There is a Forum in Russia at the moment. These happen often and this one is centred around the SMO.
'The boys will be driven to the slaughter' - Putin said what will happen if Ukraine starts mobilizing 18-year-olds.
'I think that the next crime of the Kyiv regime will be lowering the mobilization age to 18. This is a crime. Even if they lower it to 14, like in Hitler's Germany, it will not change the situation on the battlefield. At the behest of the US, they will also lower the mobilization. And the boys will be driven to the slaughter. Just as today they catch people on the street, like stray dogs, and drive them under the bullets. The boys will be driven in the same way. And then, the regime leaders will flee.'
@Slavyangrad
There are no men left. They have either fled into Russia or to Europe. Men with missing limbs with prosthetics are often shown dead on the frontline. I saw a video around a week ago that women will be next. This person supplied fatigues to the military. She was proudly showing the camera, pants and it had a stretchy maternity panel which she proudly stretched out showing it could support of very pregnant women. While many women have joined, they originally called up women nurses, doctors to serve with the fighters on the frontline with the different battalions. When a group of Russian fighters clear out an area, they remove any identifiable paperwork, like passports and dog tags. The amount of foreign fighters (NATO) is kept a guarded secret by the US/UK/EU. But thousands have died, possibly the Poles with the greatest loss. Another reason the regime keep the deaths quiet is so they don’t have to pay compensation. Like a prisoner swap, they have cadaver swaps where the dead on both sides are exchanged. It’s at this time that the identifiable info taken from the decomposing bodies is handed to the Ukrainians. Whether these deaths are made available to the families is unknown.
I have seen some articles about desertion, and even defection. There is a even (a?) Ukrainian batallion(s?) fighting FOR the Russians.
That would be my instinct if I was a person in that situation.
The Russians were dropping leaflets with a call sign to contact them and what to do when approaching Russian military. Those were the lucky ones - they get to see their families again after the SMO. Many Ukrainians that attempted to desert were shot. Those captured by Russians tell of horrific conditions and what the so called ‘leaders’ did to civilians, not to mention their own.