Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Most Russian recruits who arrive on the front lines are almost completely unaware of the nature of the war in Ukraine, say Russian warbloggers. They blame it on deliberate, conscious ignorance and say that it is exploited by commanders to throw unprepared men into assaults. ⬇️

2/ Mobilised paratrooper, warblogger and volunteer Nikita Tretyakov writes that Russians who come to fight in Ukraine "know catastrophically little about the war."

3/ "Yes, not all 100%, but the vast majority come to the front without even the most basic understanding of what the war looks like.

4/ "Many not only do not know how to behave properly when a kamikaze drone flies at them, but also do not know that such things even exist; not only do not know how to apply a tourniquet, but have never seen it even on the screen.

5/ "And in general, they imagine the war almost as a triumphal procession, expect from the modern army incredible miracles of constant and excessive training and provision, support of each soldier with artillery and aviation.

6/ "When they sign a contract for a certain period, they often do not even realise that the contracts are automatically renewed and are now de facto indefinite."

7/ It may seem surprising in the third year of war, Tretyakov says, but "time after time, we encounter such people, and there are more and more of them in each 'wave' of new contract soldiers."

8/ "But no amount of amazement can even begin to compare with the shock that overtakes such a freshly minted soldier, who knows nothing, on his first combat mission. This is a real shock, often felt by these people as a deception on the part of the system, as a kind of betrayal."

9/ "Today, more information is published on the military specialisms that interest me almost every day than I can read.

10/ "There is a flood of analyses of the general situation at the front, in addition to coverage of those aspects that are obvious at the front, but are unknown to the general public. Videos of battles of both infantry and equipment, of artillery and UAVs are published.

11/ "There is a flood of analyses of the general situation at the front, in addition to coverage of those aspects that are obvious at the front, but are unknown to the general public. Videos of battles of both infantry and equipment, of artillery and UAVs are published.

12/ "And anyone can access all this by simply reaching out and writing a search query. The notorious truth about the Special Military Operation, its realities from the fighter's point of view – no one hides it.

13/ "Moreover, it is possible not only to get an idea of the war, but also to prepare for it: at least to get knowledge that can help you survive.

And yet we see very few informed or self-trained recruits at the front. Why?...

14/ "My thought followed a well-trodden path: criticism of the major media and criticism of the candidates themselves – they say that the TV shows only positive things, and people blindly believe and go without trying to find out anything more.

15/ "But these factors do not seem to me exhaustive or even basic for the formation of this unfortunate phenomenon.

16/ "It cannot be that people who are considering the decision to go to war and risk their lives there do not try to look deeper into the subject, to understand where they are going and what is going on there in general...

17/ "Yes, the truth about the Special Military Operation is not hard to find out. Yes, most adult men, when considering going to war, delve into the subject and try to understand what awaits them there. And they do.

18/ "And they don't go to the military enlistment office, don't sign a contract, don't go to the front.

The truth of this war is not attractive, not glamorous.

19/ "It is cruel and disgusting, it stinks of blood and dirt, bestiality, a feeling of helplessness and uselessness, almost zero value of life and dignity.

Most people realise this quickly. And they don't go.

20/ "Call it ‘survivorship bias’ or ‘negative selection’, but most of those who do go to the front do so precisely because of ignorance. It gives them false hope that the war will help them in their difficult life situations, which is what pushes them to that decision.

21/ "And yes, they are entitled to feel deceived, because a choice out of desperation is not a choice, just as a choice due to ignorance or induced delusion is not a choice.

22/ "When you see the news tomorrow of a village being taken, know this: it was done by those who were at the front almost by mistake, in the darkness of ignorance, and yet they came to the light."

23/ Responding to Tretyakov's commentary, Svyatoslav Golikov (the 'Philologist in ambush') notes: "The determining motive for the radically overwhelming majority of new contract soldiers is indeed the desired way out of social dead ends, primarily a material one."

24/ "A huge mass of these people represent the poor, disadvantaged, vulnerable strata of the population of our country. There are people among the new contract soldiers who generally understand what they are signing up for. These people are simply going on a fatalistic chance."

25/ "But the masses of people actually go as if to some kind of fairy tale, not understanding how ugly and scary this fairy tale is in reality, and the opportunities to get out of this fairy tale with an army contract are extremely limited.

26/ "Despite the fact that there really are wagonloads of information about the actual situation.

27/ "To a significant extent, this darkness of ignorance grows out of an undeveloped or atrophied ability for (self) learning, mental laziness, failures in critical thinking and the actively practiced ignorance of the broad masses of our fellow citizens themselves.

28/ "But there is a nuance here. Our state itself has seriously screwed up in terms of stimulating the development of human capital. Of course, man is a biological entity, but that is precisely why he requires special education.

29/ "Furthermore, people who are deeply immersed in the daily life that surrounds them and are almost literally fighting for survival are often either stupidly detached from what is happening out there, or simply do not have the opportunity to delve into the problems in detail,…

30/ …they simply have no time for it. For the same reason, by the way, it is not surprising that people have a massive lack of basic knowledge, skills, and abilities.

31/ "Alcoholics and drug addicts are generally on their own wavelength, they even sign a contract without really coming to their senses.

And here, official propaganda definitely plays its role.

32/ "People overloaded with their own worries and troubles (not to mention the characters in altered states of consciousness) snatch scraps of uplifting stories and victorious reports from the media space.

33/ "Paradoxically, given the fairly wide scepticism regarding officially broadcast information, it is precisely the reports of continuous successes on the fronts and the latest unique weapons that really grab people's attention.

34/ "Accordingly, people form "logical" thoughts like 'they'll teach me there / I'm not stupid, I'll learn on the spot / it'll work out somehow'.

35/ "What is characteristic is that the system itself does not set up newly arriving contract soldiers even for elementary physical conditioning, not to mention proper training in general.

36/ "People are often either urgently tortured in an inadequately tight time frame to the point of exhaustion (essentially finishing off their already sad physical condition) and disgust, or, on the contrary, thrown into a rotten swamp of suffering and bullshit...

37/ "By the way, it is precisely the darkness of ignorance that to a large extent underlies the fact that the trick [by commnders] of setting the task in the style of 'go/drive there, there is no one there, the artillery worked' continues to work.

38/ "This is one of the reasons why newly arriving marching reinforcements are being thrown into assaults as quickly as possible instead of a gradual testing, since gradual immersion in existing realities, fraught with premature awareness of all the bottom depths, increases…

39/ …the likelihood of failures of the enlightened, and urgent assault tasks will not fulfill themselves (especially if the command has accumulated territorial credits [i.e. falsely claimed to have captured territory which they only hold on paper]).

40/ "And here is the saddest thing in all this is, perhaps, that against the background of a choice from despair with false hope, such darkness of ignorance is extremely convenient for the system in the conditions of the existing practice of warfare.

41/ "Failures in the development of human capital turned out to be very useful. Those who delve into details really do abstain [from going to war] for the most part. But the ignorant, on the contrary, go.

42/ "Except that everything is quite unfavourable with exiting from darkness to light. These are just flashes on a conveyor belt." /end

Source:
🔹 t.me/tretyakov_n/14…
🔹 t.me/philologist_zo…