True. But that’s sort of a different matter. Also, I’m honor bound to say that the Soviets started misbehaving before they got to German soil. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories.
Crimea would be fighting on Ukrainian, rather than Russian soil (that’s the whole point here), so I’m not sure that it applies. It could go both ways. Especially since Ukraine is very dependent on the west, so they’re likely to at least pretend to be nice.
You’re totally correct about the dehumanizing, though. And it’s very concerning.
Crimea would be fighting on Ukrainian, rather than Russian soil (that’s the whole point here)
Yes, that is the point indeed. Well, Kyiv, Kherson and places like that are unquestionably “Ukrainian soil”, Donetsk and Luhansk are sort of 50⁄50 (not exactly, and changing quite a bit after the war started) due to the influx of Russians over the decades, and Crimea is very disputably so. Most locals are ethnically Russians (and long persecuted Crimean Tatars) who lived there for generations and had been quite unhappy with being under the Ukrainian rule for decades, welcomed the Russian takeover. There were no widespread rapes or abuse of locals by the Russian troops taking over Crimea in 2014, as far as I know. It was all very peaceful, completely unlike what is going on in this war. Russia and its military did a lot of shit in Europe, Central Asia, and most recently Syria, and a lot of it is counts as war crimes. Taking over Crimea doesn’t rank in the top 100, from what I understand.
I agree with this as a general description, with the obvious caveats that it’s hard to not welcome someone who’s pointing a gun at you etc., since that makes it somewhat coercive, even if you’d have welcomed them anyway. Crimea really does seem to like Russia, or at least did so before the war started getting serious (I’m guessing it’s more complicated now).
That being said, I was talking about it being Ukrainian soil from the point of view of the soldiers. They’d be thinking of themselves as heroes rescuing a captive population, so are more likely to be nice. Although you could imagine the opposite story, where they think of them as traitors to be punished and purged.
[Soviet Army] started misbehaving before they got to German soil. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories.
Soviet Army was famous for raping women on the territories they “liberated”; at least I have heard stories about their behavior in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Not a systematic rape, like they did in Germany, but simply “soldiers doing whatever they want (with the approval of their officers), and if you complain you get shot”.
Most Soviet soldiers actually had no idea what country they were currently in, and whether that country was technically an ally or an enemy. They probably didn’t care anyway, considering that they also raped women recently liberated from concentration camps (link).
During socialism, Soviet Union did not allow discussion of this topic in any of its vassal states.
EDIT: According to this article, in current Russia you could get up to five years of prison for discussing this topic.
Yeah, definitely wasn’t taught in schools, unsurprisingly. Even in Germany (both of them) it was minimized, though at least in West Germany students learned about “Russian babies”, but more from an angle “war is evil, soldiers rape”, than specifically anti-Russian. At least that is my understanding. Which is kind of my original point, I would not assume that soldiers of any of the ex-Soviet countries are better than from others. It might happen that Ukrainian military leaders will be more strict in that regard, but this remains to be seen.
I assume that the Ukrainian army was significantly “Westernized” during the last decade.
No evidence other than dozen articles from various sources I have read recently, but the story seems consistent (still might be propaganda, though). According to those sources, NATO offered quite a lot of training for non-member countries as a part of Partnership for Peace. Ukraine took that opportunity very seriously; they had a strong motivation to get better quickly. Russia was also invited, but only did some half-assed effort, mostly using the training as a “vacation” for a few selected soldiers.
So I would assume that 10 years ago, there was not much difference between Russian and Ukrainian armed forces, from the perspective of training and professionalism. But today, there probably is.
After watching some interviews with Russian POWs, and listening to intercepted phone calls (yes, possibly strong selection bias, maybe completely staged), it seems to me that the Russia’s army is organized very ineffectively, relying on numerical superiority, not caring much about how many soldiers die. To put it bluntly, Russian army seems to be used as a form of population control (of the non-Russian ethnic groups), so from this perspective occasionally dying soldiers are a feature, not a bug, as long as the war ultimately results in victory. The only problem is that in Ukraine too many soldiers are dying now, the territory is being lost, and Russia is running out of tanks. New soldiers are only given one week of training, and survive on average about one week in the battle.
Shortly, my impression is that Soviet/Russian army has always been “a very large group consisting mostly of poorly trained people”. That seems to explain everything—the rapes, the looting, and ultimately the defeat by Ukrainian army. Yes, Ukraine got lots of weapons from the West, but if both armies had an equivalent amount of training, Russia still would have won.
True. But that’s sort of a different matter. Also, I’m honor bound to say that the Soviets started misbehaving before they got to German soil. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories.
Crimea would be fighting on Ukrainian, rather than Russian soil (that’s the whole point here), so I’m not sure that it applies. It could go both ways. Especially since Ukraine is very dependent on the west, so they’re likely to at least pretend to be nice.
You’re totally correct about the dehumanizing, though. And it’s very concerning.
Yes, that is the point indeed. Well, Kyiv, Kherson and places like that are unquestionably “Ukrainian soil”, Donetsk and Luhansk are sort of 50⁄50 (not exactly, and changing quite a bit after the war started) due to the influx of Russians over the decades, and Crimea is very disputably so. Most locals are ethnically Russians (and long persecuted Crimean Tatars) who lived there for generations and had been quite unhappy with being under the Ukrainian rule for decades, welcomed the Russian takeover. There were no widespread rapes or abuse of locals by the Russian troops taking over Crimea in 2014, as far as I know. It was all very peaceful, completely unlike what is going on in this war. Russia and its military did a lot of shit in Europe, Central Asia, and most recently Syria, and a lot of it is counts as war crimes. Taking over Crimea doesn’t rank in the top 100, from what I understand.
I agree with this as a general description, with the obvious caveats that it’s hard to not welcome someone who’s pointing a gun at you etc., since that makes it somewhat coercive, even if you’d have welcomed them anyway. Crimea really does seem to like Russia, or at least did so before the war started getting serious (I’m guessing it’s more complicated now).
That being said, I was talking about it being Ukrainian soil from the point of view of the soldiers. They’d be thinking of themselves as heroes rescuing a captive population, so are more likely to be nice. Although you could imagine the opposite story, where they think of them as traitors to be punished and purged.
Soviet Army was famous for raping women on the territories they “liberated”; at least I have heard stories about their behavior in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Not a systematic rape, like they did in Germany, but simply “soldiers doing whatever they want (with the approval of their officers), and if you complain you get shot”.
Most Soviet soldiers actually had no idea what country they were currently in, and whether that country was technically an ally or an enemy. They probably didn’t care anyway, considering that they also raped women recently liberated from concentration camps (link).
During socialism, Soviet Union did not allow discussion of this topic in any of its vassal states.
EDIT: According to this article, in current Russia you could get up to five years of prison for discussing this topic.
Yeah, definitely wasn’t taught in schools, unsurprisingly. Even in Germany (both of them) it was minimized, though at least in West Germany students learned about “Russian babies”, but more from an angle “war is evil, soldiers rape”, than specifically anti-Russian. At least that is my understanding. Which is kind of my original point, I would not assume that soldiers of any of the ex-Soviet countries are better than from others. It might happen that Ukrainian military leaders will be more strict in that regard, but this remains to be seen.
I assume that the Ukrainian army was significantly “Westernized” during the last decade.
No evidence other than dozen articles from various sources I have read recently, but the story seems consistent (still might be propaganda, though). According to those sources, NATO offered quite a lot of training for non-member countries as a part of Partnership for Peace. Ukraine took that opportunity very seriously; they had a strong motivation to get better quickly. Russia was also invited, but only did some half-assed effort, mostly using the training as a “vacation” for a few selected soldiers.
So I would assume that 10 years ago, there was not much difference between Russian and Ukrainian armed forces, from the perspective of training and professionalism. But today, there probably is.
After watching some interviews with Russian POWs, and listening to intercepted phone calls (yes, possibly strong selection bias, maybe completely staged), it seems to me that the Russia’s army is organized very ineffectively, relying on numerical superiority, not caring much about how many soldiers die. To put it bluntly, Russian army seems to be used as a form of population control (of the non-Russian ethnic groups), so from this perspective occasionally dying soldiers are a feature, not a bug, as long as the war ultimately results in victory. The only problem is that in Ukraine too many soldiers are dying now, the territory is being lost, and Russia is running out of tanks. New soldiers are only given one week of training, and survive on average about one week in the battle.
Shortly, my impression is that Soviet/Russian army has always been “a very large group consisting mostly of poorly trained people”. That seems to explain everything—the rapes, the looting, and ultimately the defeat by Ukrainian army. Yes, Ukraine got lots of weapons from the West, but if both armies had an equivalent amount of training, Russia still would have won.