers a resource, not real Russians, so fuck 'em.*
I hope Ukraine has the ability to truly disrupt trade with China, and make Russians fear roving gangs of Ukrainian commandos who can strike anywhere.
Putin signs a decree increasing Russian army up to 2,2 million - adding another 170k servicemen to it. Before the war Russian army was 800k to 1 million servicemen strong.
It’s a second time Putin orders standing army increased. Mobilisation in some form is imminent
The Russian authorities are reportedly not telling relatives of soldiers that their men have been taken prisoner in Ukraine, leaving the relatives to find out directly from the Ukrainians – or from scammers. Since August, the Russians have stopped exchanging POWs.
