On Thursday, Ukraine’s parliament voted to crack down on draft evaders, the latest step in a slew of legislation aimed at increasing mobilization as Ukraine is facing significant manpower shortages.
The bill will significantly increase fines for Ukrainians looking to avoid being forced to fight Russian forces. The new legislation comes a day after the parliament approved a plan to allow prisoners to join the military, including murderers, as long as they haven’t killed two or more people.
Iryna Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian MP and member of the European Solidarity party, said the new bill will raise minimum fines for people trying to avoid the draft from $13 to $218. The maximum fine for people who have repeatedly violated mobilization laws will increase to $5,200. According to Reuters, the average monthly wage in Ukraine is about $560.
The bill needs to be signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky to become law. Zelensky signed a new mobilization law last month that will come into effect on May 18 and lowers the age of eligible conscripts for mobilization from 27 to 25.
Russian forces continue to advance in eastern Ukraine, and Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukrainian soldiers are facing “a really difficult situation.” The new US aid for Ukraine is not expected to help Kyiv achieve victory and will only prolong the conflict.
“allow prisoners to join the military, including murderers, as long as they haven’t killed two or more people” – it looks like an instruction how to avoid the mobilization. It is definitely safer in the prison than in the battlefield.
They’ve been “cracking down” already on people’s heads.
Ukrainian conscription, Odessa
https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1787785877881799104
That two ostensibly “Christian” nations should be at war is bad enough. If either actually knew anything about Jesus they wouldn’t be fighting at all. (The other two big world belligerents at this time don’t even pretend to believe in Jesus.)
But to coerce people into fighting who choose not to is morally repugnant. Defend their country? It’s governments that start wars, not civilians. Is anyone’s government ever really their choice? You are born into a nation, they therefore expect you to die for it, though they’ve done less than your parents (or God) for you.
It’s pretty sickening, but that’s “the social contract” for you.
Bears repeating:
War Is A Racket
“Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die,” Butler writes. “This was the ‘war to end all wars.’ This was the ‘war to make the world safe for democracy.’ No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits.”
First, of which two “belligerents” do you speak who “don’t even pretend to believe in Jesus”?
Second, it’s not unusual for a country’s population to believe that if you accept the benefits of said country, that you should work to defend it. I would posit that there would be ways to serve without killing (medic, logistics, etc.); but if you choose not to help defend said country, you should be shamed for it.
Why should anyone be forced to defend corruption?
Good question. Ask the Russians.
As an American I think it is more important for us to take care of the massive amount of corruption here at home before we lecture the rest of the world on the matter.
I’m all ears. How should we proceed?
It is a good question. And asking the Russians isn’t a good answer.
Why? Because so many Russians are already dead?
No, because it’s irrelevant. The subject is Ukraine.
Is Ukraine the only subject? We’re kinda talking about the war.
It was the subject to which you replied.
As a linear thinker, you would say that but conceptually it was about the war.
Only if one wants to deflect from the subject at hand which is what you did.
If you go back to the original post I responded to, you’ll see the commenter refers to “belligerents” which would include ALL participants in the war.
I didn’t reply to your original post.
I think that I would defend my family and our land, but defend the state? No thanks. How are you going to shame me for that opinion? Serving in the armed forces of the USA seems to me a morally dubious proposition. I tend to agree with Albert Einstein’s thoughts on the matter:
“This brings me to that worst out-crop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the press.”
I tend to agree with you. Defend your family/land. That was my point. I also agree serving in the US armed forces is dubious. US military has a tendency to defend corporations first!
That said, Ukrainians should be shamed for not participating in the defense of their families, homes, and fellow Ukes.
What about the Ukrainians living in Eastern Ukraine who didn’t support the Maidan coup and took up arms against the central government? Do you also support their defense of their land, family, and communities against the aggression of the Kiev regime?
I don’t support secession if it’s unconstitutional. I never sympathized with the confederates in the US Civil War.
The secession of the thirteen colonies from Britain to form the United States wasn’t constitutional. Do you therefore oppose US independence from England?
Colonies are different. I support any colony that wishes to break away from what has traditionally been brutal rule from afar.
This is a BS answer. Colony vs. state, where is the actual difference that makes secession licit for one but not the other? There isn’t one. You’re just an unprincipled symp for a particular state.
If you’re too ignorant to understand the difference, then I can’t help you.
Do yourself a favor, do some studying and come back to the discussion. The adults are talking right now.
Ha! There’s no conceit in your family… because you have it all.
Ha! There’s no conceit in your family… because you have it all.
Why would you believe the Confederate secession was “unconstitutional?”
The Articles of Confederation explicitly asserted its own perpetuity. If the framers of the Constitution had wanted to do the same, they could have, but chose not to.
I’m not the one who said it was unconstitutional, the US Supreme Court did in White v Texas (1869) albeit AFTER after the Civil War.
But we’re not talking about the US Civil War. We are talking about the people of Lugansk and Donetsk taking up arms against what they viewed as an illegitimate coup government which was hostile to their interests.
Civil war is civil war — whenever or wherever it occurs.
The Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics were not in “eastern Ukraine.” Once they seceded, they were no longer part of Ukraine at all.
Frank Rizzo was speaking in the past tense, which I understood he was referring to the 2014 period when the people of Lugansk and Donetsk, then part of Ukraine, rose up in revolt against the coup installed government in Kiev.
Yes.
Yes.
What happened to that motivation factor you keep talking about that is going to be the difference maker in this war? Why would Ukraine resort to shaming anyone into fighting? Or use prisoners? Or cut off those that fled or were already out of country before the invasion? Or talk about forcefully returning them? Why lower the conscription age? Maybe they understand that the government that got in bed with the US isn’t worth dying for.
Spend a little more time reading the entirety of my comments. I give alternatives to fighting but they should still be expected to serve.
If someone invaded Canada to control all of your maple syrup supply, wouldn’t you serve in some way to oust the invader?
And try reading the entirety of my comment. It’s about the motivational factor you keep talking about and not just the one issue of shaming people into serving.
I live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We have our own maple syrup. But to the point you’re trying to make, I already discussed this with you. I could care less which country’s flag flies where I live so if it’s just a matter of which corrupt government is going to rule over me, it isn’t worth dying over.
If you wouldn’t defend your home and family from an invader you are a coward, not antiwar.
I didn’t say I wouldn’t defend my HOME. I said I wouldn’t defend a FLAG. When the draft of the peace proposal was tentatively agreed upon in late March of 2022, Ukraine was whole, and Ukrainians were NOT going to lose their homes.
It’s funny how we have been hearing for two years about how the motivation factor will carry the Ukrainians to victory. And yet they keep coming up with more and more ways of trying to force people to fight. The list keeps growing.
In the Ukraine itself, fewer and fewer people believe the completely dishonest narrative. In the USA, where it’s all mouth and other people’s money, lots of morons still believe it. But not enough to go and put their own a$$ on the line, of course.
Ukraine’s Parliament Passes Bill To Pass Crack Down to Draft Evaders…
Details at 11:00…
Just more cannon fodder for the Russian to destroy , face it Zelensky you moron you and your American cronies have LOST to PUTIN .