Russia has mandatory military conscription. If they want to send you to war, they can, and will, paid or unpaid. Is this news to you? The laws are in place, but Putin is avoiding them for fear of national backlash.

Why this would be news to me, and how is this relevant to out conversation? In Ukraine people are forbidden to leave the country so that they can be kidnapped off the streets and used as cannon fodder. In Russia neither is happening.

and russias economy is eating itself alive to be able to keep paying fighters more and more

Yeah western medias are talking for three years now about an imminent economic collapse of Russia and every time it doesn’t happen, but instead it becomes a fourth largest economy in the world…

It’s a vicious cycle that’s going to culminate in involuntary conscription being the only option left to keep invading

See, you are speaking speculation again (which might or might not happen, I don’t know, I can’t see the future). While I am telling you facts (about closed borders, kidnappings, etc. that do happen in Ukraine but not in Russia).

and I am absolutely certain, will, send people to die against their will.

Speculation again.

And it is “happening again” right now. Last time, it was Georgia.

What exactly happened in Georgia? Russia helped South Ossetia become independent of Georgia, and did not conquer Georgia (which is apparently the goal of an evil Putin who dreams about conquring the world, accorsing to western media) despite its army being a striking distance away from the capital?

Well, I personally stopped caring about a [western definition of] democracy when I learned that closing borders and not letting people out, kidnapping people off the streets, beating them, holding in basements for days and then sending them to the meatgrinder is actually entirely democratic while elections, forming political parties, etc. apparently is not.

Dictatorships are not as scary as western “democracy”.

What I do not understand, is your preference for a leader guilty of the very same crime, but for the difference that he sends people to die, in offense.

Do you see a difference between people being kidnapped off the streets and sent to die (Ukraine) and people being paid to join the army (Russia) (basically just a high risk job)?
I don’t know why are you even comparing those two scenarios…

If Ukraine surrenders, this will all happen again the next time Putin would like some more territory.

This is a speculation.

And then, you and the people you care about, would be subject to the very same danger that current citizens of russia are. If not even moreso.

Why would Putin sacrifice from his pools of supporters, when he can conscript from newly conquered territory?

What is this danger? Tell me more about it. Is it the danger of being able to leave the country at any moment? Is it the danger of not being kidnapped off the street and instead being offered a voluntary contract to join army?

It’s being liberated, not invaded.

That is a discussion with no resolution. Like I said, I don’t know where the point is, when sacrifice become worse than surrender.

So maybe the people that are actually affected should be able decide that (as opposed to a single dictator with western support)? Currently, thanks to western support of Zelensky, the only way people can “decide” anything is by doing a violent revolution against the regime, which would not have a good chance of success due to weapon supplies to Zelensky’s regime. Or by individually resisting/killing “draft “officers”” and bombing ““recruitment centers””… Which people already do but on a small scale so it doesn’t change the big picture…

You seem to consider the matter from a purely personal perspective

What do you mean exactly here? I left Ukraine before the war started, so from “personal perspective” I am actually safe (unless Zelensky manages to convince other countries to send back his cannon fodder…). I am considering this from the perspective of people (among whom my family and friends) who still live under Zelensky’s regime. Who are nothing more than slaves, cannon fodder for Zelensky and his supporters.

And you obviously view Russia a lot more favorably than I do.

FWIW I don’t consider Russia a good/bad country. I only speak of it in comparison to Ukraine, where it is objectively better and more free.

“Meatgrinder” effectively illustrates the pointlessness of war, but you are using it as if to dismiss the fact that sustaining that same “meatgrinder” is the only reason the country of Ukraine still exists.

It absolutely would, and would be extremely better off than it is now, what are you talking about?
The reason behind a need for kidnappings is that (well, among other reasons, but that’s the biggest one of course) Zelensky wanted to join NATO. NATO recently said that Ukraine will not join. So the war was pointless to such a ridiculous degree that I don’t have words to express it. It led to loss of people, territories, infrastructure and everything else and gained absolutely nothing (except billions stolen by the regime and huge debt of course). It was, and still is, all Zelensky’s choice.

Anyway, nothing justifies what Zelensky does. Russia is literally liberating the people under Zelensky’s regime. If I stayed in Ukraine (on Zelensky controlled territory) I would be his slave and maybe already dead. If I was on territory liberated by Russia on the other hand - I would be no less free than I was before/am now. What you are describing as “being ‘conquered’ by Russia” is absolutely a preferential scenario to living under Zelensky’s regime (supported by “free and democratic” “world”) that is going to kill you.

There are other similarly developed countries under siege with which we can compare?

So there are no similar cases and we can at least agree that atrocities being commited by Zelensky’s regime are unprecedented in modern times. Well that’s something already.

And one that probably IS using such tactics

Oh come on, be serious please. The west supports Ukraine almost as much as it hates Russia. And yet even western medias are writing about kidnapping in Ukraine and not in Russia. If it was happening in Russia - medias would not be able to stop writing about it.

or that your understanding of the situation is superficial at best

Yeah it is indeed hard for me to understand how people support me and everybody I know getting kidnapped, beaten and killed, despite us never doing anything bad to you (except of course not dying protecting your geopolitical interest).

You haven’t provided an example of a “country” where the regime does the same shit as Zelensky.

Show me videos of masked ““people”” with rifles grabbing, beating and forcing people into vans to send them to the meatgrinder on a daily basis.

I don’t know a single other modern “country” (that is considered “good” and “democratic” by westerners) that people don’t want to defend so much that the regime needs to resort to forbidding people from leaving (and then put a huge effort into patrolling the borders because people want to escape this hell anyway) and literally kidnapping people off the streets and putting them into vans by masked ““people”” on daily basis just to sustain the meatgrinder.

The only thing that comes close are British press gangs - but that was 2 centuries ago.

And if there are some recent examples like this - I would absolutely support hanging the tyrants who do this, just like I hope Zelensky would be hanged one day.

If Zelensky decides that you should die then you should die. Isn’t that what democracy and western values are all about?

So now Ukrainian troops are spreading Russian disinformation and propaganda, huh?
How many times does Zelensky need to repeat that there is no encirclement, just an orderly regrouping to better positions after all the goals of the Kursk operation were reached?

His commitment to his people

Commitment to… Continuing treating country as a prison and people as slaves who can be kidnapped off the streets and then be dent to death as a cannon fodder? I hope you will one day have a dictator with similar commitment to you.