Russia and Ukraine

[Thumpalumpacus]

Well, Dunbas is not exactly Russia yet, and the conflict in Dunbas is being portrayed as something of war of liberation for ethnic Russians.    So the drafting in Dunbas has more of a drafting peasants into a heroic partisan war of liberation flavor than drafting soldiers into a regular army to fight a conventional war on foreign soil flavor.

So to people that really matters, that is the Dunbasians and the Russian audience steeped in the mythology of the great patriotic war where crudely equipped partisans supposedly made German life behind the lines a living hell,  bolt action rifles probably is actually a bonus as far as stirring up popular sentiments go.    

It allows the Russian side to play the two sided melodrama of being both victim and hero at the same time.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what the Ukrainian side has been doing since shortly after the start of the war as well.

It reeks of a mixture of weaksauce and bullshit to me. If they're liberating the Donbas, why don't they have the forces to do so, such that they must draft raw recruits and throw them untrained into battle? Giving them rifles designed in 1891 only underscores the military weakness of the RF. Oh, that's right: they've had their asses handed to them, the Russians have, and can't "liberate" their "persecuted" subjects -- uh, brethren. I wonder why the Ukrainians have been fighting so long and so hard?

I say level the playing field, and have the Italians donate some Mannlicher-Carcanos to the Ukrainians.