Russia isn’t using these recruits for anything more than meatwave attacks, so their life expectancy isn’t long enough to be useful for sabotage. By the time they’ve been transported to the front, they will be dead whether they go willingly or not.
I mostly agree but they might only be issuing instructions to surrender in Russian in written (delivered by drone) or verbally. Ukraine made an extraordinary effort to capture a North Korean soldier and a special forces unit learned a tiny bit of Korean in order to communicate and capture one before the Korean could commit suicide.
The Russians that have successfully surrendered have claimed their officers will shoot their own soldiers for surrendering in view of them. In addition the Ukrainians have to treat anyone who doesn't follow directions as potential perfidy - fake surrenders - there's several videos of Russians pretending to surrender and continuing to fight when the Ukrainians get close.
One is pretty much screwed once they are sent to the frontlines on the Russian side.
None at all. If you are a young male going to "work" in Russia, you are going to end up on frontlines. I would have sympathy in 2022 early 2023 after that these guys know exactly what they are signing up for.
Once they were in-country, it doesn't sound like it was voluntary. Guy thought he was getting a chill security job at an unrealistic pay point. Clearly not the smartest, but he didn't move to Russia to join the army. Just like Pakistanis don't move to Saudi Arabia to be enslaved.
In both cases, the word is out and these people should have known better, but maybe they were desperate, or naive, I think we can have a little human empathy.
> Guy thought he was getting a chill security job at an unrealistic pay point. Clearly not the smartest
This would be worth of sympathy if this would happen in 2022/2023. This bait and switch is years old. Kenyans have access to internet, they can use google and quickly find out what happened to others who took the "job". Most of them would be found on CombatFootage, lucky ones would be found in Ukrainian channels doing interviews with POWs
> Every corpse advances the cause of a just end to the war. If they want to live they ought to surrender.
You clearly haven't been paying attention.
Not only is Russia luring immigrants with false promises of employment and naturalization to pull a bait and switch and press them into the frontline roles, they are also coercing immigrants who they deem have expired visas to serve as cannon fodder.
Russians are doing this bait and switch for years already. And Kenyans do have internet and are able to find basic information. So it is their fault for coming to Russia and expecting anything else than ending up as cannon (drone) fodder on the frontlines.
> And Kenyans do have internet and are able to find basic information.
You need to be terribly naive to assume that what amounts to human trafficking is avoided by googling a topic.
> So it is their fault for coming to Russia
I think the fault lies in those who essentially coerce and threaten to kill you themselves if you don't go to the front lines of an invasion to execute suicide missions.
> You need to be terribly naive to assume that what amounts to human trafficking is avoided by googling a topic.
Don't take the agency from them. Kenyans are not stupid, they are going to Russia voluntarily, expecting that they will work or study somewhere in Russia while ignoring a all the evidence that they will most likely be sent to a meat grinder on the frontlines.
> Don't take the agency from them. Kenyans are not stupid, (...)
What? It's pretty clear it's the other way around: claiming that Kenyans are pressed to Russia's frontline because they are too stupid to Google the job proposals they accept is undescribable. Again: what Russia is doing throughout the world is blatant human trafficking to amass cannon fodder. They even do this to Russians who sign military contracts, who are promised cushy logistics positions back in Russia but then they see themselves rushed to the front lines to form suicide assault groups.
Again, they are not pressed into Russia, they are volunteering to go into Russia, despite the fact that they know what is going to happen once they get there. Stop trying to turn them into unthinking fools. They know very well what awaits when they will leave Kenya on their own accords and arrive to Russia.
TFA's first line: "David Kuloba's mother warned him about going to Russia after he accepted a job as a security guard advertised by a recruitment agency in Kenya."
It's not for lack of google. This is poor young men being willfully naive hoping for a chance to support family and self. They seem perfectly deserving of sympathy.
> This is poor young men being willfully naive hoping for a chance to support family and self. They seem perfectly deserving of sympathy.
These poor young Estonians are being willfully naive, they just want to support their family, so they joined the 20th SS division. Do you think that they got any sympathy from allies?
The first subject of the article literally had has mom warn him of the dangers and about half of Kenyans his age and demographics use the internet. Many of them said hell no to this posting.
The rest are not completely uninformed nor stupid. News does still tend to trickle out over 11 years. They could also have insisted on someone to read what they are signing or refused the job change when they found out they would be murdering people even if it meant rotting in prison. Instead he said.
"Mum, the job we were told we came to do has been changed, but even this one is not bad"
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