If Putin Declares 'War'

[Khandro]

Interesting, scrolling through this informative article among the few adult males who would be exempt are 'members of parliament' :0)

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/06/how-mobilization-works-in-russia

[sandra4444]

Its all very complicated, but for what I understand about reading it, it may well be the trigger for big demonstrations at home for him.

He's made some really bad moves so far, this might be the nail in the coffin for him. One can hope anyhow.

[jourdain2]

Interesting, Khandro. Anyone know if our M.P.s are exempt from conscription?
If he does declare war, I have an uneasy feeling that it will be very difficult for NATO to keep out of it.

[sandra4444]

I understood it to be about Russian Joe public being drafted in?

[Khandro]

jourdain ; //Anyone know if our M.P.s are exempt from conscription?//

Well of course we don't have conscription anymore, & it was only for young men 18+ anyway, these are talking about up to 60 year olds.

It seems prove that in a totalitarian state, George Orwell's maxim, "All men are equal, but some are more equal than others" applies. :0)

[ichkeria]

I’ll probably be proved wrong yet again but I really see don’t this happening - tomorrow at any rate.
I’m surprised people think it likely.
Russia is already at war: all know it, so this would as observed be merely an excuse to draft more people into the army. And that would be unpopular I’d say on a day when Russians are supposed to feel proud.
It might happen later as Russia’s war effort falters further.
What we’ll get I suspect is more bellicose claptrap and lots of patriotic “feel good”’ rhetoric.
Just think of it; a war between a country whose president was an actor playing the part of an actor who became president - who then became president - versus a fascist president claiming to be fighting nazism.
It’s all crazy.

[jourdain2]

I did know that we don't have conscription and more, Khandro. I was just musing and wondering, if we ever had to reintroduce it, it would include M.P.s.
At the same time I wondered if, during WW2, our MPs had been exempt. I know that my dad was conscripted in WW2 when he was 40 (and blind in 1 eye) - even so, he became a Sergeant in the Quartermaster's dept. in Leeds.

[ichkeria]

If it included MPs they'd never vote for it :-)

[tomus42]

I've said it before, but if there was a system whereby the people that started wars were forced to fight on the front line, the number of wars going on in the world would drop by about 99% overnight.

[ichkeria]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1523554493144584192

[ichkeria]

As predicted, for once, nothing very dramatic in Putin's speech.
It isn't that sort of occasion.

[Khandro]

That link is terrific ichi. thanks, there's some very brave guys out there. There is a sense that we are living through history in the making, which will be talked about for generations to come.

[ichkeria]

Khandro, I was browsing the history shelves in a bookshop a few weeks ago, not long after the start of the war, and I looked at the titles. Somehow, I wasn't tempted by any of them, because I felt, as you appear, to, that we were living at a historic moment and that by comparison what was on the shelves was "dead". Silly, and just an illusion, but the feeling was real enough.