Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law Friday that allows for conscripting citizens with un-expunged or outstanding convictions for various serious crimes.
Russians convicted of murder, robbery, larceny, drug trafficking and other grave offenses under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation can be called up for military service, according to the law.
That makes it possible to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people who have been sentenced to probation or have recently been released from colonies who were previously forbidden to serve.
The only group of criminals exempted from the decree are those who committed sex crimes against minors, treason, spying or terrorism. Also excluded are those convicted of the attempted assassination of a government official, hijacking an aircraft, extremist activity and illegal handling of nuclear materials and radioactive substances.
Well, at least they have some standards of who they allow to take a bullet on behalf of the motherland.
The Kremlin has already mobilized an additional 18,000 soldiers above its goal of 300,000 to fight in its war in Ukraine from the general male population of Russia, Putin said Friday.
Piece on the news a couple nights ago: interview with a Ukrainian soldier on the Kherson front. He said those untrained conscripts are making mass attacks on the Ukrainian line. They mow the Russians down, but the Russians have more men than the Ukrainians have bullets.
The Russians may have more men, but most of those men are not Russians. There seems to have been a concentration on conscripting “ethnic minorities” rather than Russians in most parts of the Russian Federation.
Just thinking out loud here… which I probably shouldn’t do - but…
I consider a majority of us METaR folks pretty conservative and always looking at what is happening with a somewhat “dark cloud” effect. We talk a lot about the Russia / Ukraine conflict, the Fed flooding the market with money, which is now reversing course, we talk about macro things more from a “watch out” perspective - which I appreciate.
I was just thinking however, what would happen to the markets if someone took out the man in charge in Russia?
It could go either way, right? In some ways, the world may be happy that the Russia / Ukraine conflict will be settled quickly with Ukraine getting world support for re-building. OTOH, it may de-stabilize lots of global relationships, or worse, may not get blamed on some deranged local, but some foreign nation - which could get even messier.
Any thoughts on the probably of these scenarios? Or others?
It is not a foregone conclusion that Russia would fold its tent and leave Ukraine, in fact, depending on the rational for the succession roll-out, the war could take a turn for the worse. To-date, Russia has not used “strategic” conventional strategies (blanket high-altitude bombing, etc.) against Ukraine’s population. This might be because modern anti-aircraft technology makes this unproductive or might be because the escalation is not currently deemed to be in Russia’s interest.
While a change in government might provide a welcome change in relations with Russia, it is also possible that the world will be exchanging the devil they know for someone equally brutal, but with lesser predictable whims and actions. Like the US, the EU, UK, China, etc., Russia has ties to a multitude of nations with their own interests and if the Russian apple cart is upturned there is likely to be a readjustment (or at least an attempt towards that) in a number of theatres around the world.