Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

Russia’s population is bigger. + There are many people living in extreme poverty in can mobilize to send to Ukraine. It has plenty of cash thanks to oil revenues. So it can keep using mercenaries from Nepal, Libya, Africa etc. + It’s not a democracy. Mothers + Wives of Russian soldiers are mobilizing but this doesn’t mean anything in a fake democracy.
 

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For Ukraine it’s all different. 650,000 men have fled the country in order to avoid conscription. Some are enrolling in (state-financed) Universities to avoid conscription. Some are paying up to 3000 $ to doctors in order to avoid conscription. Like all ex-communist countries, corruption is huge.
   There is this very patriotic freedom-loving part of population (even women are volunteering for the army), and then there is this group of completely selfish / not really caring group of people. And relatives of current soldiers want their sons-husbands-brothers to come back and send other people to the front. Which Zellensky is unable to do (because he is still fighting the second greatest army of the world).
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/turn-now-ukra...43710.html
 

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In WWI / WWII, everyone was conscripted, no one could return before the very end of the conflict. So my answer to this question is “I don’t know”.
 
But still it’s rather uncool to go and create a new life in Germany while others there are giving their lives in order to maintain their freedom

Self-preservation is uncool?

Not everyone is cut out to be a soldier.

In my military culture that was something I heard a lot. “If I am doing it, than so will you!”. So I remember having those self-preservation tendencies at least in the beginning of my days as a conscript. But that’s one of the first thing they are teaching you. The first message is “You are not different than anyone else”.

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Anyway, I would flee to anywhere I could if I was a Russian. I don’t think I would have joined in any of the US’s recent wars either if I was American. But let me tell you this:
 
In the early days of WWI Kemal Ataturk had to face his soldiers who has lost all their hope and were living in deplorable condition. And he asked them one by one “Where are you from?”, “You, Where are you from?”. And the soldiers answered one by one. And he told them “You, your household will cease to exist”, and “You, your household will also be no-more” etc. Than he told them “I promise you misery, I promise you hardship, I promise you death, that’s the only thing you will get from me. So are you willing to fight with me?” (And the Soldiers were all once again motivated despite the very difficult of the circumstance of the Ottoman Army in WWI).
 
So nothing come for free right? Especially a lifestyle that is based on self-determination rather than the whims of some autocrat who was simply designated by the ruling oligarchy who sees itself as “better” than anyone else.

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So I don’t know. I’m not talking about women and children. But that is a sign of low energy if you are able to be Ukrainian and just watch all of it on TV.
 
(That’s my personal view of course)