The Wall Street Journal spoke to several Russian soldiers who surrendered to Ukraine and were taken prisoner in the early days of Ukraine’s offensive. The outlet confirmed the identities of the prisoners of war, but withheld their surnames and identifying pictures in their report. The men, “a mix of professionals, conscripts, and mercenaries” describe intense pressure from Russian military command and authorities in Russia to fight at any cost.
One captured Russian soldier says he worries about what will happen if he is returned to Russia in a prisoner swap. “If I have the opportunity, I’ll refuse to be exchanged." Another fighter reported that a doctor declared him unfit for combat after he was wounded in March, but his commander ordered him back to the front.
Back to the front
You will do what I say, when I say
Back to the front
You will die when I say, you must die
Back to the front
You coward
You servant
You blind man
Who do you think gets captured and tossed into POW camps? This guy’s just some rank & file grunt who was either stupid enough to volunteer or unlucky enough to get drafted. In either case, I find it hard to blame him for being disillusioned after getting shipped off into a meatgrinder and realizing that reality didn’t measure up to the state propaganda.
Hopefully these sadsacks manage to take something home from the experience that can stop the next war from happening before it wastes more young lives.
I can remember a couple decades ago I was talking to my grandmother and she said that for the most part people trusted the gov’t. Until my dad’s friends started coming back from Vietnam and spitting truth. I hope enough Russians go back and spread the word, but I worry that not enough will be alive to even go back.
Propaganda is pretty effective no matter where you are in the world. It’s why many soldiers can do horrible shit to civilians in occupied territory and only later realize that they did something terrible. Here’s hoping we start hearing about Russian mutinies from more soldiers with similar realizations.
I have a Russian friend and no matter what, i can’t make him understand he is believing in propaganda. He says he wouldn’t want to betray his whole family. I hope someday he understands.
I know exactly what you mean. I live since 10 years in #China and it is unbelievable what people think when they have no access to independent news. Even if they got access after some time, they’re not going to believe it, because it’s so different from what they got thought the reality is.
I legit started studying social psychology to understand this and similar phenomena. It’s going slow but I hope to have a working understanding Ina few years.
It’s easy to be skeptical of propaganda from the outside looking in, but once your immersed in it then it can be difficult to parse out reality from fiction.
Case in point look at shockingly large percentage of americans, many even from the north, who will argue the civil war was a matter of states rights. Hell the US went to war against Iraq and it initially had strong support because we were still reeling from 9/11.
It’s important to always keep in mind that NOBODY is immune to propoganda or group think, nobody is above the narrative, and the people who think they are tend to be particularly vulnerable.
History has been teaching us painfully often how quick people give up their individual believes for the sake of a centralised propaganda machine. It’d be very dangerous to think we are immune to it imho.
There’s documentaries about how rampant the propaganda is, that people get imprisoned and killed if they avoid service, and that there are rituals in the Russian military where soldiers steal money and food from other “platoons” just to survive. Not even starting to describe all different kinds of hazing going on there.
What I’m saying is, what they do is wrong and there should be more critical thinking and more uproar in the Russian society, but considering how jaded ppl out there are to government fuckery and the precarious circumstances, the soldiers are the last ones to blame.
Ok, I agree, and I know it’s all Putin’s fault. However:
He’s backed up by a broad elite and government and many in the populace naively hung ho
It’s soldierswho pull the trigger daily on missile strikes targeting civilian targets. It doesn’t matter the propaganda for the war to know it’s wrong
It’s soldiers committing the war crimes, many of them, of rape, torture, threat of killing and more. This was confirmed this past week by a UN report describing it as systemic, broadly consistent and widespread. Soldiers, humans, can and should know better.
I was a soldier in the military long ago. I made a mental note of who around me who would do whatever they were told, no matter how bad it would be (and I asked them directly, not just my guessing) and those like me who would have a limit and decide to say no at some point. It was about 50/50.
Soldiers aren’t robots, even if commanders wish they were. They are humans and should try to be humane and thoughtful. If the war you’re sent to fight doesn’t make any sense, ask questions and demand good answers. If it’s all shit, don’t do it.
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Back to the front You will do what I say, when I say Back to the front You will die when I say, you must die Back to the front You coward You servant You blind man
Better late than never. That is all that can be said.
“Are we the baddies?” moment
An all time classic!
https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY
My thought exactly!
I hope more will realize this.
Came here to post this, saw I was too late.
When I read the first half of the title I thought this was about spez, lol
Now they think it? Nice, how about back when they invaded a country who was sitting there peacefully for no f’ing reason?
Who do you think gets captured and tossed into POW camps? This guy’s just some rank & file grunt who was either stupid enough to volunteer or unlucky enough to get drafted. In either case, I find it hard to blame him for being disillusioned after getting shipped off into a meatgrinder and realizing that reality didn’t measure up to the state propaganda.
Hopefully these sadsacks manage to take something home from the experience that can stop the next war from happening before it wastes more young lives.
I can remember a couple decades ago I was talking to my grandmother and she said that for the most part people trusted the gov’t. Until my dad’s friends started coming back from Vietnam and spitting truth. I hope enough Russians go back and spread the word, but I worry that not enough will be alive to even go back.
How can they just barely begin to understand this. I know the propaganda machine goes hard but not that hard
Propaganda is pretty effective no matter where you are in the world. It’s why many soldiers can do horrible shit to civilians in occupied territory and only later realize that they did something terrible. Here’s hoping we start hearing about Russian mutinies from more soldiers with similar realizations.
I have a Russian friend and no matter what, i can’t make him understand he is believing in propaganda. He says he wouldn’t want to betray his whole family. I hope someday he understands.
I know exactly what you mean. I live since 10 years in #China and it is unbelievable what people think when they have no access to independent news. Even if they got access after some time, they’re not going to believe it, because it’s so different from what they got thought the reality is.
I mean, propaganda doesn’t need to be 100% effective to be damaging.
Look at the world’s oldest propaganda medium, religion.
I legit started studying social psychology to understand this and similar phenomena. It’s going slow but I hope to have a working understanding Ina few years.
It’s easy to be skeptical of propaganda from the outside looking in, but once your immersed in it then it can be difficult to parse out reality from fiction.
Case in point look at shockingly large percentage of americans, many even from the north, who will argue the civil war was a matter of states rights. Hell the US went to war against Iraq and it initially had strong support because we were still reeling from 9/11.
It’s important to always keep in mind that NOBODY is immune to propoganda or group think, nobody is above the narrative, and the people who think they are tend to be particularly vulnerable.
History has been teaching us painfully often how quick people give up their individual believes for the sake of a centralised propaganda machine. It’d be very dangerous to think we are immune to it imho.
Certainly explains the push for de-centralized social media.
There’s documentaries about how rampant the propaganda is, that people get imprisoned and killed if they avoid service, and that there are rituals in the Russian military where soldiers steal money and food from other “platoons” just to survive. Not even starting to describe all different kinds of hazing going on there.
What I’m saying is, what they do is wrong and there should be more critical thinking and more uproar in the Russian society, but considering how jaded ppl out there are to government fuckery and the precarious circumstances, the soldiers are the last ones to blame.
Let’s stick to the all encompassing Fuck Putin.
Ok, I agree, and I know it’s all Putin’s fault. However:
I was a soldier in the military long ago. I made a mental note of who around me who would do whatever they were told, no matter how bad it would be (and I asked them directly, not just my guessing) and those like me who would have a limit and decide to say no at some point. It was about 50/50.
Soldiers aren’t robots, even if commanders wish they were. They are humans and should try to be humane and thoughtful. If the war you’re sent to fight doesn’t make any sense, ask questions and demand good answers. If it’s all shit, don’t do it.
I mean… the US does that…
And we should always call them out on it, too.
@bear_delune A lot of countries have done that, and it’s always been a crime.
Ukraine: The Avoidable War
Highly recommend this video on the lead up and conditions that lead to the war. (It didn’t come out of nowhere)