Scholarship table
Mandatory conscription.
They are also calling for referendums in the occupied territories. These will of course be sham referendums, which will eventually be framed as an annexation of these territories into Russia with any attack being an attack on the motherland itself. Putin is betting that this will either rally Russians around the cause - or will give Ukraine pause to stop the war at this point. (My guess is that it does neither.)
Shiz is about to get wild. Russians know something. Google searches for “how to leave Russia”, and “mobilization” are through the roof in Russia right now. Putin was supposed to make a special announcement tonight but has changed that to tomorrow.
And nuke threats. How did anybody ever think Putin was the good guy? Please, if you did, explain the reasoning.
They are called Tankies.
About 1300 protestors arrested in Russian cities including Moscow. Let's hope the protests spread despite the crackdown. Reports of one-way flights going for up to $16,000.
The rich have fled, and now only the poor peasants remain. And the government and culture and the vodka has made them apathetic.
Historically Russia was able to wear down and eventually beat invaders through sheer numbers (and a heavy dose of Russian winters). It is an entirely different proposition to send essentially untrained conscripts to fight in a foreign country against highly motivated, well-trained (now, thanks to the U.S.) forces defending their homes and family. Cannon fodder doesn't begin to paint the picture of the horrific losses those conscripts are going to take.
An old classic movie, Dr. Zhivago, has a scene in it of retreating Russian troops in WWI, badly beaten, meeting up with fresh troops heading to the front. The officers of the fresh troops order the retreating troops to turn around, but there is a mutiny during which the officers are killed and all the soldiers head back East. The Tsar may have well been doomed anyway, but the losses in WWI set the stage for the Russian Revolution. I know it's quite a stretch but let's hope that somehow there is a 21st century version of the government being overthrown.
The question is: "Is it for something better?"