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Dmitri Kovalevich is the special correspondent in Ukraine for Al Mayadeen English. He writes monthly situation reports as well as occasional special reports, including the following.
In early August, deputies of the Ukraine president’s ‘Servant of the People’ party in the national legislature (‘Rada’) introduced a bill that provides for the conscription of forced labor of all those who have not been conscripted to the armed forces. Formally free citizens who already cannot legally leave the country due to wartime restrictions will now also be subjected to forced labor.
I don’t think that you fully understand what’s happening. This is not Call of Duty. Leave any internal political issues until the end of the war. Right now, you’re helping Russia.
So are we just supposed to allow (heck, even support!) Ukraine despite them implementing a system of modern slavery for their people, blocking civilians from fleeing, and forced conscription, some of it even slated to last even beyond the end of the war, because to even criticise it is “helping Russia”? Helping Russia do what, exactly? Look better than Ukraine? That’s on Ukraine to be the big boy.
This is not Call of Duty, a war is waged for political reasons, and therefore the politics of it should be laid bare.
The new draft law on the mobilization of workers is intended to “ensure the functioning of the national economy under martial law”, in the words of those drafting the law. It is noteworthy that in early August, Ukraine began to talk about a likely ban against military conscripts leaving the country for three years following an eventual end to military hostilities and martial law. Just such a proposal was recently made by Vadym Denysenko […], head of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future and a former advisor to the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Denysenko said, “I am sure that even after the war it will be necessary to extend the ban on men traveling abroad for at least another three years. Otherwise, we simply will not survive as a nation.”
Please illuminate me in your wisdom, how banning people from leaving while conscripting them to either fight in the front or forced labour is not a form slavery. Whose lives are being saved by arresting people trying to flee the country?
Care to elaborate? AFAIK, forced labour under the threat of harm and no conditions for escape fits very well into most modern definitions of slavery. But go on, why should I support Ukraine despite this?
I don’t follow. Yes, they are at war. How does that justify labour conscriptions and banning fleeing? I do care about people not dying and having dignity, you see. But sending teenagers into slaughter or forcing them to work to that same slaughter industry doesn’t help anybody. It is basically a self-genocide by the Ukrainian government. No wonder that it started as a war against eastern Ukrainians.
Who here exactly defends genocide when the only thing I want in this war is for the suicidal tactics of the Ukrainian government to pause for a second so that civilians can flee and live better lives elsewhere? But you don’t care about that, you’re a liberal who will justify every war crime from your favourite North Atlantic countries and their puppet governments, under the guise of empathy.
See, 2 can play that game of ad hominem. Answer the question: “How is this not comparable to a modern slave state?”
To be allowed to migrate and seek asylum because the people don’t want to die in the front for a piece of land? That’s exactly what I would want if it were me. Would you want to be conscripted for forced labour with the risk of getting sent to the front lines because of some war you don’t want to be part of? And if you say “they definitely want to be part of it,” then explain why the draft and conscription are needed in the first place.
Well, if they’re democratic they should let the people (in which case my self-insert would apply) decide what to do. But a reasonable government could, for example, negotiate an immediate ceasefire and acquiesce to the winning side’s demands to prevent further bloodshed. Or it could grab teenagers off the street and tentative migrants and send them to their deaths. Obviously, I already know that the Ukrainian government and their NATO allies prefer the latter, but we shouldn’t pretend there weren’t other options.
Edit:
What would you do if you were their absolute ruler? Surrender?
Well, yes? Assuming I give even half a fuck about people’s lives, I’d prefer a negotiated peace instead of this shitshow any day. Russia’s demands aren’t even that hard to meet, they’re just dragging this out for profit at this point.
I usually don’t spring that one on them because I’m pretty sure that a lot of Ukraine enjoyers don’t actually know about the Donbas war. It’d be a while to explain, so I try to meet them in the middle a bit, but yes, that would have been the absolute best decision back in 2014.
It’s a lemmygrad stooge. He wants them to drop their weapons, be slaughtered and raped by the glorious army of the tzar, and have Ukraine be given up as a tribute to the new Russian empire. The world has allowed past Russian rulers to slaughter millions before, why not now?
Enjoy watching Mother Russia get decimated by secondhand weapons that were mothballed in a wearhouse.
Please don’t deny reality just because it’s uncomfortable to your genocidal desires.
Russia has been holding strong to the land for about an year now, and it seems the Ukrainian counter-offensive didn’t work as advertised. Nobody should be enjoying anything in this war, including your imagined situation of Russian obliteration, but thankfully that is only your sadistic thoughts and not reality. This war needs to end ASAP, or what we will actually see is just even more of what we’re already seeing, a lot of suffering and death of both Russians and Ukrainians (but mostly Ukrainians) for absolutely nothing.
the fact that you likely genuinely believe what you wrote makes it all the more hilarious, thanks for confirming that your brain is truly as smooth as a bowling ball
I wish liberals would understand this in the context of communist movements struggling to get out from under global capitalist hegemony and violent dominance. Like, China pushing into the South China Sea is seen as terrible and authoritarian but Taiwan is literally a separatist government from the losers of the civil war protected by the global imperialists who dominated China for well over a century and have encircled China with 600+ military bases and a global torture program, among other things.
This was really inevitable, yeah.
I don’t think that you fully understand what’s happening. This is not Call of Duty. Leave any internal political issues until the end of the war. Right now, you’re helping Russia.
So are we just supposed to allow (heck, even support!) Ukraine despite them implementing a system of modern slavery for their people, blocking civilians from fleeing, and forced conscription, some of it even slated to last even beyond the end of the war, because to even criticise it is “helping Russia”? Helping Russia do what, exactly? Look better than Ukraine? That’s on Ukraine to be the big boy.
This is not Call of Duty, a war is waged for political reasons, and therefore the politics of it should be laid bare.
They are not implementing a system of modern slavery, they’re protecting their country and fighting for their lives.
I’m quoting again:
Please illuminate me in your wisdom, how banning people from leaving while conscripting them to either fight in the front or forced labour is not a form slavery. Whose lives are being saved by arresting people trying to flee the country?
Yes, you should support Ukraine. No it’s not slavery.
Care to elaborate? AFAIK, forced labour under the threat of harm and no conditions for escape fits very well into most modern definitions of slavery. But go on, why should I support Ukraine despite this?
They are being invaded.
But you don’t care about that, you’re a tankie who defends genocide.
I don’t follow. Yes, they are at war. How does that justify labour conscriptions and banning fleeing? I do care about people not dying and having dignity, you see. But sending teenagers into slaughter or forcing them to work to that same slaughter industry doesn’t help anybody. It is basically a self-genocide by the Ukrainian government. No wonder that it started as a war against eastern Ukrainians.
Who here exactly defends genocide when the only thing I want in this war is for the suicidal tactics of the Ukrainian government to pause for a second so that civilians can flee and live better lives elsewhere? But you don’t care about that, you’re a liberal who will justify every war crime from your favourite North Atlantic countries and their puppet governments, under the guise of empathy.
See, 2 can play that game of ad hominem. Answer the question: “How is this not comparable to a modern slave state?”
Theres also a difference between these actions to defend a far right corrupt regime and some actual democracy
You’re excusing the genocide of the separatist regions and making up nonsense about this being ww2 2.0. You’re the real genocide denier.
Proving once again you’re just a genocide apologist willing to use “genocide” to excuse a genocide.
bro i’m not the one pretending this war is a genocide against Ukrainians
He WANTS to help Russia… Don’t feed the troll.
oh my god you’re one of those idiots
So uh, what do you expect them to do when invaded by a foreign army?
To be allowed to migrate and seek asylum because the people don’t want to die in the front for a piece of land? That’s exactly what I would want if it were me. Would you want to be conscripted for forced labour with the risk of getting sent to the front lines because of some war you don’t want to be part of? And if you say “they definitely want to be part of it,” then explain why the draft and conscription are needed in the first place.
No, I didn’t ask what “you would want”. I mean I want a million dollars, but wanting things is easy.
I asked what should they do? What should their country do?
What would you do if you were their absolute ruler? Surrender?
Well, if they’re democratic they should let the people (in which case my self-insert would apply) decide what to do. But a reasonable government could, for example, negotiate an immediate ceasefire and acquiesce to the winning side’s demands to prevent further bloodshed. Or it could grab teenagers off the street and tentative migrants and send them to their deaths. Obviously, I already know that the Ukrainian government and their NATO allies prefer the latter, but we shouldn’t pretend there weren’t other options.
Edit:
Well, yes? Assuming I give even half a fuck about people’s lives, I’d prefer a negotiated peace instead of this shitshow any day. Russia’s demands aren’t even that hard to meet, they’re just dragging this out for profit at this point.
also I feel like ukraine should have just let the separatist regions be independent, and not try to erase them from the face of the earth
I usually don’t spring that one on them because I’m pretty sure that a lot of Ukraine enjoyers don’t actually know about the Donbas war. It’d be a while to explain, so I try to meet them in the middle a bit, but yes, that would have been the absolute best decision back in 2014.
It’s a lemmygrad stooge. He wants them to drop their weapons, be slaughtered and raped by the glorious army of the tzar, and have Ukraine be given up as a tribute to the new Russian empire. The world has allowed past Russian rulers to slaughter millions before, why not now?
fuck off dronie
Must have hit pretty close to the mark to get you all worked up there, sweetheart.
Enjoy watching Mother Russia get decimated by secondhand weapons that were mothballed in a wearhouse. Slava Ukraini!
Please don’t deny reality just because it’s uncomfortable to your genocidal desires.
Russia has been holding strong to the land for about an year now, and it seems the Ukrainian counter-offensive didn’t work as advertised. Nobody should be enjoying anything in this war, including your imagined situation of Russian obliteration, but thankfully that is only your sadistic thoughts and not reality. This war needs to end ASAP, or what we will actually see is just even more of what we’re already seeing, a lot of suffering and death of both Russians and Ukrainians (but mostly Ukrainians) for absolutely nothing.
the fact that you likely genuinely believe what you wrote makes it all the more hilarious, thanks for confirming that your brain is truly as smooth as a bowling ball
It doesn’t really matter who it is. I want to hear what he thinks a smart idea would be, from him.
Even though we don’t agree on these things, I think that’s a nice thing of you to say. Thanks!
Literally every single country on this planet will do this when forced to fight a defensive war.
Civil liberties are fine and well but in wartime that goes out the window real quick regardless of ideological orientation of the government.
I wish liberals would understand this in the context of communist movements struggling to get out from under global capitalist hegemony and violent dominance. Like, China pushing into the South China Sea is seen as terrible and authoritarian but Taiwan is literally a separatist government from the losers of the civil war protected by the global imperialists who dominated China for well over a century and have encircled China with 600+ military bases and a global torture program, among other things.