r/worldnews
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u/stoolsample2
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Feb 21 '23
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Russia prepares for mass mobilisation of full-time students Russia/Ukraine
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-prepares-mass-mobilisation-full-075150092.html24.3k
u/Karl2241 Feb 21 '23
Oh that’s going to be real popular….
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u/nasandre Feb 21 '23
It's like they don't have enough issues with brain drain
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u/dismayhurta Feb 21 '23
“Naw. We wanna fuck our country for decades if not centuries to come.”
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u/Arctic_Chilean Feb 21 '23
And blame the West for all the problems it spawns
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u/Aceticon Feb 21 '23
"It was NATO that attacked us and killed our youth!!!!" - Putin, probably, in a few months' time
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u/GrimpenMar Feb 21 '23 •
What was Zelensky's joke from Letterman?
(Quick search, clean up)
Two Jewish guys from Odesa meet up, one asks the other: "So what’s the situation? What are people saying?"
"What are people saying? They are saying it’s a war."
“What kind of war?”
“Russia is fighting NATO.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, yes! Russia is fighting NATO.”
“So how’s it going?”
“Well, 70,000 Russian soldiers are dead. The missile stockpile has almost been depleted. A lot of equipment is damaged, blown up.”
“And what about NATO?”
“What about NATO? NATO hasn’t even arrived yet.”
Source: Times of Israel
The interview was from December, so that 70,000 figure has increased. Slava Ukraini!
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u/exiledfromreality Feb 21 '23
Scary to think that the 70K figure has DOUBLED. 70K in the first 9 months of the invasion, 70K in the next 3 months.
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u/Theron3206 Feb 21 '23
Thats what happens when you throw conscripts with rusty rifles in against dug in veterans with modern weapons and good logistical support.
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u/WorldRenownedRacist Feb 21 '23
He's saying that now.
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u/styr Feb 21 '23
The TV pundits in Russia like Solovyov have been saying it for months already.
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u/Lapidary_Noob Feb 21 '23
Solovyov
It's funny considering who Solovyov's son is.
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u/viimeinen Feb 21 '23
Who is he?
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u/Lapidary_Noob Feb 21 '23
He's an LGBTQ+ fashion model in London who dodged conscription lol. Daniil Solovyov.
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u/pensiveChatter Feb 21 '23
You're not a real political leader unless you can blame the consequences of your mistakes on someone else.
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Feb 21 '23
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u/mshriver2 Feb 21 '23
Sounds like Mao's great leap forward...
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u/buttfunfor_everyone Feb 21 '23 edited Feb 22 '23
Ah yes, the same Mao that made flies, rats and other pests basically illegal in the 50’s-60’s- requiring villagers kill a daily quota of sparrows until they directly caused the collapse of local ecosystems which ushered in arguably the worst famine the world has ever seen.
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u/Craft_zeppelin Feb 21 '23
The guy made executive orders while never being a professional in any field. Be it agriculture, science or social. Some people are never meant to rule but have power shoved onto them and due to their incompetence they open the gates of hell to other humans.
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u/VeteranSergeant Feb 21 '23
Russia pretending that they weren't part of "the West" a little more than 100 years ago is silly. The king of England and the last Russian tsar were cousins and pen pals. Russia, France, and England were allied going into World War 1 before the Bolshevik Revolution. Soviet Russia was literally just a bump in that long road. Russia was even given a chance to rejoin "the West" in the 1990s, and instead chose to be standoffish. They lost the Cold War, but the reality is that nobody in Europe or the US actually cared. Russia could have chosen, at any point after the fall of the USSR, to just, you know, "not be antagonistic." Germany was literally broken into five parts after World War 2, and by the late 90s, was emerging as one of Europe's most powerful economies. Russia could be Germany, if they had chosen to.
The boogeyman of "the West" is basically just a continuing facade for Putin to mask his greed and lust for totalitarian power.
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u/C3POsCAT Feb 21 '23
That problem is only going to be felt after he's gone which is why he doesn't care.
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u/TrumpDesWillens Feb 21 '23
War is always old people convincing young to kill each other for old people. Dolce et decorum pro patria mori.
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u/everyting_is_taken Feb 21 '23
Dolce et decorum est pro patria mori.
"It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country."
The old lie.
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u/pseydtonne Feb 21 '23
"Gas, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling"
Wilfred Owen died during WW1. This poem of his still hits me harder than some of my favorite punk songs.
(Also yes, that's where Sarah MacLaughlin got the name for her album.)
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u/mandrills_ass Feb 21 '23
If you call being dragged against your will in a recruiter's van "convincing people" aha
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u/ThePerfectSoup Feb 21 '23
That’s kinda been their MO when it comes to war fighting. They throw a huge percentage of their male population at the war, lose a major portion of that percentage, and then are more or less screwed for 40-50 years as their workforce has to be birthed and live long enough to become “usable”.
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u/chowderbags Feb 21 '23
Thing is, they really can't afford to do that. They're in a deep trough for population in the 18-20s range already. "Screwed" wouldn't even begin to describe their situation if they lose a bunch of young men to the meatgrinder, especially since so many young Russians are already fleeing to pretty much anywhere else that they can get to.
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u/jmnugent Feb 22 '23
That wikipedia article is a bit... astounding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia
they're estimated to have lost nearly 1 million to Covid19 alone
lost an estimated 500,000 since invasion of Ukraine began
I mean. I know they brought back the "Heroine Mother" award (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/18/russia-offers-mother-heroine-medal-and-16800-for-having-10-children.html)
.. but how many willing females of young enough age are even going to want to have 10 kids ? (and you don't get the $1 million payout until the 10th kid hits 1year old)
Median age for Females is 40~ish... waiting till you're 50 to get that $1 million (and you've had to spend 10 years raising 10 kids to obtain that)
Maybe I don't understand Russian psychology or culture or society.. but given current circumstances in Russia,. I don't honest see many eligible-females still around who will take that bargain.
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u/necrologia Feb 22 '23
Even less will go for it when you consider the chance of Russia actually paying. It's easy to say you'll give someone a million a decade from now. The handful desperate enough to go for it will get Scott's Tots'd for sure.
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Feb 22 '23
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u/Ramazoninthegrass Feb 22 '23
It is an existential population crisis in Russia, the ruling class believes the US agenda has been to pursing regime change. The population crisis is 40 years away regardless. They don’t care about the long term future of Russia, this is all about the current ruling class exiting on their own terms…
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u/Bryguy3k Feb 21 '23
Basically their only meaningful export in 5 years will be mail-order brides.
As if we don’t have enough problems with human trafficking.
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u/gregs1020 Feb 21 '23
exactly this. the population gap is going to be way to much to overcome in decades.
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u/EduinBrutus Feb 21 '23
Russia is literally trying the Paraguayan Army speed run.
The six-year War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870), in which Paraguay confronted the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, had inflicted apocalyptic damage on the landlocked nation.
Roughly two-thirds of Paraguay’s population perished during the conflict, including around 90% of its men. Brazil and Argentina would go on to annex enormous swaths of Paraguayan territory.
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u/Gordo81 Feb 21 '23
I lived in Paraguay in the early 2000s and I believe that the country is still feeling the effects of that demographic shift caused by the death of so many men in such a brutal war.
(The main sense I got was that Paraguay was fighting wars with Brazil and Uruguay but then since Argentina wasn't going to help them they said Fine War with you too. This type of leadership seems very much like the type of leadership coming out of Moscow these days.
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u/frozen-dessert Feb 21 '23
Can you elaborate on what made you believe that Paraguay still feels the effects of that war? (I am just curious).
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u/EduinBrutus Feb 21 '23
Your demographic pyramid gets "echoes" of significant population extinction events.
For example the Russian population pyramid (and Ukrainian and most ex-Soviet nations) shows crazy indentations every 30 years since WW2. https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-federation/2020/
They were just entering the third "echo" of World War 2 right now before they even started throwing away the lives of their young men.
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u/HermanCainsGhost Feb 21 '23
So in 30 years we'll probably see a "double" echo.
Interesting
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u/socialistrob Feb 21 '23
This goes beyond brain drain. Getting their best and brightest killed is going to be a major setback to Russia’s economy long term.
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u/Ok-Wasabi2873 Feb 21 '23
Some of the smartest people I’ve work with were Russians that left in the mid 2000s.
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u/Quirderph Feb 21 '23
Makes sense that the smartest Russians are no longer in Russia.
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u/Abracadaver14 Feb 21 '23
When the best and brightest are dead, there's nobody left who's smart enough to stand up to the dictator. This is just long term strategic thinking on putin's part.
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u/blondetailedsquirrel Feb 21 '23
Yep, long term planning to have no educated/ skilled populace in a global order that has no interest in working with you. Here comes success!
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u/yatima2975 Feb 21 '23
I doubt Putin gives a nanofuck about the longer-term prospects of his country and compatriots.
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u/itsok-imwhite Feb 21 '23
Yeah that bitch’ll be dead. I hate rooting for blood cancer, but there it is.
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u/sufferinsucatash Feb 21 '23
He will sell the widows and leftover college girls to China for their 20 million wifeless Males.. For a good price obviously.
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u/SingularityBob Feb 21 '23
When you're a dictator and all elections are a sham, popularity isn't such a big concern.
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u/franklloydwhite Feb 21 '23
It isnt...until it is.
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u/SingularityBob Feb 21 '23
I gave up hope on a popular Russian revolt. They seem to pride themselves on their willingness to suffer.
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u/Poyayan1 Feb 21 '23
Russian revolt currently exists in the form of the Free Russia unit in Ukraine. For now, you cannot expect such groups to survive inside Russia. Maybe later, but Putin still has a firm grip on the country for now.
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u/Speculawyer Feb 21 '23
Dictators don't have to worry about losing elections but if they push things too far, they have to worry about losing their heads.
Putin is already in that zone and he largely hides in his fortress homes and personal armored trains. All it takes is one Russian patriot to do what is best for his nation and take him out.
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u/booze_clues Feb 21 '23
Putin took lots of notes on Gaddafi and how to make sure your young men don’t revolt and kill you. It’s gonna take a lot of blood to get rid of him unless, like you said, some random dude gets really lucky or his inner circle wants a change of leadership while changing nothing else. Unless it’s a big revolt though, it’s probably gonna be the equivalent of changing Putin’s name and nothing else.
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u/El_Peregrine Feb 21 '23
I wouldn't be sad to see Putin end up with a similar fate as Gaddafi, but the idea of Russia as a lawless failed-state is pretty terrifying.
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u/RMZ13 Feb 21 '23
People tried to protest in the beginning. They all disappeared into vans real quick if I remember. Even the ones holding up blank pieces of paper. I don’t doubt that a whole lot of people living there would like it to be different. But opposition is brutally suppressed.
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u/bennitori Feb 21 '23
The super messed up part was that even the counter protesters got rounded up. So not only were they punishing people for dissenting, but they were punishing people for supporting Putin as well. I was pretty darn speechless when I heard that detail.
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u/TropoMJ Feb 21 '23
It's a great reminder to Russian people that they're simply not allowed to have an opinion on what their leaders do at all - not even a positive one. It's simply not their place.
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u/Arigomi Feb 21 '23
Revolutions actually have many years of setbacks and failures before making any gains. The tipping point is just what gets the most attention.
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u/Yabutsk Feb 21 '23
it's tough there bc the whole gov't has been designed to suppress revolt; disarm, divide and surveille citizens.
their domestic police force is better armed than their military
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u/grobap Feb 21 '23
their domestic police force is better armed than their military
Looks at Ukraine
Yes, we've noticed!
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u/toyota_gorilla Feb 21 '23
Yeah, the internal security forces are basically bigger than their military.
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u/backcountrydrifter Feb 21 '23
This is what we call an “unsustainable business model”. It’s the theranos or Wework of nation states.
The hard part is gauging the timing so that you can eviscerate the leftover second rate despots who try and recycle the same model with new players
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u/IdleGenius Feb 21 '23 edited Feb 21 '23
Wait, isn't that just learned helplessness as an identity? That's incredibly sad and kind of fucked up.
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u/SkiingAway Feb 21 '23
Here's a fantastic and grim article from before the war on the topic:
Granta - Russia on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - 5/2017
This stuck with me:
All that remains for those ashamed of the present and afraid of the future is pride in the past. When there’s no reason to love your country, hate your neighbours. If you are unable to improve your life, ruin someone else’s.
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u/hume_reddit Feb 21 '23
They hate the authorities, but have a pathological fear of change. They feel injustice, but cannot tolerate activists. They hate bureaucracy, but submit to total state control over all spheres of life. They are afraid of the police, but support the expansion of police control. They know they are constantly being deceived, but believe the lies fed to them on television.
That does sound kinda familiar.
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u/styr Feb 21 '23
From these experiments, it was thought that there was to be only one cure for helplessness. In Seligman's hypothesis, the dogs do not try to escape because they expect that nothing they do will stop the shock. To change this expectation, experimenters physically picked up the dogs and moved their legs, replicating the actions the dogs would need to take in order to escape from the electrified grid. This had to be done at least twice before the dogs would start willfully jumping over the barrier on their own. In contrast, threats, rewards, and observed demonstrations had no effect on the "helpless" Group 3 dogs.
Russia needs to have another USSR-style collapse?
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Feb 21 '23
I gave up hope on a popular Russian revolt. They seem to pride themselves on their willingness to suffer.
They have had quite a few revolutions though.
They also had several palace coups during the Tzars.
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u/IsThatHearsay Feb 21 '23
Mike Duncan has an excellent ~100+ episode podcast on Russian history and Russian Revolutions, and throughout Russian history their Revolutions were really not like other countries' revolutions (by the people) but instead typically organized and instigated by members of the ruling class for the people who often surprised even the organizers by not supporting the efforts.
The issue being, throughout Russian history the common people/serfs hardly ever acted or furthered the Revolutions when they were even organized and instigated for them, which is why many of them fell flat. Even when tzar Alexander II emancipated the serfs on his own many of the serfs/common people didnt take kindly to it or appreciate the change. The Russian people as a whole have centuries upon centuries of learned helplessness where they historically won't fight for themselves like we've seen in other Revolutions in other countries. Nothing seems to have changed even now.
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u/superthrowguy Feb 21 '23
I have some historical context for you
Turns out if you want to hold onto power you should kill everyone who knows what is going on. And all of your political opponents.
So if you criminalize speaking out and then send them all to die you reduce the people who can disagree with you. And if you mandate all students go and die, you have eliminated the other contingent of people who might let other people know what is going on.
This is not a play that wins the war. This is the play that makes Russia fall in line behind Putin regardless.
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u/xXTheGrapenatorXx Feb 21 '23
Oh, it’s a great plan if he wants to be king of the ashes once he’s completely destroyed Russia by adding “killed off a whole generation of educated young people” to the list of things he sacrificed for power.
You’re right that it’s important to remember he doesn’t care what’s good for Russia only for him, but it’s still worth pointing out how bad it is for Russia anyway.
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u/Zerksys Feb 21 '23
Historically that's also not a great plan because societies which kill off their most educated and productive people open themselves up to being outclassed and invaded in the long term. I guess Putin doesn't think he has to worry about this because nukes.
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u/Eeeegah Feb 21 '23
Or he just figures he only has to hold this house of corrupt cards together for another ten years or so, and then he's gone and doesn't care what he has left in his wake.
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u/Winds_Howling2 Feb 21 '23
When I was a student, I definitely didn't want to go to war instead.
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u/juju611x Feb 21 '23
No matter what they’re doing, most people don’t want to go to war instead!
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u/chowmushi Feb 21 '23
I suspect it is focused on Universities in Siberia rather than St Petersburg or Moscow. Not going to be popular there, but the Russians aren’t that popular anyway. Also a great way to cleanse places that would break away from the Federation if they could.
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u/zanillamilla Feb 21 '23
I thought NSU has a strong reputation in Russia for science and engineering education. I wonder if they will mobilize by major and keep the physics and engineering students and ship off the humanities and economics students.
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u/TrueRignak
Feb 21 '23
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Which is coincidentally the category most likely to criticise his regime.
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u/porncrank Feb 21 '23
Ah, that’s the missing piece I was looking for. On the face of it this seems like absolute idiocy. But if your goal is to eliminate any chance of opposition, this makes perfect sense. It will devestate the Russian economy for generations, but Putin gets to LARP as the most powerful man in the world for a few more years… so that’s his play. What a colossal pile of shit.
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u/cityb0t Feb 22 '23
Unless they resist the draft, and it sparks an uprising
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u/BadKittydotexe Feb 22 '23
But if there’s an uprising they’ll send in the milit—ooooh.
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u/Salt-Ad9876 Feb 22 '23
No he will just blame the student uprising as a NATO operation and probably start bombing the universities
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u/Igotz80HDnImWinning Feb 21 '23 •
Don’t they know about student loans? You can easily control the intelligentsia with indentured servitude. Fools!
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u/LordDarthAnger Feb 21 '23
And also shatter the government. In Czechia it were students who started shattering communist influence. And I think it was similiar 100 years earlier with Germanification of Czechia.
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u/jpgray Feb 21 '23
And also shatter the government
Basically every popular revolution (i.e. not military coups) in modern history has been started and organized by the educated youth of the middle and working classes
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u/Myriachan Feb 22 '23
Hence why the dictators go after them first, like Pol Pot and Mao
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u/os_kaiserwilhelm Feb 21 '23
I don't know about students specifically but nationalists in the 19th century tended to come from educated commoners.
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u/onlyroad66 Feb 21 '23
Students have traditionally been a hotbed of revolutionary activity. The Revolutions of 1848 are a great example in Europe, Tiananmen Square is a more modern example of student lead anti-government activity (with an unfortunately more tragic end).
Plenty of other examples, those are the two off the top of my head though
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u/disisathrowaway Feb 21 '23
The counter-culture in the US in the 60's had a huge injection of ideas and energy from college campuses.
Especially when the US started shipping young, unwilling people off to die in an unpopular war of imperialism...
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u/5kyl3r Feb 22 '23
and college towns are still predominantly liberal, even today, even in red states
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u/Aj_Caramba Feb 21 '23
This actually goes even deeper. Events of 17th November of '89 that sparked the Velvet Revolution begun as a commemoration of Nazi attack on and subsequent closing of Czech universities in 1939.
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u/Durumbuzafeju Feb 21 '23
Throwing the would-be engineers, doctors, chemists, biologist etc. into the meat grinder will cripple their economy for a generation.
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u/bauboish Feb 21 '23 •
Putin's 70 years old and his family's like all spread across the world. His only goal is to hold on to his job/life everything else is irrelevant.
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u/gahidus Feb 21 '23
He could have held onto his job quite easily by not bothering to invade Ukraine. Not that I think he'll lose it now, as the population is pretty bloody cowed / brainwashed, but he's just possessed by blind greed.
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u/plipyplop Feb 21 '23 •
The ultimate final Fuck You: setting up a heart monitor as a dead man's switch for his nukes.
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u/TurelSun Feb 21 '23
He is fine with that as long as he can rule the ashes. There are no concerns about the long term and future generations. There are a lot of people that share that mentality.
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Feb 21 '23
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u/swinging-in-the-rain Feb 21 '23
Authoritarians always attack the people's ability to gain education. This is a standard operating procedure
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u/Chief_Executive_Anon Feb 21 '23
This is mind-numbing, in a scary way.
Outcome could go any number of ways, but it’s a massive escalation in any case because Russia’s elites must be aware of the existential fork this creates. This makes it life or death for their best and brightest.
It’s like the actual cancer chose to do chemo on itself to see how the body will react. Crazy to think about.
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u/SingularityBob Feb 21 '23
As long as Putin sits on the throne one more day he will burn his country and the world into a cinder.
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u/Flooding_Puddle Feb 21 '23
In his mind he's the God-Emperor and sacrificing millions for a few more hours of life is an even trade
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u/Jollyjacktar Feb 21 '23
The equivalent of burning the furniture to keep from freezing.
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u/SwashQbcklr Feb 21 '23
More like eating your seedcorn to keep from starving
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u/gahidus Feb 21 '23
This is like eating your seed corn because you've decided on a whim that you absolutely, positively, must have a feast today. You didn't need to eat it, and everything would have been fine if you didn't, but you're just eating it anyway, because that would make you feel extra full.
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u/Material-Candy-7914 Feb 21 '23
Wow. Sending a generation to die just like that.
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u/TheKinkyGuy Feb 21 '23
Generations*
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u/throwaway_ghast Feb 21 '23
Russia was already undergoing a demographic crisis even before the meat grinder started. Putin's decisions are going to have a massive ripple effect for decades to come.
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u/rubyspicer Feb 22 '23
They were just beginning to have positive population growth before COVID kicked off...and now this awful war is happening, so...yeah.
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u/Flooding_Puddle Feb 21 '23
I know Russia is absolutely massive, but if they have to mobilize students, that must mean theyre starting to run low on non-student conscripts. What happens when they run out of young men?
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u/shannork Feb 21 '23
Old men. Youth.
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u/Flooding_Puddle Feb 21 '23
Havent they already starting conscripting anyone ypunger than like 45 though, or was that Ukraine callimg all hands on deck? I would think once they start lowering the conscription age its the beginning of the end. Russian soldiers are incompetent enough, once they start throwing kids in the war effort will collapse. We've all been speculating on when Russia will run out of weapons but they might run out of soldiers first
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u/shannork Feb 21 '23
When the invasion started, Ukraine put restrictions on men aged 18-60 trying to leave the country (not conscripted). Russia has indeed conscripted older & out of shape men but has mainly focused on the rural areas to supply this. My comment intention is that Putler could madate conscription for all males regardless of age, including children.
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u/eth6113 Feb 21 '23
I think it's less running out of non-student conscripts and more conscripting those who may be willing to push back against Putin.
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u/Malakay_sun Feb 21 '23
Russia isn‘t absolutely massive. They only have about 140 million people.
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u/Flooding_Puddle Feb 21 '23
Damn I didnt realize that. So the whole cannon fodder strategy isn't even that relevant, Russia has less than half the population of the US and acts like they're China or India
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u/LordTegucigalpa Feb 21 '23
Take a look at the projections for the population in Russia and China over the next 100 years. It's going to decrease quickly!
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u/kolodz Feb 21 '23
Ukraine is 44m or about 1/3 of Russian population.
Russia claims 3/2 of the military budget of France. (70m population). But 3k+ aircraft vs less than 1k of France.
One Russian state video explained that NATO population was over 1 billion. 16 times the military budget of Russia.
There's no WW3 if Russia doesn't ally will China or nuke half the world.
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u/Jamaz Feb 21 '23
Yep, losing even 1 million young men to war and brain drain is enough to absolutely cripple that population size.
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u/MonteBurns Feb 21 '23
This is also coming on the heels of however many they lost to Covid, too.
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u/boulevardpaleale Feb 21 '23
"Let's send the military!" Well, that didn't work...
"Hey, Let's send the criminals!" Well, shit....
"Ah ha! Let's send our students!"
...what's next, Putin? Your 'war' is a failure. Or, is it your intention to just keep throwing resources until there isn't anyone left?
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u/SerDuckOfPNW Feb 21 '23
Ahhh, straight out of Zap Brannigan’s Big Book of War.
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u/khornflakes529 Feb 21 '23
Putin: Do not worry. We will only conscript students if special military operation were declared.
alarm rings
Students: whats that?
Putin: Special military operation were declared.
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u/gemfountain Feb 21 '23
That is so fucked up. They will be left with a population of unskilled labor. I guess teachers are next.
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u/Hottriplr Feb 21 '23
And then anyone wearing glasses.
We thought putler is larping Hitler. Turns out he is larping Pol pot
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u/Itsallcakes Feb 21 '23
1) Kill young people who you cant brainwash with your bullshit TV propaganda
2) Brainwash 1-8yo kids from the beginning
Putin deserves the bullet simply for that reason alone. He would be dead yet he still would poison and ruin the lifes of current kids. Fucking inhuman bastard.
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u/Bowens1993 Feb 21 '23
They will be left with a population of unskilled labor.
Their unskilled labor was shipped out first.
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u/consci0usness Feb 21 '23
You too can throw away your country's future if you just do this ONE thing! Click to learn the secret today!
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u/Weekly_Historian4528 Feb 21 '23
Getting rid of anyone remotely intelligent is a classic line from the dictators playbook.
Stalin - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC139050/
Mao Zedong - https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/the-legacy-mao-zedong-mass-murder
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u/RunicSwordIIDX Feb 21 '23
We're Cambodian, and my father was forced to be in a concentration camp during the Khmer Rouge days. He was quite smart and very handy with tools. He said it was a constant struggle to "not be smart or dumb enough to get executed".
He would spend a lot of his days being forced to construct bridges and platforms where needed.
At the time, my mother was pregnant with twin boys (my older brothers) and my mother and father were separated for nearly 3 years because my father was sent to another camp to work. Many told my mother that she would never see him again but she continued to wait and wait until one day my father eventually came back. Unfortunately, one of the twins died while he was away. Crazy times.
I was born much later after they were able to flee to Thailand and then eventually California where I was born.
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u/cityb0t Feb 22 '23
Your parents sound like incredible people to have survived such a thing. I hope they found the peace.
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u/RunicSwordIIDX Feb 22 '23 •
They were and still are very optimistic people! My parents and my two brothers ended up getting sponsored by a Christian family in Utah and got tickets to fly from Thailand to Utah. They had never been on a plane before and my father had no idea what to do with the tea, bread and butter he was given during the flight. Trying to show off to my mom, he confidently put the butter in his tea and drank it. Needless to say, it was not very tasty haha.
They arrived with nothing and my dad ended up being a dishwasher at a local restaurant. He later realized he has a knack for sewing and ended up doing some tailoring for Sears and saved up enough to get the family to Long Beach, California (the largest Cambodian population outside of Cambodia). My father eventually took classes at a community college to work on airplanes, fixing engines and doing sheet metal for helicopters. My mom ended up sewing as well and later opened a small convenience store which was running for 20 years in the heart of Long Beach.
Fast-forward to today and they're happily both retired. My dad spends his days singing karaoke now while my mom watches Korean dramas on Netflix.
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u/cityb0t Feb 22 '23
What a wonderful and heartwarming story! All my love to them!
This is what it means to be American 🇺🇸
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u/RunicSwordIIDX Feb 22 '23
Thank you, friend! Here's a photo of my parents from the early 80s. I'm glad to have shared a bit of their story with everyone in this thread!
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u/h311ion Feb 21 '23
DotA 2 population numbers are going to fall
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u/kstrati Feb 21 '23
Same with CSGO
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u/WaffleBlues Feb 21 '23
Wow, they are really about to throw away generations of their youth to capture a few towns in Eastern Ukraine?
So far they've mostly been throwing away the lives of convicts and mercenaries, this is a significant escalation on their end.
Undeniable that their military structure is so incompetent, they simply are unable to train, equip and support their current troops, let alone adding thousands of students into the mix.
Putin really is willing to burn the state down in order to avoid admitting any type of defeat on his end.
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u/Chrol18 Feb 21 '23
War is stupid like that, all the young men on the frontline. Old idiot leaders in the back safe at home.
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u/Boom2356 Feb 21 '23
Crush any form of intelligence. Keep the masses stupid. Erase any remaining potential for critical thought. Ensure the survival of the regime until I die.
Fuck Russia's economy in the long term. Doesn't matter.
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u/EnvironmentalYak9322 Feb 21 '23
Man Russia is really about to push it self off the deep end and it will only make the west send more tanks and warplanes and other goodies lol
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u/rugbyj Feb 21 '23
They went off the deep end a while ago. This is them clutching onto the grate at the bottom of the pool.
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u/supergeometry Feb 21 '23
Im sure they will do wonders in Ukraine against NATO trained troops.
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u/Human-Entrepreneur77 Feb 21 '23
It's good they used up all the convicts before killing off their intellectuals.
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u/Task_wizard Feb 21 '23
They had to make more room in the prisons before the next draft so there is room for draft dodgers.
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u/flawless_victory99 Feb 21 '23
Great now all the Russian internet trolls can finally live their dream and head to the frontlines.
Best of luck fellas.
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u/Caleo Feb 21 '23
Realistically, these students being sent are more likely to be dissenters than russian internet trolls.
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u/D_J-ANGO Feb 21 '23
Yeah, people keep saying this will be a problem. This is a textbook dictator "solution".
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u/lifesprig Feb 21 '23
They key word in the article is “may” and the source is Ukrainska Pravda. I’m taking this with a big grain of salt for now.
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u/red75prime Feb 21 '23
The title is misleading. The attached document describes measures for preparation of student teams to assist in the draft.
The document seems legit and the draft is most likely upcoming. But there's nothing about mass mobilization of full-time students.
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u/A40 Feb 21 '23
He's missing the obvious: the POLICE are already a trained paramilitary. Draft all of them!
(And won't that go over well...)
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u/RosemaryFocaccia Feb 21 '23
Dictators protect the police because the police protect the dictator.
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u/cityproblems Feb 21 '23
The police have a much more important job than even the military. Putin knows the only real danger to his well being will come from inside russia
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u/badasimo Feb 21 '23
There were many police units in the original invasion before conscription started. This was largely because they expected to be an occupying/administering force, not a combat force after a few days.
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u/no_apricots Feb 21 '23
Right? I remember them showing up in riot gear when they took cities. Those weren’t military, they were police.
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u/No_Bother_654 Feb 21 '23
If you’re a Russian student reading this, get your passport and leave now. Your military isn’t prepared to arm, feed or train you. If you get sent to Ukraine you will probably die, and your body will likely not be recovered.
You have some time (maybe a few weeks). Use it wisely.
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u/Express-Statement-90 Feb 21 '23
Why do the 8 Billion people on earth let these old rich guys ruin humanity and peace?
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u/FaitFretteCriss Feb 21 '23
We're divided. We arent 8 billion people vs a handful of assholes, its 100 million groups of people who all consider the others as different and "not us" vs a handful of assholes.
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u/Less-Dragonfruit-294 Feb 21 '23
Ooof so this’ll be Russia’s Vietnam. After this who’s left to send? Women? Children? The disabled? Where does the line end for mobilization?
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u/alexp8771 Feb 21 '23
Russia has already passed the US KIA casualties in Vietnam in 1/5th of the time. This is way worse.
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u/leverkusenschlekt Feb 21 '23
Russia's Vietnam was Afghanistan
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u/Less-Dragonfruit-294 Feb 21 '23
Afghanistan was bad for them yes, but this is on a whole other scale of destruction. From varying reports there’s devastation on the Russian military worse than during Afghanistan.
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u/badabababaim Feb 21 '23
More notably is the near complete with economic destruction of all their trade. It didn’t really get this bad during the Cold War fpr the most part
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u/UOLZEPHYR Feb 21 '23 •
So... their armed forces were deployed.... and then their prison system ... and now students are being sent out ?
Is the plan to just destroy Russia from within ?