Ukraine is expanding its military recruiting to cope with battlefield shortages more than two years into fighting Russia’s full-scale invasion.

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.

  • Drusas@kbin.run
    231·
    7 months ago

    Forcing convicts to fight and giving them an option is not the same thing. It also matters very much which convicts you are sending to fight.

      • Drusas@kbin.run
        12·
        7 months ago

        I don’t think it’s necessarily under duress the way that Ukraine is doing it. Those who are on death row or their equivalent thereof are not getting this offer. From what I read, this is excluding the most dangerous and violent offenders.

        So you don’t have people with exceedingly long sentences who qualify.

        That doesn’t seem like too much duress to me. A few years of my life staying where I am in a prison versus taking my chances on the battlefield to get out of prison faster (and protect my country, for whomever that matters to).