Ukrainian military personnel on the Kurakhove front report that troop numbers have been drastically reduced — a setback more severe than the pressing need for additional weapons
That it’s not a video game means also that you can’t so easily refute the entire thesis and approach of the linked article by appealing to some kind of simplistic ideal model of warfare where morale and recruitment do not matter at all to an army. Conscripting the unwilling has its costs, and here we have one attempt to describe how some of it is playing out on the Ukrainian side.
Don’t judge things just from the headlines, lemmy. It’s a bad habit. This reporting is credible enough, and El País a sufficiently respectable publication, that it deserves better than that.
Did you recognize I’m answering to a comment, not the article? Don’t “Don’t just read teh headline” me, because you’re wrong.
The article itself is (imo) problematic, too, though. First, the headline feeds into the dangerous narrative that Ukraine couldn’t win the war. It is a statement, not a question that gets examined and studied. Second, the article itself doesn’t support the headline as a definitive statement, it talks about the issue of desertion and recruitment, not the actual number of soldiers. It’s a misleading headline. Third of all, it’s one persons opinion and observation, not an objective, broadviewed examination of the issues that tries to take many viewpoints into account (for example the influence of slow support by Ukraine’s partners, that Russia faces similar recruitment issues etc).
The Article is a representation of one person’s view, and it’s fine at that. But it’s nothing more.
That it’s not a video game means also that you can’t so easily refute the entire thesis and approach of the linked article by appealing to some kind of simplistic ideal model of warfare where morale and recruitment do not matter at all to an army. Conscripting the unwilling has its costs, and here we have one attempt to describe how some of it is playing out on the Ukrainian side.
Don’t judge things just from the headlines, lemmy. It’s a bad habit. This reporting is credible enough, and El País a sufficiently respectable publication, that it deserves better than that.
Did you recognize I’m answering to a comment, not the article? Don’t “Don’t just read teh headline” me, because you’re wrong.
The article itself is (imo) problematic, too, though. First, the headline feeds into the dangerous narrative that Ukraine couldn’t win the war. It is a statement, not a question that gets examined and studied. Second, the article itself doesn’t support the headline as a definitive statement, it talks about the issue of desertion and recruitment, not the actual number of soldiers. It’s a misleading headline. Third of all, it’s one persons opinion and observation, not an objective, broadviewed examination of the issues that tries to take many viewpoints into account (for example the influence of slow support by Ukraine’s partners, that Russia faces similar recruitment issues etc).
The Article is a representation of one person’s view, and it’s fine at that. But it’s nothing more.