1srelluc
Diamond Member
Ukraine is releasing thousands of prisoners so they can join the fight against Russia
Ukraine is expanding its military recruiting to cope with battlefield shortages more than two years into fighting Russia’s full-scale invasion.
apnews.com
DNIPROPETROVSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — At a rural penal colony in southeast Ukraine, several convicts stand assembled under barbed wire to hear an army recruiter offer them a shot at parole. In return, they must join the grueling fight against Russia.
“You can put an end to this and start a new life,” said the recruiter, a member of a volunteer assault battalion. “The main thing is your will, because you are going to defend the motherland. You won’t succeed at 50%, you have to give 100% of yourself, even 150%.”
Ukraine is expanding the draft to cope with acute battlefield shortages more than two years into fighting against Russia’s full-scale invasion. And its recruiting efforts have turned, for the first time, to the country’s prison population.
It’d be one thing if they were trained and equipped well and led by quality leaders with experience.
But they’re just tossing them into the grinder to keep the graft going for as long as possible.
This kind of thing goes back to WWII at least, when the Red Army copied the Germans' penal units and called them Shtraf Battalions, Straf meaning penal or penalty. These days the Russians still have those units, but they call them storm Z units.
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