Putin Promotes 'Self-Sacrifice' in Russian Schools as Grade Schoolers Build Weapons to Fight Ukraine
knewz.com
Putin signed a law in August creating a new required course in “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland.”
In July, the defense ministry approved high school-age lessons on how to operate assault rifles, combat drones and hand grenades. They will be introduced across Russia next year.
Barbieri believes the drone lessons are in response to Ukraine’s extensive use of drones to disrupt and damage Russian locations.
At younger ages, children as young as seven are learning how to assemble machine guns.
The Putin youth?
Sure sounds like that.
The closer equivalent existed since 2005 and did a lot to prepare the Russians to the invasion, as they would often paint Putin's opponents as Nazis controlled by the West and attack them.
That sounds a bit hitlerish.
I think we all know Putin is about to deploy children to the front lines.
Once you're already wanted for war crimes why stop there?
I would like to think at some point he will overplay his hand and the people will rise up against him, but I doubt they will. If he's given your kids machine guns then sourcing weapons shouldn't be a problem.
It can't be long, surely.
Beslan told the world how little they value the lives of children.
Hasn't he done enough damage to the next generation is Russians?
Putler is preparing his „Volkssturm“ … so even he thinks, that he lost the war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkssturm
Maybe. I don't think that the war is necessarily the main concern.
Hitler consumed all of his fighting-age men, and then had to use what he had left, which were the youth and elderly. That's not the situation in the Russo-Ukrainian War, not by a long shot.
The Kremlin is very probably concerned about the political effects of mobilization. Mobilization was delayed well past the point where it was probably militarily-advisory, and the Kremlin was willing to pay a lot to bring in contract soldiers to try to limit mobilization. That's not a government that's exhausted all available manpower and is looking for stop-gap measures to try to convert more people into military power. It's a state that's worried about what the conflict might do to the government politically.
The Kim dynasty stayed in power in North Korea for a long time by keeping the country in a constant state of alert and militarizing society.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/perpetual-struggle-why-korean-war-did-not-end-north-korea-164209
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songun
[continued in child]
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There's a name given to a limited-duration effect seen in the US where, under certain conditions, US Presidents get a short-term spike in popularity during military conflicts. That's not a very long-lasting effect, but it is quite dramatic in strength -- if the public considers the country to be at risk, they will tend to put aside political differences and support the current leadership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally\_'round\_the\_flag\_effect
But suppose that instead of a short-term effect because of a temporary conflict, you can have a country -- from a domestic political standpoint, at any rate, no or little actual fighting required -- staying in a permanent, wartime crisis mode. Then maybe you can leverage the effect on an ongoing basis. North Korea has, rarely, had limited and small conflicts with South Korea subsequent to the Korean War. If it did initiate a second annexation attempt, it would likely go poorly for North Korea. It is not likely, as things stand, to initiate a second attempt. But by keeping the country politically at a state of war...well, you can still maintain control when, by most respects, North Korea's situation isn't all that great for the typical person in North Korea. The Kim dynasty is quite politically-repressive, and the country has about three percent the per-capita GDP of South Korea. That's ordinarily a situation where people are likely going to ask some difficult questions of the government. But as long as, from a political standpoint, the country is at war...shrugs
Russia in 2023 is more-politically-repressive than it was, say, ten years back, but it's also still no North Korea. But I have wondered whether it might be the case that the Kremlin winds up trying to leverage some of the same mechanisms that the Kim dynasty does.
I hope that is true and I hope he follows in all of Hitler's footsteps right to the very end.
"Yes, we are killing our young men, but what about their children, have we considered planning to kill them?"
Dictators going for children is classic move.
He should self sacrifice himself for the cause!
Maybe someone can help him with that.
Basically, military service for 16/17yos? I'm against it, but it's honestly not that crazy given that Singapore, the US, and Germany allow military service at 17 with parental consent. Canada also allows people to join Military Colleges at 16. It's unclear how parental consent will play into this in Russia.
Hits different with the desperation behind it. If you're culturally indoctrinating your kids for war just as a standard, fine. But when your fighting men are being deleted and you pivot to this strategy it just looks bad.
Russia doesn't have a strategy in this war except "charge".
You're wrong. They also have artillery until it's gone and no retreat because we'll shoot you.
"You see, children, Ukrainians are born with a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I'm sending wave after wave of you at them until they reach their limit and surrender."
I have ruzzian child soldiers on my 2024 bingo card.
America: Look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power