r/worldnews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 3d ago
Russia/Ukraine Over 113,000 Russians Flee to Georgia Amid Draft Rumors
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/833401.7k
u/fcdallasfan10 3d ago
being conscripted into the Russian military is a death sentence
114
u/Silo-Joe 2d ago
20 minutes of life expectancy on the battlefield. That’s about as long as a Hunger Games side character.
→ More replies (2)76
u/appleparkfive 2d ago
I saw a (actually Safe For Work) video of the someone hiding from the drones. Absolutely terrifying. So much worse than traditional combat, or even combat from 20 years ago like in Iraq/Afghanistan. There's no way they're going to be able to be around drones ever again if they make it home.
This war is reminding me of World War I. When the powers had all these shiny new weapons to try out, and it was just a nightmare for the soldiers.
240
u/NorthState91 2d ago
Every soldier is possibly sentenced to death, some get medals after.
49
u/nxh84 2d ago
Putin and his crony generals can offer themselves to the frontline then collect those medals for themselves when their bodies even go back to Russia at all.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)10
→ More replies (85)43
u/imaraisin 2d ago
Please. Don’t forget Russia occupies significant parts of Georgia as well. I don’t understand how Georgia can even let in Russian men of military age into their borders.
→ More replies (2)
966
u/IsItCakeOrWhat 3d ago
The "elections" are coming late September. For some reason Putin wants to keep the pretense of "everything is going according to the plan" until then but Russians know perfectly well all the hell is gonna break loose right after that
261
u/Rosebunse 3d ago
It will probably be more of the same. Which is more reason to leave but still.
238
u/IsItCakeOrWhat 3d ago
Ppl are expecting apocalypse tbh. Mobilization, wartime economy, bank accounts seizure... but most of us have no place to run, there's the rub
73
u/Rosebunse 3d ago
I think for people with men, they would rather their men be alive and struggling than dead in some field in Ukraine. They mostly left the men in Msocow alone, but that won't last
→ More replies (3)88
u/kdailyone 3d ago
Good. Maybe instead of 30k people signing up to kill Ukrainians, maybe these men will take a stand against their own murderous regime.
But who are we kidding here, Putin's popularity went up when he annexed Crimea, most Russians seem to genuinely support the entire situation
61
u/Hail-Hydrate 3d ago
Sadly it's just not the russian mentality. If there's a serious enough threat of violence for non-compliance, they'll just go along with it and hope they're not blown up when they get to the frontlines.
Given the choice between possibly dying fighting their leadership now, and almost certainly dying in 2 weeks on the frontline? They'll take the second option because it means not having to do anything now.
38
u/gamas 2d ago
Yeah the impression I've gotten speaken to Russians is that it's very much after several regime changes who all took the "kill all dissidents" approach, they've developed a cultural learned helplessness. Where they just accept they can't fix the Russian government and so just keep their head down and try to get on with their lives doing as little as possible to bring about risk to themselves or their family.
I've spoken to quite a few Russians who escaped the country, and let's just say what they wish they could do to Putin can't be expressed on reddit without risking a ban.
→ More replies (3)15
u/gamas 2d ago edited 2d ago
But who are we kidding here, Putin's popularity went up when he annexed Crimea, most Russians seem to genuinely support the entire situation
We should bare in mind we can't trust that polling in Russia is actually accurate. It's a nation where their elections are supposedly secret ballot but anyone who votes "wrong" gets mysteriously disappeared.
Therefore it is absolutely probable that any sensible Russian would be very careful what they say to anyone looking to poll them, even if they are a supposedly independent organisation.
As my escaped Russian colleague explained to me, the private mood of a lot of Russians isn't actually happy about Putin. But they are also incredibly careful not to express their dissent to anyone but their most trustworthy friends and family because expressing dissent around the wrong person risks putting yourself and your family in danger.
Any poll that suggests increasing number of Russians dissenting against putin becomes automatically interesting as it indicates that the people are no longer scared of the regime.
→ More replies (1)92
u/Top-Time-5740 3d ago
As if the elections are anything but a facade
74
u/Western_Chest_4688 3d ago
Its a facade yeah, but they do represent "order", if they just went, "well no more elections Putin wins anyway" it breaks that illusion of order and people are less likely to care for laws and such, not that they care much in Russia, but even less so.
29
u/Stalking_Goat 3d ago
There's also the thing where elections aren't just for Supreme Leader. Sure everyone knows the fix is in for President and the members of the Duma, but the local mayor might be genuinely contested, and local leadership does matter. Putin's not fixing the pot holes, that's your mayor's job.
→ More replies (4)24
3.1k
u/ArgentineBeauty 3d ago
113,000 draft dodgers. Who can blame them with the reported three week life expectancy.
1.6k
u/zandengoff 3d ago
Right, this isn't a fear of serving, this is a fear of dying, a literal survival tactic.
568
u/akie 3d ago
Georgia should force them to move on though, large contingents of draft-fleeing Russians have already caused issues in other countries.
451
u/Commercial-Co 3d ago
Georgia doesnt want russians. Russians will destabilize your country
78
u/RationalLies 2d ago
I was in Georgia during an anti Russian/Russian influence protest going on. Fires in the streets, mass tear gassing, all of that going on.
At some point this Mercedes G Wagon tried to inch through the protestors and they refused to let him thru. They found out he happened to be Russian and that set off part of the crowd lol. People climbed on the truck and smashed it and he had to flip a quick U turn to escape a serious ass beating and more damage.
My takeaway was, many Georgians are not supportive of so many Russians coming there jacking up prices, taking up space, and meddling with Georgian affairs. I talked to some people and they said they didn't have a problem with Russian people personally, but the ones that come there and shit on Georgia, or support the war (yet conveniently draft dodged), are the ones they take issue with.
72
u/Algebrace 2d ago
I mean... Russia invaded them like they did to Ukraine in 2014 to stop them joining the EU. Of course they hate them.
→ More replies (1)13
u/Tunamelts-2 2d ago
Russia currently occupies TWENTY PERCENT of Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia)
27
u/Middle-Welder3931 2d ago
Russia is possibly the biggest failure of a country in the history of world civilisation. If only the effects of that failure were restricted to the country itself.
→ More replies (9)75
205
3d ago
[deleted]
134
u/DrunkOnRamen 3d ago
I remember Russians on Turkey started to harass some people on vacation about Ukraine. So the vacationers beat them up, then the hotel staff beat them up and the Turkish
→ More replies (1)11
u/DrunkOnRamen 2d ago
oh right, I forgot to mention the end. so the Russians called the cops, cops show up ask the the vacationers what happened, asked hotel staff what happened, asked some people walking by if they saw anything and then arrested the Russians.
→ More replies (58)69
u/Reps_4_Jesus 3d ago
It can't be that stereotypical can it? Lol... like actually? For real?
84
u/0achkatz1 3d ago edited 3d ago
I used to work in Moscow (pre-war).
Most people are not drunks crashing around supermarkets. They walk in, they buy their groceries, they leave.
However, there are more visibly inebriated people, and more visible alcoholics, than anywhere I have ever been outside of Russia (and I have been to a lot of places).
Some years ago, a YouTuber went viral pretending to have a health incident in Western countries and in Russia. The Russians let him lay there. In the West, people helped him.
The explanation was that there is something wrong with Russians. They just don't care!
The response in Russia was that "well, he's a young man, leaning against a wall. The first thought isn't that he's having a health emergency. They probably just thought he was drunk."
There is also a lot more drinking, in older ages, even among non-alcoholics. My personal guess is that this is at least in part because alcohol enables men to have feelings in a socially-accepted way. When drinking, they don't have to be the stoic wall behind which their family stands.
Alcohol abuse is enough of a problem in Russia that it is a major factor in life expectancy, in productivity, and in family stability (which leads to less future babies born). The Russian government was doing everything it could to bring drinking rates down, with at least some success.
But then they went and started this war, which not only killed and maimed far more young men than alcohol, it has certainly created a new generation of Russian men who will go home, not get anything close to the support they need to readjust, and rely on alcohol to mitigate their PTSD.
In 2025, the number of Russians diagnosed with alcoholism or alcoholic psychosis for the first time reached 56.9 people per 100,000 residents, according to Ministry of Health data analyzed by Important Stories. This is the highest figure since 2016.
Prior to this, the incidence of alcoholism in Russia was declining. From 2011 to 2020, the rate fell almost threefold: from 107.8 to 40 people diagnosed with the disease per 100,000 residents.
In 2025, the figure increased by 30% compared to the previous year—the sharpest increase ever recorded.
Note: Those figures are for people officially diagnosed. Diagnosis and addiction support are not as accessible in Russia as they are in many Western ones.
The number of people diagnosed with alcoholism has increased in 69 regions, some significantly, such as fivefold in Omsk Oblast and fourfold in Astrakhan Oblast. In Perm Krai, the rate has increased three and a half times, reaching 288 people per 100,000 residents—a record high for the entire period of observation in the region and the second-highest rate among all regions of the Russian Federation.
(the second one is not paywalled, but it is in Russian. You can use a translator)
134
u/M4rth1988 3d ago
I work at a supermarket and let me tell you. They are loud and they mostly buy booze. At least the ones that stick out due to their behaviour. Surely there are normal men among them but those drunkards are what catches your eye.
26
18
u/paxinfernum 3d ago
The beginning of the war saw a brain drain. The ones who are left aren't going to be the pick of the litter.
178
u/1nd3x 3d ago
Russian culture involves a total lack of regard for others and a simple "do whatever to whoever to get yourself ahead" mentality...
That does not mesh well with any kind of sharing/helping culture...which is honestly most cultures because, well...thats essentially what society is.
82
u/get_in_there_lewis 3d ago
We bumped into a group while on holiday in Bali. They're exactly as described.
→ More replies (1)21
u/hi5ves 3d ago
They flood the Caribbean every winter also. Rude, unfriendly and inconsiderate.
I watched one of them pickup a piece of cake from a desert buffet with his hands, lick it, shake his head and then put it back.
Unfortunately my wife witnessed this also and already had a negative opinion on buffets from her younger years in the hospitality industry. Sadly, that was our last all inclusive resort.
→ More replies (20)25
u/PilotKnob 3d ago
We were in Cairo and visited the Mosque of Mohammed Ali. My wife wore long sleeves and covered her head, and we took our shoes off before entering. There were services going on in each corner - a regular prayer, a wedding, and something else I didn't understand. We were sitting on the carpeted floor near the center when we heard a tour group of Russians coming through. The girls were in bikini tops, everyone had their shoes on, they were talking loudly and on their cell phones, and I swear to god one of them had a lit cigarette. Our tour guide thanked us profusely for being respectful of their religion and culture - unlike the Russians.
23
u/LSTNYER 3d ago
I used to work near a big Russian community, yes, the stereotype is quite real. However - treating people with respect will be returned 10 fold.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (5)38
u/CarolingianDruid 3d ago
I live in the middle of the US and let me tell you. I’ve met anywhere from 15-20 Russians over the last few years and every single one of them has at least 2 Driving while intoxicated charges. From the looks of them, they’re all but ready to receive their third as well.
28
u/JB-Wentworth 3d ago
Passing out drunk and freezing to death is a common occurrence in the winter time.
→ More replies (6)21
u/CMDR_Agony_Aunt 2d ago
Many Georgians dont want them. Georgian Dream, the ruling party with ties to Russia loves them.
→ More replies (37)180
u/knobby_67 3d ago
My local parks in front of the gym every night in a different car. Needless to say in a disabled parking space . Enters gym with his blonde huge lipped wife and proceeds to walk around selling performance enhancing drugs to young men. You couldn’t make the cliche up
→ More replies (8)192
u/Top-Session-3131 3d ago edited 3d ago
They also show up in the north western and central US driving semis without cdls and work permits or immigration papers.
Edit:To the guy that asked me why this is a problem and then deleted their comment, it's because they're shit drivers who will sideswipe you off the road to your death without a care in the world. The society They're fleeing has frequently beaten near all empathy out of them. They're also literally not qualified to drive Semi Trucks in the most literal sense as they frequently have zero experience or training with anything bigger or more powerful that a two banger shitbox.
And unlike green card migrant workers, they're actual illegal immigrants.
102
u/PinkFloydPanzer 3d ago
As a person who works the steel industry in the midwest loading and unloading these guys carrying 50-100,000lbs of steel, I can absolutely confirm this. Can deal with up to 50 drivers in a shift and for the past 4 years about 1/4ths of them of them are Russians with very questionable driving skills working for shady trucking companies with half broken trucks. They dont know how to secure their shit and several have lost coils or toppled them over just leaving my place of work. There's a huge shortage of flatbed drivers right now so they are constantly rotating through these guys.
29
u/jdmillar86 3d ago
Given the crazy things I've seen coils do when they escape (in video only, thankfully!), that's particularly horrifying
7
→ More replies (8)41
35
u/Talonsminty 3d ago edited 3d ago
Especially given the terrifying rise of drones on the battlefield and that terrifying footage. Unlucky enough to be targeted and you don't even really get the opportunity to fight back and save yourself. Who'd sign up for that.
→ More replies (1)33
u/kdailyone 3d ago
1000 Russians are volunteering per day to kill Ukrainians for money. However the casualty rate is so high even that is not enough. Let that sink in.
→ More replies (4)43
u/Hazardous_316 3d ago
The question is if they are against the war overall or just against being sent into the war
→ More replies (21)76
u/Qbr12 3d ago
Either way, Russian draft dodgers are good for Ukraine. Every draft dodger is one fewer soldier on the battlefield, eliminated without the cost of a bullet or a bomb.
46
u/AdjectiveDashNoun123 3d ago
They also aren't paying tax to the Russian government, which exacerbates Putin's cash flow problem.
→ More replies (1)9
u/MonochromaticPrism 2d ago
Losing more draft viable men also worsens Russia's already problematic demographic issue.
→ More replies (18)7
83
u/big-papito 3d ago
And they won't even get paid, on a slim chance they even make it back
80
u/Careless-Bite3164 3d ago
The reason Russia isn't even attempting to recover bodies if their dead is because the bonus is only paid after confirming KIA. MIA does not get a bonus paid.
34
u/0achkatz1 3d ago edited 2d ago
One of the very few places where there is some working discussion between Ukraine and Russia is exchanging bodies. Well, somewhat.
Along with real Ukrainian soldiers, Russia also sends Ukraine the corpses of their own men. To avoid having to count them as dead Russians.
To aid those, and just to make life that much worse for Ukrainians, Russia delivers bodies so badly mutilated, and body parts so mixed up, the Ukraine believes it has to be intentional, in order to make it harder for Ukraine to identify repatriated remains.
https://www.rferl.org/a/dead-bodies-repatriation-remains-russia-ukraine/33444597.html
→ More replies (1)23
u/Werftflammen 3d ago
It's even darker, their commanders keep cashing their pay. Standard practice. One of the many reasons why the army under performs, is that none of the units were actually fully staffed. The numbers in the books didn't match the actual boots on the ground.
24
u/Due-Currency-3193 3d ago
Russian soldiers in Czechoslovakia (at the time) in 1989 weren't being paid. Same for other Soviet states. Word got out that Russian soldiers garrison in the town were selling their weapons and my friend was asked to approach a Russian soldier, with whom he was friendly, and ask if he could buy an AK47. 'No problem' replied the Russian 'and by the way, I can also sell you a T72' (tank).
→ More replies (1)8
u/Dull-Culture-1523 2d ago
Part of the reason their initial pushes that were very strong on paper failed was this mentality. On one hand you had trucks with tires that failed because they were never rotated because the commanders sold the fuel instead of doing basic maintenance. On the other hand you had tanks without optics because, again, commanders sold it.
166
u/Savvymundo 3d ago
Three week life expectancy with a 35 minute run through a field before you get droned at the end.
→ More replies (4)50
u/Top-Session-3131 3d ago
Or being that one guy that was getting mortared and literally ate his rifle's muzzle in full view of a recon drone.
20
u/Negative-Ask-2317 3d ago
An OSINT researcher counted how many times Russian soldiers were seen talking their own lives on drone video - they'd seen 200 instances by January 25.
Edit: *taking
→ More replies (1)11
u/eisbock 2d ago
/u/DroneCombat is up to 389 confirms with his list, plus many more maybes.
10
u/DroneCombat 2d ago
I still have a small backlog of videos not yet added, they will be added in the near future.
→ More replies (2)14
u/cemusubzerolives 3d ago
That one stuck with me for a while, I asked myself why he didn't just surrender.
23
u/kalmah 3d ago edited 3d ago
Did you see the one where they started firing artillery at their own guys because they were trying to surrender to a Ukrainian drone?
→ More replies (1)8
u/Hail-Hydrate 3d ago
Even better/worse, they'll divert their own FPV drones to target their own surrendering troops.
34
u/Teyanis 3d ago
Its not that easy to surrender in an actual war. It ain't like the movies where you put up your hands and nobody kills you. Especially through a drone lens, you're just a target standing there with his hands up. Ukrainians aren't taking very many prisoners.
15
u/Dull-Culture-1523 2d ago
One reasong among others is that russians will shoot at their own who surrender. There are drone videos where you can see russians getting shot by their own trying to surrender to Ukrainian troops. It's not an easy walk over the drone mans land.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)28
u/Top-Session-3131 3d ago
Aside from the practical difficulties of being a probable conscript attempting to surrender, he quite likely didn't know how, shell shock is both real and an absolute bitch. He likely took the only option he could see in the moment to make it all stop.
56
u/GMAN7007 3d ago
I can bet the same thing would happen here in the United States. People aren't willing to die in a war that was manufactured by lies. The Russians know they're in the wrong. I'm not saying us citizens wouldn't defend their country they would absolutely. People are just smart enough to know when a war is for defending the country and it's allies or just for make believe stuff.
→ More replies (4)75
u/ParticularTable5921 3d ago edited 3d ago
It's already happened before during the Vietnam War. Up to 125,000 (lower estimates are 30,000) fled up to Canada and most people nowadays understand everything about Vietnam was a complete disaster and pointless.
16
u/GMAN7007 3d ago
Yeah in my mind a draft is used when no other options exist to protect our allies and our land. You can't blame anyone for not wanting to be cannon fodder.
46
→ More replies (49)25
u/YellowBook 3d ago
Condolences to Georgia
26
u/PurbulentTriest 3d ago
They don't want them. There is FUCK RUSSIA graffiti everywhere. Not to mention the fact that 20% of Georgia is occupied by them.
→ More replies (2)
394
u/Salt_Tumbleweed5985 3d ago
30 minutes life expectancy on the frontline suddenly hits home
58
u/Fortunatious 3d ago
Yeah I read about that the other day. That’s gotta be demoralizing
47
u/BigHandLittleSlap 2d ago
“You won’t even need a canteen of water! You won’t last long enough to become thirsty.”
→ More replies (1)5
u/appleparkfive 2d ago
There was a video going around of someone hiding from the drones that I saw. I haven't seen anything that fucked up in awhile, and it was not a NSFW video at all. It felt like a scene from a horror movie. A lot of violence in the world doesn't have such a dramatic effect in reality. You get shot, you die. Life goes on. But those drones are a whole other thing.
→ More replies (1)4
471
u/sweetcinnamonpunch 3d ago
That's 113000 working age russians too, double whammy.
102
u/notbad9111 3d ago
Russians are used to live on bare minimum. Life is decent in big cities but other than that they live on minimum income which is not enough to cover basic expenses and its been like this for decades.
Russians are just as proud as they are cücked by their government.→ More replies (2)30
→ More replies (10)41
u/Mysterious-Tie7039 3d ago
Russia had been battling population decline for years.
They were scheduled to break even in 2022 and start growing their population.
They’ve not only killed hundreds of thousands of their youth, but have also driven so many people to flee the country.
→ More replies (2)
56
241
u/Fragrant-Durian3899 3d ago
Russia isn’t going to have anyone left. They’re deaths from the war, declining birth rates, and many fleeing the country.
215
u/ArmyFearless1599 3d ago
They're virtually practicing a form of Eugenics right now. They're not sending their finest men. Theyve been sending prisoners, the mentally handicapped, and poor rural Russians that have never even heard of the word "drone" before.
If this were America, as an example, we wouldve cut through a deep red state or two but the vast majority of us Americans would be okay.
Like, i dont think russia has even considered sending their young, priveledged boys over yet.
146
u/DeeDee_Z 3d ago
poor rural
Russiansnon-Russian ethnic minoritiesFTFY. This is another "fringe benefit" to the "Russia is for Russians" crowd.
→ More replies (1)26
u/John_T_Conover 3d ago
They're also sending a lot of clueless mercenaries. Ukrainians are capturing or finding bodies of many North Koreans, South Asians and Africans.
34
u/MarieOMaryln 3d ago
I believe not too long ago there was news about "job opportunities" to certain countries and once you get there, boom passport is gone and you're on the front lines.
4
u/SoHereIAm85 2d ago
Even Peruvians have been dying over there. I think only Australia would be farther?
→ More replies (4)26
u/Salty-Consequence580 3d ago
They for sure sent many late teens early twenties to the front. If you need any proofs i can provide you that. I saw many death notes about such cases
14
u/ArmyFearless1599 3d ago
Oh they absolutely have. I have not been adverse to watching the absolute sickening footage coming out of this senseless war.
I dont want to speak as a matter of fact because this is realistically way out of our depth - but I have also seen footage of Russians basically kidnapping rural young men off the street to force into this war.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (3)45
u/lookieherehere 3d ago
You really underestimate the population of Russia. Check out their WW2 losses. This is nothing new for them and they can keep this up for years/decades.
37
u/Peter-Pan1337 3d ago
Well they kinda never realy recovered or better said, they lost an enourmous Potential. They Could have up to 40 million more people than they actual have. The war-gap got never closed as in Other countries. They got a baby boom like everyone Else. But Russia Was and is still an empty country. They could be way denser populated.
→ More replies (17)26
u/Irazidal 3d ago
The Russian Federation did not fight WW2; the Soviet Union did, including its Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Belarusians, Georgians, Azeri, etc, etc. As you can see on a map, the modern version of Russia is rather a lot smaller than the Soviet Union and consequently has a massively smaller population, and that's without taking into account its internal demographic decline over the past decades. Its current population is supposedly 143,569,049, which is not even half the population of the USA and only 15 million more than Mexico. By comparison, the USSR had a population of 286,730,819 when it collapsed, which at that point made it the 3rd most populous country on earth behind only China and India, compared to 9th for current Russia.
→ More replies (1)17
u/PMJamesPM 3d ago
No I don’t think anyone is underestimating them. Putin’s historical legacy is atrocious and he must know that at some level.
You’re correct that Russians have endured bad leadership for decades if not longer and can continue to do so. We may not see it over the next decade or two, or maybe we will, but the demographic, cultural and economic decline has accelerated as the increased risk. Russia will not be a country at some point before the end of the century.
→ More replies (13)6
u/yiliu 2d ago
No... You overestimate their population.
They have the population of Japan or Egypt. They're dwarfed by Indonesia and Brazil, nevermind the US, China or India. They were a major population center back in the day, but then they had: war, famine, war, shortages, chaos...a period of relative stability...and now war again.
The result of which is that the population of Russia is pretty close, today, to what it was in 1900 (when the world population was about 1.5B). In that time, the US went from 70M to 350M, and India went from 240M to 1500M.
Russia got left behind. It's a pretty typical large-ish country now, population-wise, but people still think of it as a behemoth.
→ More replies (1)
334
3d ago
[deleted]
58
u/notnatasharostova 3d ago
Much of the world would not be in the state it is in were it so easy to overthrow a despotic regime.
16
u/greydawn 3d ago
With modern military tech too, its difficult. Iranians tried to overthrow their regime in the last few years and thousands were killed.
→ More replies (1)12
u/notnatasharostova 3d ago
Yep. It would be hard to convince even the most ideologically-motivated person to risk their life or die for a cause without any evidence that it would meaningfully change anything.
18
u/ConsciousNet238 3d ago
it's not even really possible anymore with a somewhat competent central government
15
u/notnatasharostova 3d ago
Especially when that somewhat competent government shows that it is fully willing to hurt and kill people for resisting.
232
u/zedazeni 3d ago
The Russian military might be laughable, but its domestic security agencies are still a force to be reckoned with
64
3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
39
u/zedazeni 3d ago
The highest-quality personnel are reserved for domestic control, the peons are there for cannon fodder for Russia’s international excursions.
12
→ More replies (10)29
u/Caymonki 3d ago
Similar to the gutting of the US military and the watering down of FBI standards. While building another bunker under the White House and no funding cuts to the Secret Service and a massive expansion to ICE superseding even entire military budgets.
Putin gave his “Protecting your regime from accountability for Dummies” playbook to Trump.
Putin isn’t stupid, he knows how to cover his ass while exposing the entire country to potential harm. Russians are fodder and Putin is well out of harms way from facing any harm. Oligarchs who speak out have a very limited shelf life, why would a working class Russian expect to survive speaking out? Flee or Fodder are their only options.
→ More replies (6)34
→ More replies (11)10
u/40mgmelatonindeep 3d ago
FSB is quite good at torture and have a long track history of crushing dissent in extravagantly fucked up ways, in their shoes id hesitate too.
151
u/KentuckyLucky33 3d ago
So many knee jerk comments here
The biggest takeaway here is that ukraine needs to prepare for this. IMMEDIATELY.
In addition to a small exodus noted in the headline, we're talking about a massive influx of new soldiers to the front. It would be akin to a poker player throwing most of their chips in near the end of the game. You wouldn't get those chips back if you lost. But if you win...
Repelling them in such a way that keeps the front lines moving in a direction that benefits ukraine would be the main event, and it would likely shape how the war ends. The good news is the fact that this is being considered means what they're doing now is failing to accomplish their goals. The aggressors CAN be stopped
Donate, advocate, support! 🇺🇦
→ More replies (1)27
u/systemhost 2d ago
Yes! Thank you for stating just how dangerous a large, general military draft will be for Ukraine to fight against.
Ukraine has become very good at picking off human targets along the border but much like the viral Area 51 "they can't stop us all" raid event, Russia could very well overwhelm Ukrainian defense capabilities with just pure numbers.
Hopefully many more Russians continue to flee to avoid a draft and if it does happen, Ukraine is empowered with sufficient satellite imagery, intelligence and the necessary drone stock to halt Russia in their tracks.
Russian desperation is nearing peak levels but Russian history tells us that seldom deters them, instead they just double down. Meanwhile Ukraine, despite many offensive achievements, are greatly struggling to protect themselves.
Offense is always easier than defense so I really hope Ukraine has a plan if Russia starts sending hoards of inexperienced soldiers into the front lines. Even drones can become too expensive and insufficient if there are enough targets on the move.
→ More replies (2)
25
u/CloudieRaine 3d ago
So many Russians not wanting to fight for the Tsar and his Empire.
→ More replies (1)
39
203
u/Drummk 3d ago
Why is Georgia accepting visitors from a country that is already occupying part of it?
195
u/EsperaDeus 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm from Georgia and that article is misleading. Our Ministry of Internal Affairs debunked that number already.
Edit: If the 113k figure is accurate, it appears to refer to total passenger traffic through Upper Lars in both directions, not 113k Russians entering Georgia. And since the figure originates from Russian official reporting, I wouldn’t treat the raw number itself as beyond question either.
34
u/foshan17 3d ago
Maybe but georgia still is visa free for Russians. And there is no denying the large influx of Russians in the last 5 years
22
u/EsperaDeus 3d ago
Sure, but that's a different claim. Russians are #1 tourists here. There's like 1.5 mil coming every year.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (4)59
u/Free_Aardvark4392 3d ago
Is your ministry of internal affairs to be trusted on Russian stuff?
→ More replies (1)81
u/EsperaDeus 3d ago
You're right to question that.
But do you trust Politico?
https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-vladimir-putin-quietly-preparing-another-mobilization/
They don't even cite any sources for the 100k figure, and they don't provide any details at all.
Meanwhile, our MIA issued a statement saying that more people actually left the country than entered.
→ More replies (3)9
u/MisterMannoMann 2d ago
This is the most pro-Russian government that Georgia had in its entire history as a sovereign state. It serves Russian interests to downplay the number.
In fact, all of them are completely bonkers.
→ More replies (3)6
u/External_Tangelo 3d ago
The thing is this coincides with the August holidays in which tons of Russians always come to visit — these years even more so because they don’t have flights to so many places anymore. There’s probably a couple of draft dodgers in the mix here but the vast majority of that number is just vacationers who will be heading back soon
7
u/NoChampionship6994 3d ago
Guess they don’t care to fight for mother russia. Like russian populations in the Baltics and elsewhere, Georgia will regret this influx.
28
u/Natural-Pear-3849 3d ago
Which might not be the best place to flee since Georgia is a Russian puppet state at this point
→ More replies (2)
18
u/GrandPomegranate5227 3d ago
Imagine the 113,000 rebelled instead and overthrew their overtly corrupt government.
We, as a people globally, have been conned into thinking we have no power.
24
4
u/icelandichorsey 3d ago
"... primarily targeting men under the age of 55."
So, Russian army also welcomes men over 55? (would be silly to assume they would welcome many women)..
Must be running out of fodder in the provinces and can't touch Moscow/St. Pete as much.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/StuckieLromigon 3d ago
Minus 113.000 of work force and draftables for russia is a big win for me and my country no matter what way.
6
u/Cpt_Soban 2d ago
Burning through your working age population, genius Putin... Even if Russia "wins" they'll be occupying a blasted patch of land, and heavy metal contaminated agricultural regions, full of unexploded mines, while dealing with local insurgencies. Which means more man power to hold the ground they stole, requiring more "defence" spending, in an economy with no workers and no major industries...
9
u/CanExplainThings 3d ago
This is on top of the hundreds of thousands who have already fled.
See, the problem isn't just the draft, it's the birth rate.
Whatever way you choose to look at it, the war in Ukraine has cratered Russia's birth rate. The number of men dead won't necessarily hurt, but the number of men who have left the country will.
Why?
Russian women aren't going to stay behind to compete, particularly in the economy left after this war. Men (and women) have already fled to places like Dubai, China, and India. Friendlier places that are quieter and more peaceful. It's very likely that after a certain age if women can't find a man in their region, they'll just leave and find a job abroad, find a Russian guy there and settle down.
The draft is going to kill the guys who can't afford to leave, but it's also going to crater the birth rate in an insidious way that nobody is seeing yet.
16
u/Sutar_Mekeg 3d ago
Pity they can't organize and overthrow Putin.
→ More replies (9)20
u/aushtx 3d ago
Probably more than half of USA hate Trump and unlike Russians have free access to communication, money, tools to organize, and any opposition doesn't get sent to jail or killed. Yet they let Trump destroy everything including USA itself.
→ More replies (2)
3
5
u/DamNamesTaken11 3d ago
The Russian brain drain and demographics problems have only exploded since this war began, add those killed, and wounded needing lifelong care, Russia is in for a rough path going forward for the foreseeable future.
5
u/AoKrasni 3d ago
Draft dodgers in Ukraine and Russia. No one wants to go into the meat grinder.
→ More replies (2)
4.6k
u/Late_Stage-Redditism 3d ago
Very much an intended effect when Zelenskyy started publicly stating that the Russians would mobilize several weeks ago. The CIA visit to Moscow certainly convinced many would-be meatwave candidates in Russia.