Aggression against recruitment officers has become increasingly threatening, police say.

It’s not a topic people here care to discuss much, wary of feeding Russian propaganda.

But the latest National Police Service report recorded more than 600 assaults on recruitment officers to date and warned that the aggression has become “increasingly threatening”.

The first big alert came in April when several recruiters were stabbed, one fatally. Then this month in Lviv, some 200 protesters surrounded officers attempting to detain a suspected draft dodger and smashed and overturned their car.

The riot made headlines as President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned violence against serving soldiers.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    3·
    3 hours ago

    I don’t think anyone really does. If they did, proper war journalists wouldn’t exist. No sane person would stick their necks out like that if they understood the gory details.

    As to the “curtain of media propaganda”, we’re all suffocating in it. That’s part of what has dragged the conflict out for as long as it has. Everyone’s fed this false narrative that the other side is on the brink of internal collapse. Russians get deluged with media about their glorious impeding victories, with every European economic hiccup or American military stumble presented as a final desperate gasp. Westerners are inundated with “Putin on death’s door! Russians out of toiletpaper, insurgency imminent! Ukraine scores critical war-defining victory with latest long-range strike!” news updates, suggesting just one more big push will crack the entire Russian socio-economic system like an egg.

    This, combined with any hint of diplomatic resolution squashed under a wave of “You can’t trust their government! Only total victory will assure your safety!”

    And so we’ve got this systematic terror bombing all the way from the Polish border to the Serbian wilderness, with people convinced the end of the war is just around the corner for year after year after year.

    Iran’s conflict with the US is shaping up the same way. We scream bloody murder while we’re firing off another volley of cruise missiles, then publicly announce “Peace negotiations imminent” while our batteries reload.

    • acchariya@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 hours ago

      Had a friend working for a Russian family in Russia for a few years since the thing started. They are in dubai now with the same family and the lot of them are really shocked as to the meat grinder the war has become. It really seems that most Russians think this is a manpower intensive occupation with some occasional violence. These are reasonably well off Moscow people who didn’t seem to understand that this war is more like world war 1 than like Afghanistan.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        3·
        2 hours ago

        It really seems that most Russians think this is a manpower intensive occupation with some occasional violence.

        Well, the first part is kinda true. The second is wildly off.

        These are reasonably well-off Moscow people who didn’t seem to understand that this war is more like world war 1 than like Afghanistan.

        I’ve heard more than a few of the big advances described as Battle of the Somme, especially with regards to how the reporting diverged from the reality on the ground.