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It's not a war, but a Special Military Operation. And that operation goes so well, it is now time not to call a general mobilisation, but only a partial mobilisation.
On Wednesday September 21, at 09:15h, Russian President Vladimir Putin made the announcement that was rumored since days: all members of the Russian Army's reserve, as well as anybody who has ever served in the Russian military, are called upon to do their duty in the Special Military Operation, fighting the Nazi-Ukrainian forces.
Refusing to report will result in 15 years prison. Skipping out during service will result in 15 years prison. And surrendering to the enemy without being incapacitated will result in 15 years prison, as will not trying to flee from a POW camp.
The move is not unexpected. The Ukrainian counter-offensive triggered the first comments on Russian television about the need for mobilisation, and it was just waiting until Russian regional elections had passed, last week. On top of that, the recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation didn't go to plan, apparently.
First there was India's Modi publicly stating that this ain't a time for war, and that he had repeatedly asked to stop the whole thing. Then there was a falling out over the same subject with both Turkey and Kazakhstan, to which Putin apparently reacted very agressively. All combined might perhaps explain the rather confused press conference afterwards.
Immediately after the end of the SCO Summit, one Nikolai Patrushev stepped on a plane to meet with Chinese colleagues to discuss strategic stability and public security and law and order. He returned after 2 days, on the 19th. On the 20th, a statement by Putin was announced for the evening, but that was postponed for reasons unknown.
In a first phase, 300,000 reservists are being called up but, as Russia's Kommersant business newspaper noted, the total number of people who will be called up is secret, hence open to modification.
Do I need to add that it all ended with the threat to use nuclear weapons?
Official announcement here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @03:01PM (17 children)
It's not just Putin, his propagandists and his siloviki. The only political party in the Russian Federation that is a viable alternative is the Communist party (KPRF), let's consider the position of their leader Gennady Zyuganov on this partial mobilization...
The problem is so deeply embedded in the Russian psyche that removing Putin will solve nothing!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @04:16PM (15 children)
The "Communist party" in Russia is a complete fake, since 1996 when Zyuganov sold his election win. It was all downhill from there in the 26 years that followed, and I suspect the bastards haven't hit the rock bottom even now. No real limits to degradation fueled by greed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @05:06PM (14 children)
"It wasn't (a) real communis(t)[m] (party)"!
Much of the support for Putin's war comes from boomers who remember the Soviet Empire fondly. It's an issue of national identity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @05:24PM (1 child)
It's not a real communist party because it's not a real party, period. Just another token opposition to United Russia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @05:58PM
And Communists, like Putin, are well known for their love of Democracy. LOL [cprf.ru]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @06:09PM (11 children)
For those who DO remember the Soviet times, the very idea of Russians killing Ukrainians is the height of crazy. Common people of the two nations have lived and worked beside each other everywhere in the USSR through all years of its existence, and afterwards in Russia and Ukraine which did not even have a border between them till 2014. The enmity was ENTIRELY manufactured by Putin's propaganda initially.
At present, the years of fighting culminating in the full-scale war, have created plenty blood feuds, but then in 2014, what happened was totally out of the blue. A horrible demonstration of the power of TV-delivered propaganda.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @07:10PM (6 children)
S14 was founded in 2010 and some of the other paramilitaries involved in Right Sector were predominately Russian speaking. You can't blame the conflict on 2014 propaganda without acknowledging the years of street level gangsterism and thuggery that paved the way -- Western linked Ukrainian oligarchs funded right wing thugs to stand up to Putin linked thugs. There's no deeper mystery here and older Russians absolutely view "the Ukraine" [wikipedia.org] as their backyard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @07:51PM (2 children)
The thuggery was absolutely non-exceptional compared to common run-of-the-mill gangs in Russia, Ukraine, and in late USSR before that. So, some gangs used nationality as an excuse to beat and rob people; what a non-thing, a lot of gangs in larger cities used your being from a "wrong" district as an excuse for same. still others used your wearing a "wrong" clothing or accessories or hairstyle. Gangs are gangs are gangs, gang wars are what gangs do for fun, and upgrading a gang war into an international conflict is entirely Putin's doing.
As to how "older Russians view Ukraine", HOW was it relevant to anything when those Russians could freely travel to Ukraine through the nonexistent border anytime they wanted to? Some of Russia's internal passenger train routes even went part of their way through Ukraine.
For common people, the pre-2014 arrangement was like, say, Germany and Switzerland are now. The ONLY creatures displeased with that, were the politicians and their pet gangsters. The rest is history. :(
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @08:47PM (1 child)
Politics and thuggery are one and the same when dealing with Russia and a gang with political backing is more accurately called a paramilitary. Putin didn't begin backing Russian National Unity until after Euromaidan, by which time the Ukrainian government was cracking down on Right Sector due to their street violence.
The border situation didn't reflect attitudes. For that, see the way Ukrainian women are discussed on Ru telegram channels.
Conflicts like this are so ugly and stupid that being honest about them costs us nothing extra in terms of revulsion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @09:53PM
If you think the Russian non-gentlemen use better words when discussing Russian women, you are sorely mistaken; they totally believe women are subhuman, and love to say it in the safety of Internet. Nationality is just one of hundreds possible triggers for them to spew their spite.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2022, @12:38PM (2 children)
You can rationalize anything when your pretexts can be so feeble.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @12:48PM (1 child)
S14 and Russian National Unity were both considered neo-nazi organizations. Who is excusing them and how does being honest about the timeline and nature of events excuse Putin?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2022, @05:31PM
There's also the peculiar lack of readiness of the Russian military. Perhaps Putin and his stooges should have paid more attention to that rather than just take their cut? Fools can dismiss the rest as imaginary propaganda, but they can't hide from the fact that this war shouldn't have taken so long or have been so poorly carried out by Putin's people. This is a brazen display of weakness and there's no one in sight to replace Putin with competent, courageous leadership.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 21 2022, @07:49PM (3 children)
What's even more insane to me is how quickly the Republican party rolled right over and started defending Russian military aggression!
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @07:55AM
Gotta protect those campaign donations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @03:29PM (1 child)
It's not insane at all. They are not defending Putin, they are saying "it's none of our business".
The Republicans have always been opposed to getting involved in other people's wars. It's the DNC-MIC that like spending trillions on weapons and need an excuse to do so.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @05:19PM
I think Reagan and George H.W. Bush would disagree with you. And those are just the two that come immediately to my mind.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 21 2022, @06:12PM