Kiev will conscript 160,000 more troops over the next three months, according to statements from lawmakers and media outlets. More than a million soldiers have already been drafted, yet high losses have left the Ukrainian Armed Forces plagued by manpower shortages.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces had around 250,000 active-duty personnel at the beginning of 2022, a number that rapidly swelled once Vladimir Zelensky called up reservists and forbade draft-age men from leaving the country.

This spring, faced with mounting losses, Kiev lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 and significantly tightened mobilization rules, requiring potential recruits to report to conscription offices for “data validation.” These checks often result in people being immediately taken into the army and sent to the front line.

  • BobrA
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    1 day ago

    I have looked only at the name of the links and not the actual content (there are too many of them) - but I didn’t notice anything about North Koreans being able to leave the country by means other than “illegally” crossing the border (this is the criterian I used to compare the countries)? If one of the links covers this topic I’d be interested in reading it.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      I mean they have a grand total of 3 borders of which one is shoot to kill zone, and while they have to get passport and probably visa too they can go to China and Russia, though the numbers aren’t that high afaik. This is the norm for cold war time in which they de facto still are thanks to the USA, and this is very far from what is currently happening in Ukraine, first and foremost there is no open war and they aren’t send up into the meat grinder.

      • BobrA
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        12 hours ago

        I mean they have a grand total of 3 borders of which one is shoot to kill zone, and while they have to get passport and probably visa too they can go to China and Russia, though the numbers aren’t that high afaik.

        So it’s not a problem for North Koreans to obtain a passport and cross the border into China/Russia (and from there to any other country, of course provided that that country will let them in)? From what I’ve heard it’s next to impossible, but if that’s just western/American propaganda I’d like to read some articles and learn something new.

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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          12 hours ago

          I guess it’s probably as hard as let’s say getting a permit to travel to western country for a citizen of socialist Ukrainian SSR, but even if they were literally welded to place it would still be nowhere near as bad as in Ukraine where the main problem is not being unable to leave but getting kidnapped and thrown into artillery fire. Again not in the slightest similar thing.

          • BobrA
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            8 hours ago

            Well, I wasn’t saying that NK kidnaps and massacres its citizens like Zelensky’s regime does, I was referring to not being able to leave the country, and in that regard the regimes seems similar to me.

            • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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              5 hours ago

              You wrote this, context is rather clear:

              I blame him for turning Ukraine into his North Korea. I blame him for trapping people, who die trying to cross the border by mountains/rivers, or hide at homes afraid to leave. I blame him for kidnapping people from the streets and sending them to the meatgrinder (so, killing them).

              • BobrA
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                5 hours ago

                But what is the contradiction here? :)

                In my mind North Korea associates with people being unable to leave it (which you don’t deny), Zelensky did the same to Ukraine, therefore the analogy.