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Comment by tempestn | Hacker News Reader

It's certainly not ideal, but their only other choice at this point is to surrender to Russian occupation. The Russian military greatly outnumbers that of Ukraine, so without civilians joining the defense, they'd really have no chance. Of course these people are at high risk, but obviously they feel it's worth it to defend their freedom.

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I don’t see how a civilian force will significantly improve their chances.

Edit: this isn’t a video game. Civilians taking up arms makes them targets. The Russian aim is regime change, and at this time it appears that Russia will prevail. It is existential for Russia. All a civilian resistance will do is maybe slightly delay the inevitable at horrific cost. I think people should be discouraged from throwing their lives away on a lost cause. Even the Ukrainian propaganda of heroic deaths contains an understanding that there is no hope.

Russian forces are mostly conscripts, so it's not that much better. They probably have marginally better training, but they're less motivated. Also, there's military service in Ukraine. The average civilian probably has a decent understanding of weapons handling and basic tactics.

They also have less knowledge and understanding of the key terrain involved. That’s the key here in urban warfare. Understanding the critical choke points, areas of overwatch and lines of sight etc will be something they know intuitively because they’re from there. Russians will have to look at their maps.

The forces fighting in Ukraine are not conscripts, but contract soldiers. Russian law doesn't allow conscripts to be deployed overseas. Of course it's an authoritarian regime so they could do it anyway, but there would be serious domestic repercussions and largely isn't necessary to get the troop concentrations they have

there are reports that they do exactly that: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/02/26/i-m-panicking-where-...

The chance that any random civilian you encounter could blow you away drastically changes how an occupying force has to go about occupying

Locals often know every street, every building, every alley of their neighborhood. That information asymmetry is a huge advantage in the locals' favor.

Guerilla warfare is very effective against ‘traditional military’ tactics.

It causes bloodshed, but it’s not like having everyone you know sent to the gulag is all roses and butterflies either. And that is legitimately what the stakes are (or worse).

History is littered with examples of civilian forces making occupation unbearable for the occupiers.

one example from 2014:

https://twitter.com/ZeroPark30/status/1497445963111280647

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