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Comment by jansen555 | Hacker News Reader

You got confused with Hitler's troop. Russians are well verse in this kind of weather. The current troops incursion are mostly conscript based. Subsequent one would be the crack team. Hitler sent his crack troop in first and got wipe out. If you want to understand how this war will play out, read up Hitler's Eastern Front Battles against the improvement in Grozy and recently Russians in Syria. Ratnik troops havnt been deployed yet at least from what I am allow to know from western media.

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The physics of mud apply to everyone

> The current troops incursion are mostly conscript based

Not sure if it is disinformation, but the Russians announced that there are no conscripts in this war. Time will tell, but maybe the Western media/intel got it wrong?

Then who are the soldiers surrendering who claim to be french teachers, janitors, etc. who were forced into going?

Contract soldiers who are trying to pretend that they aren't, to get a better deal as a POW?

There is a lot of disinformation, but there is also this [1]:

> Russian law prohibits conscripts from being sent to the front unless they choose to sign a contract and become career soldiers. Currently, compulsory service in the Russian army is one year, including four months of basic training. In reality, says Olga Larkina, chair of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, soldiers are either forced to sign a contract against their will, or their military IDs are confiscated, and they are signed to a contract without their knowledge. In recent days, her organization has received dozens of pleas for assistance about this from parents of draftees.

[1] https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium.HIGHLIGHT...

Do you think Putin cares about Russian law (or any law at all)

That's basically what I quoted.

Many of these soldiers are 18-20 year old kids.

In Vietnam, most the US soldiers were 18-20 year old kids. The draft ended shortly before I turned 18, but I had older friends that were drafted and sent off to fight. No one I knew died, but a couple returned with life altering injuries, a couple others returned with what we now call PTSD, but back then they were just referred to as 'losers', and 'weak'.

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