Note to self: Do not join Russian army

[Jon Miller]

Russians are crazy... no wonder they drink so much Vodka.

JM

[Pekka]

VetLegion, yeah, I said the older ones do rough hazing. And some like to beat up their people.

And I also said that I wonder why some people would think it makes anyone tougher. It doesn't.

[VetLegion]

Of course it doesn't. It's how you make slaves, not men. Give same weapons to Russians and any western army and there's no chance Russians would win, even if it were Canadians on the other side.

[Dis]

but they will be ready when the germans come marching up again.

[MRT144]

you mean WWII didnt show you that

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Of course it doesn't. It's how you make slaves, not men. Give same weapons to Russians and any western army and there's no chance Russians would win, even if it were Canadians on the other side.

That's true but I wouldn't want to be in one of those towns the Russians hold until being defeated.

And some people here can't understand why Chechen fugitives here are so extremelly psychologically ****ed up ...

[Nubclear]

The present Russian army is not capable of meeting the defensive needs of the Russian Federation.

Russia's sole line of defence is its nuclear arsenal.

Putin has promised to tackle this problem, but he hasn't so far

[Pekka]

Well, I think the problem with the abusive behaviour is a mixture of tradition of hazing that got out of the hand, conscription (frustrating for many), possibly dangerous service (Chechnya) and not future oriented. Things can get pretty cruel if there's no tight control of abuse in the service, that's for sure.

But I suspect the most extreme cases that leads to suicide are still not THAT common, even though they are too common. We have a situation every now and then, say few times a year, near the border, when some soldier, usually abused and afraid, has escaped. It's pretty dangerous, since they're afraid, abused, they don't want to get caught, they usually got the gun to go, and there's no way in hell they'll be caught by their own MP.

So they cross the border, but it's not like we don't apprehend them and send them back. Of course, that's what you have to do. you have to send the dude back, and he has hell to pay for his actions. So every now and then there might be a little shootout near the border.

I remember last time they had to actually use a sniper to get this guy, who wouldn't surrender and had shot someone earlier. So that's always bad, because the bottom line is, the dangerous person and what makes him dangerous is because they're afraid and do not want to be caught alive usually. So they're kind of the victims of it all.

[Proteus_MST]

Not to forget their lack of money.

AFAIK even the rusian elite nuclear forces aren´t paid regularly (which probably promotes such a behaviour like using conscripts as prostitutes)

[Asher]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100694/

A great movie, related to this thread.

[self biased]

duly noted.