Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.
No?..
…yes? Or do you think the countries with peacetime conscription do it for shits and giggles, and the massive economic benefit of half the population losing about a year of working life?
Russia has conscription but not kidnapping part and forbidding to leave the country part. So do many other countries.
Russia has a larger population than Ukraine, and thus the luxury to not need everyone, and still they have called in reservists in “partial mobilization”, exact number unknown. As Russia has conscription, every adult man who has performed their service is in reserve. As of 2023, reservists called into service are not allowed to leave and are subject to restrictions until they report to duty, which seems like high-tech enforcement/“kidnapping” to me. The conscriptions have also hit poorer regions, often with large ethnic minorities, more harshly, but I’m sure that’s just coincidence.
There are reports of some military districts closing borders, of mobilized men being ill-equipped and used as cannon fodder, being killed in large numbers, you name it. As with all war reporting, hard to get well-verified factsfacts, especially from a country hostile to neutral reporters. We do know that protests are broken (and male protestors sometimes drafted).
But yeah, probably not needing troop replacements to the same extent as Ukraine. Who, I’m saying again, are fighting for the survival of their country and culture.
I said “countries that are considered “good” and “democratic”” by the west. Does Cuba fit that definition now?
I honestly don’t know that much about Cuba, seems like country much like any other that has trouble because of a difficult neighbor and making the best of it? But if we’re talking about whether mandatory military service is sometimes justified, not whether mass media is biased (duhhhhh), perceptions held by the majority are inconsequential.
“Conscription” - that’s not what am I talking about though. Conscription (which is also absolutely wrong of course) is indeed present in a lot of countries. Mass kidnappings of cannon fodder that is not allowed to leave is quite unique to Zelensky’s regime.
Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.
Edit: Also kudos for not trying to defend ethnic Russians’ history of ethnic cleansing.
A brief scroll of Wikipedia (the sources seemed legit) shows that, for example, Cuba (which I’m assuming you admire?) has mandatory military service, no known policy of alternatives for conscientious objectors, and harsh punishments for evading it even in peacetime, to the point that people have attempted to injure themselves to get out of it. They haven’t been tried in modern war, but can’t see them suddenly relaxing the rules when actually tested. Border countries tend to take defence very seriously.
For countries and cultures bordering Russia, this really is an existential question. The forced population transfer/ethnic cleansing of Tatars, Ingrians, Chechens and Ingush, Balkars, etc. show what tends to happen. And before you say “well that was Stalin”, I’ll point to the Russification efforts of Alexander III and Nicholas II, and to… well, just about all speakers of Uralic languages still existing in Russia, facing steadily or rapidly declining numbers. Also the number of people identifying as ethnic Russians in the Baltics and Crimea, directly attributable to said forced population transfers; Transnistria, where the change happened more organically but was nonetheless used as an excuse for invasion; and to some degree in eastern Ukraine, that saw significant russification attempts and Russians moving in to man the industrial centers during SU, inflating the numbers of ethnic Russians and prevalence of the Russian language at cost of the native population.
I’ll just give you a partial list of European countries that 1) had wartime conscription, and 2) executed deserters, in WW1 or 2, which would indicate an equally/more drastic “kill or be killed” choice, and is way easier to find. Or do you know better how conscription worked in the WWs off the top of your head?