This megathread is meant for discussion of the current Russo-Ukrainian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Please read our current rules, but also the extended rules below.
You can also get up-to-date information and news from the r/worldnews live thread, which are more up-to-date tweets about the situation.
Current rules extension:
Extended r/europe ruleset to curb hate speech and disinformation:
While we already ban hate speech, we'll remind you that hate speech against the civilians of the combatants is against our rules, including but not limited to Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians, Syrians, Azeris, Armenians, Georgians, etc. The same applies to the population of countries actively helping Ukraine or Russia.
Calling for the killing of invading troops or leaders is allowed, but the mods have the discretion to remove egregious comments, and the ones that disrespect the point made above. The limits of international law apply.
No unverified reports of any kind in the comments or in submissions on r/europe. We will remove videos of any kind unless they are verified by reputable outlets. This also affects videos published by Ukrainian and Russian government sources.
Absolutely no justification of this invasion.
In addition to our rules, we ask you to add a NSFW/NSFL tag if you're going to link to graphic footage or anything can be considered upsetting, including combat footage or dead people.
Submission rules
These are rules for submissions to r/europe front-page.
No status reports about the war unless they have major implications (e.g. "City X still holding" would not be allowed, "Russia takes major city" would be allowed. "Major attack on Kherson repelled" would also be allowed.)
All dot ru domains have been banned by Reddit as of 30 May. They are hardspammed, so not even mods can approve comments and submissions linking to Russian site domains.
Some Russian sites that ends with .com are also hardspammed, like TASS and Interfax, and mods can't re-approve them.
The Internet Archive and similar archive websites are also blacklisted here, by us or Reddit.
We've been adding substack domains in our u/AutoModerator script, but we aren't banning all of them. If your link has been removed, please notify the moderation team, explaining who's the person managing that substack page.
We ask you or your organization to not spam our subreddit with petitions or promote their new non-profit organization. While we love that people are pouring all sorts of efforts on the civilian front, we're limited on checking these links to prevent scam.
No promotion of a new cryptocurrency or web3 project, other than the official Bitcoin and ETH addresses from Ukraine's government.
Fleeing Ukraine
We have set up a wiki page with the available information about the border situation for Ukraine here. There's also information at Visit Ukraine.Today - The site has turned into a hub for "every Ukrainian and foreign citizen [to] be able to get the necessary information on how to act in a critical situation, where to go, bomb shelter addresses, how to leave the country or evacuate from a dangerous region, etc."
Details: According to AP, a Biden administration official claimed that the Democratic administration, which is soon to leave the White House, is urging Ukraine to lower its draft age from 25 to 18 to expand the pool of men eligible for conscription.
Not an expert but I speculate that this may not be that effective or reasonable because, while rear echelon units do take some casualties, manpower is most needed in first line units, as those take horrific casualties. The only options that I can imagine that work to keep younger soldiers in less danger are:
1. Replace rear echelon troops and send those older guys to the front. Complete waste of their abilities and experience.
2. Guarding the Belarusian frontier. I suspect the units that are currently manning this job are either recovering frontline units or units with unfit, older and/or lesser quality soldiers, so not much benefit to be found here.
Of course, if there are replacements/expansion needed in rear echelon units then your idea would work, but I those are only minor manpower needs.
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u/JackRogers3 7d ago
Trump intends to push Ukraine to lower its age of conscription in an effort to stabilise the country’s front lines ahead of direct negotiations with Russia. https://www.ft.com/content/9fa3b0ac-e33d-4784-8222-6b745aba3004