this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
305 points (99.4% liked)

News

36618 readers
1976 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Ukraine recaptured 201 square kilometres (78 square miles) from Russia between Wednesday and Sunday last week, taking advantage of a Starlink shutdown for Russian forces, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

The recaptured area is almost equivalent to the Russian gains for the entire month of December and is the most land retaken by Kyiv's forces in such a short period since a June 2023 counter-offensive.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, they did a lot of that in Vietnam, too, which is why there was a much higher percentage of minorities serving. Grab someone up for weed, and give them the choice of 10 years in jail, or 2 years in Vietnam. And the wealthy could always keep their kids out of the draft. That's what campaign donations are for.

With losses this high, Puton won't be able to keep going back to the same wells for long, and other countries won't be willing to send mercenaries for his meat grinder.

Eventually, he will have to go to the cities for soldiers.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

Puton won’t be able to keep going back to the same wells for long,

I think its already hit this point. Reports of recruitment from Russia has fallen dramatically in the last couple of months with a net loss of troops Russia is fielding considering the losses every month.

and other countries won’t be willing to send mercenaries for his meat grinder.

This is still ongoing, less so that countries are intentionally committing troops, but more from scams where nationals from abroad are tricked into coming to Russia being told they will be doing regular jobs, and only then finding out they are being assigned to Russian frontline combat units for the meat waves. The most recent high profile version of this was the adult daughter of a prominent South African politician scamming South African men to going to Russia. Some of these men lived as POWs capture by Ukraine.