Putin allows broader recruitment of convicts for war in Ukraine. The new edition of the law states that people convicted of or under investigation for minor and medium-gravity offences will now be able to sign contracts with the military authorities.

lol

“We can have this public urination ticket go away, comrade – if you agree to be disassembled by a drone 20 minutes into your tour”.

If so few people are willing to fight for a cause or a country, it may be time for that country to reexamine its basic principles.

He’s doing all he can to avoid sending conscripts to Ukraine. I think the numbers are going against him though.

These days I don’t understand to what end Russia is fighting, they seem to have no theory of victory they are working to. All we are seeing out of them is steadily increasing signs of strain, and what seems to be increasingly short term attempts simply to shore their situation up.

As it now I don’t know what Ukraine really needs to be doing beyond steadily increase the pressure as they have been all year and eventually something is going to break or run out that can’t be compensated for and create a logistical firestorm of one kind or another.

The reporting is that is in some areas of the front Russian units are so overwhelmed that they cannot even deploy their own drones and in those areas Ukraine appear to have total area of denial. In 6 months that could be areas being cleared of troops as the pressure on Ukraine keeps falling.

This mobilisation people are talking about seems to me to the last option. It’ll probably help for a while but only at the cost of massively increasing the casualty rate for Russia given green and likely under supplied / equipped troops – reports of supply shortages started last year. That will require vast numbers of conscripts to maintain and all the negative knockon effects that will have.