Tens of thousands of male convicts have been freed to fight in Ukraine. It is not clear if a small contingent of female volunteers released from a prison portends wider use of female soldiers.

Tens of thousands of male convicts have been freed to fight in Ukraine. It is not clear if a small contingent of female volunteers released from a prison portends wider use of female soldiers.

  • @tal@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
    28•5 months ago

    It does also suggest to me that Russia may have exhausted the pool of male prisoners willing to enlist for a pardon.

    • mozz
      6•5 months ago

      They have been chewing through soldiers at a relentlessly steady pace for two years at this point. They started with a famously large army but it would be surprising if any supply of available recruits hadn’t been exhausted and then some by now.

  • Che Banana
    10•5 months ago

    Not a good morale boost for the russian army who prefer to rape the new male recruits.

  • Nougat
    8•5 months ago

    The whole tone of this demonstrates the disposability of men.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    4•5 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Russia released a group of women from a prison in late May to join the fighting in Ukraine, according to two former inmates who maintain contact with those still there, potentially signaling a new phase in the Kremlin’s use of criminals in its war effort.

    It is unclear if their release represents an isolated case, a pilot program or the start of a larger wave of recruitment of female inmates.

    Military recruiters began touring prisons for women across the European part of Russia last fall, more than a year after the country’s forces started offering convicted men pardons and salaries in return for combat service.

    Two women who witnessed the recruitment at the prison last year told The New York Times that fellow inmates signed up despite the dangers outlined by the visiting military officers.

    Inmates at the prison near St. Petersburg had to remain silent at all times, and spent up to 12 hours a day doing compulsory labor at the jail’s sawing workshop, even in subzero temperatures in winter, the women said.

    After long deriding Russia’s prison recruitment, the government in Kyiv authorized a similar scheme last month amid increasingly acute troop shortages.

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