Do you think Russia stopping recruiting prisoners was a good idea?

[robocop666]

half a million and they are recruiting normal civilians and no longer prisoners. The USA has 2 million prisoners. Why recruit normal civilians.

[RolandCuthbert]

Uhm recruiting prisoners is dumb. They won't fight and will look to desert/surrender at the first opportunity. Right now the attrition rate in Russia is through the roof. Ukraine's not nearly as high. Because they have higher morale and believe themselves to be fighting for something.

Russian prisoners are simply fighting to survive.

https://theweek.com/russo-ukrainian-war/1021048/nearly-russias-entire-army-is-in-ukraine-suffering-1st-world-war-levels

Russia has stepped up its offensive in eastern Ukraine in the past few weeks, but U. S. and European officials say it has insufficient ground forces or equipment to get very far. Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely pushing Russia's military to secure tangible gains he can celebrate on the first anniversary of his invasion on Feb. 24, Western analysts say, but the poorly trained conscripts Moscow is throwing into battle are making only minor gains and taking heavy losses.

[robocop666]

so russia has losses, how many losses does ukraine have?

[RolandCuthbert]

Estimates for Ukraine are about 100,000 troops. Russia is supposed to about twice that.

The issue is Russia attacks the civilian population. Ukraine has not launched attacks on Russian civilians yet.

But this does not address your point. How many casualties do the Russian prison units have? I am pretty certain the rate is even higher than regular Russian units.

[robocop666]

they attack civilians all the time in both Ukraine and Russia.

I mean why stop recruiting prisoners nobody cares about them

[RolandCuthbert]

No. They do not. Name one "Russian" city attacked by Ukraine.

[robocop666]

people film from inside belgorod. Also USA missiles were fired by ukraine into donbass. It has English writing in the shrapnel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvXToSpOe_U&t=69s

[RolandCuthbert]

Oh that's just Russia propaganda man.

I don't use youtube. I can show you photos from Ukraine taken by my friends. I can show you photos of their homes, neighborhoods, etc. I can show you their bomb shelters, the whole nine. You can even talk to them.

You can only show me some Russian lies on youtube or at propaganda sites.

[robocop666]

he lives there. he has also seen missiles in Russia and interviewed people there

[RolandCuthbert]

That is youtube sir. You don't know a single soul in Russia. I know more Russians personally than you do.

And again, if you ever want to speak to people from the warzone, we can arrange that.

[Leopard23]

The US has the largest volunteer military in the world. Well trained military personnel not barely trained conscripts to be used as cannon fodder.

[robocop666]

in the Vietman war they were getting civilians to go against their will so they all left the country. I think this needs to be done to prisoners only. That war was brutal.

[Leopard23]

Yes in the Vietnam war you had barely trained conscripts who did a single tour and needed replaced. Most military roles in the Vietnam war and now are not soldiers in infantry roles but in roles like logistics. Logistics is where the Russians are failing in Ukraine

[Leopard23]

Anyway soldiers conscripted against their will don't make good soldiers.

[robocop666]

wagner has a camera on them 247

[Leopard23]

Yeah and you have to employ an army to watch them 24/7

[robocop666]

I think its 1 man to 4-5 convicts. Only ever 5 escaped. They are monitored with drones. if they disobey orders their shot. it happens a lot.

[Leopard23]

The Russians tried this during WW2. It's was only when they had well trained and armed troops

[Soteris]

While I think this was seen more as a punishment against Wagner who has not really performed that well recently, I still think they were doing them a favour. Even if your goal was to gather sacrificial pawns, they are still more of a liability than a military asset and I doubt they got all that many recruits from it either way.

At the cost of ruining their reputation and troop quality they basically achieved negative battlefield value. A loss all around. This was also extremely predictable, penal battalions are nothing new and there are very good and documented reasons why everyone else, such as USA, dont use them.

The fact that Wagner did just tells you that they dont actually understand warfare that well. This also matches many other observations which all points towards Wagner having a civilian armchair general level of understanding of warfare.