CNN's Nick Paton Walsh investigates Russia's use of prisoners to fight the war in Ukraine. #CNN #News
Hear Russian prisoner’s chilling final message to wife after fighting in Ukraine
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Recreating the past- Penal units that were created from prisoners during WWII in all branches of the Wehrmacht. Soldiers, criminals and civilians sentenced to those units were generally poorly armed and required to undertake dangerous high-casualty missions. The Strafbataillon were operated and administered by the German military police.
@Elena
It’s referred to as the political horseshoe theory. At the centre there is little to no difference but as you diverge left and right the differences widen until you reach the polar opposites of capitalism and socialism but when you become more extreme on both sides practices start to move closer together so when you reach extremes like communism and fascism in practice their is little difference. Whichever you live under will oppress you, will propagandise and lie to you, keep you poor, rule by force and violence, instal a police state etc. In fact the only real difference (if any appears) is in the minutia of the economic model, communism will force centralised control and fascism will operate through corporatism. Again though in reality little difference as the communist kleptocracy will make those controlling production “more equal” than the workers they control while the fascist kleptocracy will control business owners with a centralised iron fist to keep them in line, in effect meaning one way or the other you end up the same with a different public veneer masking reality. Equally in both extremes the only beneficiaries are the ruling cliques, the actual members of the kleptocracy itself and even then only the one at the top at the end of the day.
@Darth Wiizius This theory doesn’t make much sense. The issue is in totalitarism and it can happen under any ideology, because ideology in that case is just a pretense. There are plenty of examples not only of fascist and socialist regimes becoming tyrannical and totalitarian, but also pretty capitalist and just general populist ones too. They all begin with nice words and eventually devolve into something horrible. Ofcourse nazism is the worst because at its core it does preach subjugation of others and superiority of yourself. And communism cannot function without democracy and there haven’t been a communist country yet with democracy. Soviets were supposed to be that instrument of democracy, but by thirties in USSR all power was secured by the sole and only party which defied the very idea of communism. When people call it “state capitalism”, that’s probably what USSR was more than anything.
@Fibber 2U after other parts were already occupied and Sudetenland was given to Germany , Poland and Hungary occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. Hitler and Stalin were allies when went in Poland. They are the starters of WWII, had Europe divided between them, they were saying that Warsaw and Polish government does not exist. Sounds like Putler’s narrative about Ukraine..
Darling , your excuses seem same as Putler’s , to justify his senseless invasion . No matter how Poland and Ukraine were , nothing gave the right to others to interfere.
All the empires were set to fall, due to rise of nationalist movements , everywhere . Hitler wanted to build an empire, same as Putler wants now. His Novorossyia is Hitler’s Lebensraum.
@Shurely Wake up, they DO use cows and other animals.
@Bill white ok don’t be rude
These prisoners should turn on their handlers. If you are going to die you may as well take those who forces you to charge.
@Ligma Johnson What has russian imperialism, genocide and fascist tyranny to do with Ukraine, naZibot?
@Fish Lives Matter 0rc in denial. heil putler
@George From Jungle So Africans can’t be Russian? I guess they can’t be American then either racist
They are being lied to….they mean nothing to Putin….Putin is a coward thug pushing lie after lie to the Russian people.
@John Jones this is not the exact one I saw but similar story about whacking their commanders. https://youtu.be/1iAvULmXtcs
Pure evil. How can anyone respect this Russian government
@Eric Ayala why is russia winning the war?
@Eric Ayala
Tell that to american generals who sent teenagers american pilots as missile fodder in Vietnam.
@Luis Menezes
At least they are die as patriot instead of drunker.
I would not be surprised if regular soilders are getting in conflicts with prision/salvage soilders. Most Prisioners around the world are narcissistic and won’t take orders/directions from anyone.
@Justin Murray you still here? I thought you were rushing to volunteer with Wagner.🤣🤣…. little old man putin really need you as cannon fodder…..😆😆😂😂
Glory to the very brave little Ukraine.
Ukraine ain’t little it’s just Russia is massive
@Rossi Courvosi die grösse ist relativ … geistig und in vielem anderem mehr ist UA eindeutig der gewinner und sie werden es schaffen, den ruZZischen eindringling abzuschaffen! 💙💛
🌈😂
little Ukraine is bigger than France, I swear western commentators are like children
Slava Ukraini from Canada!
Unfortunately, historically life in Russia is not worth much, and selfish bunker man instead of changing this, decided to continue this disgusting trend. I am a Russian citizen who was is and always will be against any war and this in particular.
I’m confused. Didn’t the Ukraine begin this war by threatening Russia with NATO bases on it’s border???
@CockmageLVL99 over 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed by Russians, less than 7,000 russian soldiers killed, stop with the CNN lies and propaganda, Ukraine is throwing any male over 18 to go fight grown russian men
@Al Y what about CNN propaganda? You fool
350 million Russians and their all afraid of Dictator Putin and his thiefs. Their all willing to allow to let Navalny rot in prison and see thousands of young Russian die as cannon fodder. No other people in Europe or US would allow their Govt to do this. What’s wrong with Russian people?
It’s going to take many more like you to stand up against this corrupt regime. Your going to have to fight this evil from the inside if you want your freedom.
Russians and Belarus need to understand their problems are in the Kremlin not with the west and not in Ukraine. Peace on Earth and Peace in Ukraine. ❤💙💛💙💛
Amen!!
💙💛
Hopefully, more Russians than we think know this. But due to the overwhelming surveillance the Kremlin is conducting on it´s own people, everyone is terrified of speaking their minds.
It seems like this could be a way for Russia to rid itself of the expense of keeping these prisoners, and hoping to wear down the Ukrainians in the process. Not the dumbest idea in the world, just the cruelest.
@LUDWIG Less than 10% of imperialist 0rc losses. heilputler!
@LUDWIG repeating a lie does not make it true, 0rc, it just makes you a liar too. Heil putler!
@harry liar
Well Ladas are turnips of cars so…
@Accountable to God
You need to change your diet mate, you are suffering an irony deficiency.
@Darth Wiizius Please, if you could possibly share a link for the Russian media source you mentioned above? I’m not certain what a diet or irony have to do with a simple question such as that?
Thank you very much 😊 take care
Sending prisoner to fight isn’t just despicable. It should be completely illegal.
America did it in nam.
@Sean w heil putler
@Kevin Conboy not happening heil putler
@Aleksander Fradkin Out of 50k convicts conscripted, less then 5k are still alive . . and they are still in the meat grindr.
@Justin Murray no it didn’t . heil putler
Use of convicts during war is not rare but using them as cannon fodder in human waves to assault a position just makes them sitting ducks to light machine guns fire.
Russian “tactics” are very General Hague, only Hague wasn’t given access to hardened criminals to use as cannon fodder so he destroyed most of a generation of average Brits instead. Still, give it a few more months and Russia will run out of criminals.
Each of us is scattered across the earth for a reason. We meet others, unite in a community, and march together in a journey to find that reason for each of us. Some define them as Russians. Other are Ukrainians. Etc. However, this is a journey for each of us within community. Not a journey of the community. And certainly, not a journey of certain member of the community.
So, if someone tells you to die for your community, go ask yourself, is that your reason? or his reason?
lange rede, kurzer sinn: hast es dir schöngeredet.
Ture words. In the end it is never “us or them”, the more appropriate question is “Why me and not the one telling me?”.
It’s kinda obvious, from one perspective. Putin needs troops without further upsetting a society to whom he sold this war as “quick and easy” (parallels here to Dubya’s immense failure to plan for the occupation of Iraq, and his resulting abuse of the “stop-loss” clause in the contracts of servicemembers to shore-up numbers he’d otherwise have to bolster with a hugely-unpopular draft), so Vlad recruits convicts with promises of pardons. But any such convicts who actually are pardoned and return to Russian society represent a huge political risk to Putin, as any re-offending by them would be direct evidence of how Putin’s “special military operation”, supposedly undertaken for the good of the Russian people, is instead only inflicting harm on them. That being the case, convicts can’t be allowed to return alive. Besides, who’s going to hold you accountable for killing them?
It’s very logical, if you’re a short-sighted thug, which is exactly what Putin is. Julia Ioffe had his number more than a decade ago. And it’s not like Putin wasn’t already screwing-over the families of legitimate Russian soldiers by withholding their promised small stipend for a KIA family member via declaring huge numbers of casualties to simply be “missing”, with the implication of possible defection and treason.
It’s anyone’s guess as to how long the Russian people will continue to put-up with such obvious abuse.
Nicely put! Couldn’t agree more with your analysis!
Herr Putler was a mafia man before joining the FSB where he was seen as talentless hence why he never rose to a high ranking position. The oligarchs had him politically placed because he is so unexceptional, they thought he would be easy to control but they forgot he was a mafia man. In Germany their kleptocrats placed Hitler because he was a useless and talentless freak that they thought they would control, Russia’s oligarchs don’t seem overly intelligent to me as they appear to have a lack of learning capability and have repeated the (at the time) living past.
You can add that during Iraq/Afghanistan, US military policy changed and non-citizens were allowed to join. Serving fast tracks citizenship for yourself and your immediate family.
““No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.””
from “War an Peace in the Space Age” , by Lt.Gen James Gavin 1958…. remembering what he heard Patton say before being shipped out to fight.
Any of the millions of people who have seen the Best Picture Oscar winning 1970 movie Patton is aware of that quote.
@General Yellor Not a quote from a movie. It’s from a 1958 book by Lt.Gen James Gavin about his MEMORY of what he heard Patton say, General Yeller. How old were you in 1958?
Just so sad putler will never sacrifice anything for Russia but is happy to sacrifice millions for no reason.
@B Ri This guy is getting it.
Patton battle with the syphilis
You’ve really lost a war when you’re killing your own soldiers
@Agnew Dillon That’s not my point my point is that the higher ups the elite don’t care about human lifes they are not the ones on the front lines
@hochmeisterr that was reported as a Ukraine guy. go find the vidoe
@2000rayc so did the Russians in the movie “enemy at the gate”, though I’m not sure how accurate it was.
Also the term “decimate” comes from officers in the Roman army killing one tenth of a legion for poor performance.
@2000rayc projection is not an argument, 0rc. Heil putler
@agnewdillon3114 I think that’s what he said
War is always full of atrocity’s and evil but I can’t find words to truly describe what’s happening.
What do yo mean?
Then you really said nothing.
Me either. This doesn’t even seem like a bloody war. It sounds bloody but. Not a war it. Seems like some crazy bull shiet
You probably have no idea about whats really happening or why it started
@Justin Murray Oh we do, 0rdc, this is just another ruSSian imperial genocide, and your fuhrer started it in 2014.
“Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions.” – General Ulysses S. Grant
Unfortunately it’s become a clear case of good vs evil and unfortunately it looks like good will have to completely destroy evil to put an end to this madness.
Glory to Ukraine 🇺🇦🇺🇦💪
And Hitler wouldn’t stop either until he was absolutely crushed and neither will the Russian Hitler.
@Lisa Wise Did Russians learn nothing from fighting Nazis? Or perhaps they learned too much
@I Chose Hampture yep they learned a lot in fact everything that Putler has done and is doing is right out of the pages of Hitler’s Playbook.
I would not go that far, Ukraine has it´s share of atrocities, (Most notably the forced executions of Russian soldiers in the early stage of the war) however there are significantly less and the government has taken responsibility for them as well as criminalizing the act, in a strong contrast to the Kremlin´s MO on the matter, they seem content the deny, subvert or downplay everything they do.
But to your point, the Ukrainian military is benefitting from the moral high ground. Since they are taking extreme caution to only target military targets and have arranged all the voluntary surrender projects for the Russian conscripts, they are constantly getting additional support from the outside world. This is not just a case of solidarity however, I reckon the west and all of the EU knows that a Kremlin victory here is unacceptable, as it will send a signal to all the surviving autocrats of the world that it is there for the taking.
@Nathan McBow If I was Russia and I was facing a group of secret wealthy people who rule the world who want rid of me i’d be on the defensive too.
Putin’s way of showing love and care for his people.
And the reason for this war being Putin cares about minority Russian, who are mistreated in Ukraine LOL…
SOMEONE told ukr they cannot negotiate.Strange huh
@Justin Murray How much more land of ukraines does putin want..for him to be satisfied this time?
Thank every single soul who’s helping Ukraine in any sort of way
So helping nazi loving Ukrainians is noble now? Lmao. Liberal logic, lmao.
@Brock Brawn matter of fact if that’s how you feel about Ukrainian people then you might as well move to Russia
@Brock Brawn go fight nazis then you’re an idiot. If you live in United States you know how big of a help they are today to all of us. So based of that, you trying to say US helping Nazis ?
@Brock Brawn Russians get pissed when we say Glory to our Heroes, so they send prisoners to war. That’s a huge lmao right ?!
Wow, the last dude probably had a minor offense with weed or something. Imagine going there as a student and ending up fighting on the front lines of a war within a day or two, and not even getting to contact your family before being sent to your death. The only hell that exists is on this planet.
pretty sure they are looking for any foreigners first and since russia is quite rasist country they will pick people of color right away – it is not a safe place for Africans as russian sociatey is quite rasist and identify with extreme nazi ideology
Yes, that’s exactly what i thought – I’d be very surprised if it was anything more than just abit of weed.
I would also suspect Russian racism against a black man played a large part in it too, but to coerce any foreign national to fight their war is disgusting.
My heart goes out to Nemes Tarimo and his family.
Yeah, it came as a minor shock at first, but then I quickly realized that I was not surprised. A desperate government will break any rule to secure a single sliver of their future, even if that means conscripting tourists, aid workers, foreign diplomats, journalists or in this case exchange students.
The loss of life in this war is utterly appalling.
It’s not even started yet!
That is a hallmark of Russia in pretty much any conflict in their history.