[somenameforme]

You're conflating two things. There is indeed conscription in Russia, Scandinavia, and many countries in the world where people are expected to do some period of time of military training within a country. These people are generally not used in active conflicts, though it does entail enrollment in the equivalent of Selective Service in the US meaning they can be called up later (2 years in Russia) for "real" service in the case of a draft/mobilization. Russia carried out a limited mobilization once early on in the war in 2022, and it was horrifically unpopular, leading to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians from the country. People don't want to risk being called up to possibly die for a war they may not even agree with. Since then they have relied exclusively on volunteer forces.

Ukraine, by contrast, immediately after the war began they made it illegal for men of "fighting age", which they define as between the ages of 18 and 60, to leave the country. And they have been relying on forced conscription for an ever larger percent of their entire armed forces since then. This is why you can find countless highly disturbing videos of Ukrainian TCC (conscription) officers brutalizing and even killing civilians in efforts to conscript them and throw them on the front lines. Wiki has some sampling of incidents here [1] which I will not quote. In many cases they are, again, quite disturbing.

People really have no clue what they are supporting over there.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_Center_of_Recruitm...

[mopsi]

You forgot to mention the widespread coercion of Russian conscripts into "voluntarily" enlisting for the war in Ukraine. Stories like this are extremely common:

  Semyon* (name changed) was conscripted in Chelyabinsk, in the Urals, having served in the Pskov region of northwestern Russia for the first five months, where he was asked to sign a contract several times but refused. On 20 April, he was transferred to the Chebarkul garrison and signed up for professional service after just two and a half hours.

  His mother says that on the way to the unit he complained of being actively pressured into signing a contract, after which Semyon was taken to a separate office, where a sergeant fired a gun next to him and showed him a video of dead and wounded people, threatening that the same thing would happen to him if he didn’t sign. Semyon broke under the pressure, his family says. On the same day, he applied to have the contract annulled, saying he had signed under duress, asking for it to be declared invalid as the commander had not yet signed it, but to no avail.

https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/05/14/unwilling-signat...

Not to mention authorities raiding places like gyms to get the conscripts in the first place:

  Russian police are targeting migrants and draft-age men in a wave of raids on gyms and martial arts clubs across major cities, with activists describing them as part of a broader crackdown that intensified ahead of the country’s spring military draft. Lawyers in multiple regions told Sever Realii that gym raids now happen at least twice a month in major cities. Russian citizens are typically sent to enlistment offices, while foreign nationals are taken to temporary detention centers. Many are ultimately deported.

  In one raid, a military officer reportedly accompanied police to hand out conscription notices directly. Activists say authorities are also targeting naturalized citizens who have obtained Russian passports but avoided military service, pressuring them to sign military contracts under threat of deportation or loss of citizenship.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/01/russian-police-rai...

[tim333]

There's a difference that Ukraine had not much choice after being invaded but a larger enemy, aside from maybe surrendering and letting Putin take over. Russia's invasion however was almost entirely their choice and could be stopped tomorrow if Putin just told them to stop.

[somenameforme]

That's a bit of a false dichotomy as the early terms were relatively modest but, in general terms, I would agree with the point you're making. However the issue you run into is that the exact same arguments were made in favor of slavery. For instance even Aristotle some 2400 years ago predicted the end of slavery, if slaves only were not necessary:

"For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, 'Of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods.' If, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves." [1]

Of course society could have gotten by without slavery, but it wouldn't have been as convenient, particularly for the wealthy and political classes who were the exact sort that could afford to own slaves. And the exact same is true of conscription. If people are not willing to die for the political class of a country, who are the political class to insist they die for them? And the greatest irony is that the most 'brave' of the political class are often made up of cowards and draft dodgers themselves. But it's an entirely different game when it's not their life on the line anymore.

People, who live in a time when humans in warfare are obsoleted, will look back upon this as even more vile and barbaric than slavery. And they'll damn us all for it. Yet it's an issue that "we", the people without power, mostly do not even really think about one way or the other - because it's just how it is. We might speak out against it, those in affected regions might even start their own 'Underground Railroads' to escape tyranny, but everybody knows it won't end.

[1] - https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.mb.txt