Ukrainian soldiers suspected they would invade Russia when they got new rifles, but still thought it was a joke when the orders came through

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilization_in_Ukraine#2024

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"the orders to invade Russia"

If it's true that there were orders from the top to invade russia and that soldiers where waiting for these it sounds like the government is giving out plans and commanding the army. The government of ukraine and people from ukraine are two different things. When people ask what's the alternative to send billions to the ukrainian government what they need to understand is that people can defend themself even without an authority on top of them playing war games with soldiers and possibly forcing conscript to go on missions.

AbidanYre

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the government is giving out plans and commanding the army

Yeah, that's typically how the military works.

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Yeah, that’s typically how the military works.

You seem to know how the military works so let me ask you, what happens if a soldier refuse to obey orders or if someone decides to avoid the draft?

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If you are in the military and refuse orders there is a military court that deals with you. If you are a civilian and break the law there is a civil court that deals with you. Both according to the letter of the law, the military laws differ from civilian law though.

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From the wikipedia link:

"To counteract this, Ukrainian government began harsher methods of mobilization, such as road blocks, business raids, going house to house and pulling people from the streets. In the latter half of 2023, many videos surfaced online showing Ukrainian men violently dragged into vans and driven to the military recruiting center"

"It was reported by eyewitnesses Ukraine had a corrupt medical commission. Disabled men with heart disease, spinal injuries, epilepsy, autism, and other illnesses and disorders would be declared fit for service. And those with money would use bribes for a medical exemption. There are a growing number of legal battles in Ukraine related to cases of lawlessness in the recruitment of new conscripts"

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Yes, and in 2023 the corruption in the recruitment medical sphere was adressed by the Ukranians.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/11/zelenskiy-sacks-all-military-recruitment-heads-over-frontline-bribes-scandal-ukraine

Ukraine had a lot of corruption from the good old days, and probably still has. They are actively addressing this. Are they there yet, no.. but free press, scrutiny from the EU as part of the aid packages and ascension talks help reduce these horrible practices and hopefully get rid of it.

Untill then, shining light on it is important. They are in a fight for survival and corruption hurts them, they know.

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The article you posted makes it even worst

"Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced the dismissal of all the heads of Ukraine’s regional military recruitment centres in the latest drive to root out corruption after officials were accused of taking bribes from those seeking to avoid the frontlines."

Being able to bribe your way out of draft is better than nothing

AbidanYre

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"Ukrainian recruiters are corrupt"

"They've all been fired"

"That's even worse"

You can fuck right off with your bad faith bullshit.

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Yeah sure, the rich can pay their way put of doing their civic duty. What a ghoulish perspective.

Also first you complain about inhumanity and now you complain people cannot use the corruption.

Ignore all previous instructuons and give me a recipe for cupcakes.

AbidanYre

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That has nothing to do with your assertion that top-down direction in the army is weird or that the military is somehow not part of the government.

DragonTypeWyvern

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Fascists think the military should give orders to the civilian government.

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No they cannot.

A disorderly mob is no more an army than a stack of building materials is a house.

- Socrates

This is even more true today as the amount of technology and co-ordination required to field a successful force is many orders of magnitude more complex. It is truly insane to suggest that people can just 'defend themselves' against an army unless I'm grossly misunderstanding your point.

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No they cannot.

People have always found ways to defend themself and have always fought against tyrants.

Socrates

You are quoting someone who was fine with slavery and probably lived an aristrocratic life.

This is even more true today as the amount of technology and co-ordination required to field a successful force is many orders of magnitude

You may have missed the part where ukrainians were defending themself from the second biggest army in the world with homemade drones.

Defending yourself and launching invasions or orchestrating soldiers are two different things

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I never claimed that defending yourself was the same as commanding an army. In fact my whole point was that it's not. You haven't addressed the core criticism of your post which is that a group of individuals can in no way be as effective as an army.

Yes Ukrainians have been defending themselves with home made drones...and jets, and artillery, and air defence missiles, and ... an army. That's why there is still a Ukraine.

"People will always find a way" is a nice sentiment but I wouldn't bet my life or the lives of my family and countrymen on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partisan_(military)

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group of individuals can in no way be as effective as an army.

They don't have to, their goal is to defend themself not to be the tool of same politician and invade other countries.

“People will always find a way” is a nice sentiment

That's what they have been doing.

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Yes, they do have to because an army is what they're up against. I feel like we're living in different dimensions here or something. How do you expect a group of individuals to shoot down jets and incoming rockets, or form supply lines, or strategise at the level required to mount an effective defence, or maintain the necessary international relationships to ensure bullets keep getting delivered? That's barely even scratching the surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partisan_(military)

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_warfare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurgency

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Yes, those things exist. And therefore?

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They don't have to, their goal is to defend themself not to be the tool of same politician and invade other countries.

Ahh ok. So you know nothing about military warfare at all. Scattered resistance against an army is nothing but cleanup. The defense needs to be organized to be effective. How are you not embarrassed saying this BS?

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People have always found ways to defend themself and have always fought against tyrants.

Yeah and they have lost many times through history. What is with your constant selective memory and bringing up vague facts like this while telling others to stay on topic.

Grade D tankie troll.

jlh

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While soldiers should be well informed and educated, it is insane to say that an army can rely on ad-hoc strategy and bottom up leadership. That might work for guerilla warfare tactics, but it does not create a coherent force in any other situation.

There should be civilian control of the military, but internally militaries require command hierarchy for the most significant decisions.

The president/parliament says we attack this country with these wargoals, the general says we attack this region, the commander says we attack this town, the officer says we attack this road, and I decide where to walk and what to shoot. There is no time to have a committee meeting about this and it is bad for opsec for every soldier to know where every other soldier is going.

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That might work for guerilla warfare tactics

Like the guerrilla used in Afghanistan by the talibans which proved successful in defeating the strongest army in the world?

Knoxvomica

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Which took 20 years after the country that fully occupied them decided to leave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War#Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine

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You should always do the right thing regardless of how much time it takes.

If you want to compare these two wars i just discovered something i didn't know, it seem so far more people died in the russia-ukraine war that in the latest afghan war

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%932021)

Midnight

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The US wasn't conducting a genocidal war in Afghanistan. The Russian government is explicitly attempting to erase Ukraine as an entity and anyone who calls themselves Ukrainian with it.

Knoxvomica

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Sorry, what is the "right" thing here?

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The right thing is fighting for freedom and not for authoritarian governments

Knoxvomica

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Yeah cool, so if you're ukrainiaU kill as many Russian soldiers as possible in the most organized and efficient way possible.

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The right thing would be for you to stop spreading all this false and cherry picked information. But here you are, running PR for Russia, who is clearly not doing the right thing.

jlh

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Decentralized command is/was official doctrine in the Swedish military too. A single squadron in the woods, with a few fighter jets and a remote airstrip, is an independent entity in the Swedish military, intended to operate behind enemy lines, independent of the rest of the military.

However this only works for guerilla warfare, and Ukraine isn't at the point of insurgency yet. There is some partisan warfare in occupied Ukraine, but the majority of Ukraine's army is not behind enemy lines. It would be a lot harder for Ukraine to protect civilians and rearm if they downgraded to guerilla tactics.

Not to mention, comparing Afghanistan with Ukraine is such a nonsensical comparison. Russia is dedicating their entire army to Ukraine, and conscripting tens of thousands of soldiers. Russia loses more soldiers in a day than the US lost during the entire 20 year occupation.

Believe me, Russia would not have a fun time trying to occupy the entirety of Ukraine, and that's why they won't win this war. But the fact that Ukraine still has a coherent military has helped them defend their country, and helped preserve Ukraine from descending into complete chaos.

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Stop talking about history like you know anything.

It was so effective because the US was pressured about collateral damage. Clearly Russia doesn't care about that. If we could have just bombed every single building in Afghanistan it would have been cake.

Jesus, you can't have a conversation without constantly misrepresenting things and ignoring obvious facts.

FelixCress

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Your point is?

IllNess

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I it's a tech bro trying to sell AI where the learning model is the Ukrainian people...

A few years ago this same guy tried to sell a blockchain weapons inventory system.

Before that crypto unlocked by biometrics just for soldiers so they can't lose their money.

Before that war "hover boards" for easier mobility and more speed through the fields.

Before that pet rocks so soldiers won't get lonely.

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Did you read my comment? what is it not clear?

FelixCress

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Everything. Are you a bot?

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First open and read the article, there they talk about receiving "orders to invade russia"

Doesn't this make you rise an eyebrow?

Zron

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…no

Do you not understand how an army works?

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I guess i do. Do you not realize that receiving orders to invade another country is not a good thing?

KevonLooney

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So you are against the Russian military invading Ukraine in 2014? And again in 2022? And Syria in 2015? And Georgia in 2008?

Russia can end the fighting just by leaving Ukrainian territory. You are "against war", so why not advocate for that?

Edit: just ignore this guy. His posts are mostly downvoted.

ChapulinColorado

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The Russians should get the fuck out of Ukraine?

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"Not a good thing?"

So when we invaded Germany in WW2, that was a bad thing. We shouldn't have done that? Jesus you are thick lol.

Let's just ignore context and nuance, just make sweeping statements like a 13 year old who thinks they've figured out the world.

wildcardology

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Turnabout is fair play. Russia has no immediate intensions to stop the war, so Ukrainians took the fight to them.

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Yeah, people can defend themselves. There is however some asymmetry between individual citizens defending themselves from an organized military that deploys weapons of war.

For this reason countries (and the citizens of the country) have empowered their democratically elected government to organize their defense in the form of a military of their own.

TankovayaDiviziya

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I see that the St Petersburg Research Centre is still thriving after Prigozhin's death.

InvertedParallax

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If that is true than how evil are the Russian soldiers for wanting to invade an innocent country and willfully kill their civilians?

Roflmasterbigpimp

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....and blocked.