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[Helgoland]

Draft. And that's what makes it so weird - nationalistic Western Ukrainian warhawks are running from the draft like Belgians (), while ethnically Russian guys from Ukrainian - controlled parts of Donetskaya and Luganskaya oblasts go and fight for their country.

My spin on this observation: Western Ukrainians haven't seen the war as being on their doorstep yet, and so have little motivation to fight. The people of the war-ravaged region however have seen the Russians destroy their homes, the homes of their neighbors, the homes of their friends - and they want to fight back.

[Mr. Strange]

Draft. And that's what makes it so weird - nationalistic Western Ukrainian warhawks are running from the draft like Belgians (), while ethnically Russian guys from Ukrainian - controlled parts of Donetskaya and Luganskaya oblasts go and fight for their country.

So... did I get this right? Those ethnic russians living in the eastern Ukraine that were being persecuted by Ukranian facist junta are willing to fight and die, to not be liberated and annexed by glorious mother Russia?
Another way to look at it is to ask what western Ukraine has to lose in this war, at worst they get another dictator that bends over for Russia lording over them.


Also, completely unrelated to the war in Ukraine, what's this I keep hearing about hundreds of Russian solders dying in Rostov Oblast these days?

[Sergarr]

Draft. And that's what makes it so weird - nationalistic Western Ukrainian warhawks are running from the draft like Belgians (), while ethnically Russian guys from Ukrainian - controlled parts of Donetskaya and Luganskaya oblasts go and fight for their country.

My spin on this observation: Western Ukrainians haven't seen the war as being on their doorstep yet, and so have little motivation to fight. The people of the war-ravaged region however have seen the Russians destroy their homes, the homes of their neighbors, the homes of their friends - and they want to fight back.

Doesn't explain people from Odessa and Kiev oblasts going to fight.

Your explanation - is wrong.

[Baffler]

It's also possible that the quote is taken out of context and includes or straight up refers to civilian casualties, which would logically drive the overall numbers up quite a bit higher in places where there actually are civilian casualties than where there aren't.

[Helgoland]

Draft. And that's what makes it so weird - nationalistic Western Ukrainian warhawks are running from the draft like Belgians (), while ethnically Russian guys from Ukrainian - controlled parts of Donetskaya and Luganskaya oblasts go and fight for their country.

My spin on this observation: Western Ukrainians haven't seen the war as being on their doorstep yet, and so have little motivation to fight. The people of the war-ravaged region however have seen the Russians destroy their homes, the homes of their neighbors, the homes of their friends - and they want to fight back.

Doesn't explain people from Odessa and Kiev oblasts going to fight.

Your explanation - is wrong.

I was merely referring to the quote from Knit... And even for those from Kiev and Odessa the war is closer than for those from Lviv.

[Knit tie]

Draft. And that's what makes it so weird - nationalistic Western Ukrainian warhawks are running from the draft like Belgians (), while ethnically Russian guys from Ukrainian - controlled parts of Donetskaya and Luganskaya oblasts go and fight for their country.

My spin on this observation: Western Ukrainians haven't seen the war as being on their doorstep yet, and so have little motivation to fight. The people of the war-ravaged region however have seen the Russians destroy their homes, the homes of their neighbors, the homes of their friends - and they want to fight back.

Funny how it's the other way around, actually. Rebels have so far incurred incalculably less collateral damage than Ukrainian forces, and this is reflected by the sheer number of photos and videos of destroyed civilian homes being posted by each side. Besides, even the people from oblasts untouched by war, as long as they are not in Western Ukraine, go and fight with almost no draft dodging. Only the most rabidly nationalistic Western Ukrainians run.

@Mr. Strange: Oh, they are not being persecuted - this war has nothing to do with ethnicity. Neither they need to be pro-Ukrainian or anti-Russian to not avoid the draft. It's all in the Slavic mentality, you see - when you get a call to fight for your country, you shut up and do it period, as evidenced by all the people from Central Ukraine, which will not be attacked by the rebels, whose repeatedly stated goal is only to get the Ukrainian Army out of Donetskaya and Luganskaya oblasts, also not dodging the draft. Only the Western Ukraine, where the support of Ukrainian nationalism is the strongest, had large numbers of would-be conscripts literally running for their lives. Oftentimes, into Russia.

@Baffler: I am sorry, I don't get what you are talking about.

[Helgoland]

Rebels have so far incurred incalculably less collateral damage than Ukrainian forces, and this is reflected by the sheer number of photos and videos of destroyed civilian homes being posted by each side.

Internal logic of this sentence aside, what does the relative amount of damage caused by each side have to do with anything? If my house is destroyed in the course of a Russian invasion (or what I perceive as such), I won't care which side fired the shell that wrecked it. Even if I happen to share the same ethnicity as the invaders.

Besides, even the people from oblasts untouched by war, as long as they are not in Western Ukraine, go and fight with almost no draft dodging. Only the most rabidly nationalistic Western Ukrainians run.

As I said, it's about being close to the action. If fighting started in Belgium I'd be more worried - and thus more inclined to act - than if fighting broke out in some random piece of ex-GDR.
And you display a dangerously collectivist attitude here - you claim, in effect, that all Western Ukrainians are rabidly nationalistic and dodge the draft. Either that, or you argue that nationalists from Western Ukraine are more likely to dodge than the average Western Ukrainian, which makes even less sense.

[Knit tie]

I think we are misunderstanding each other here. What that post told us is that the mobilisation was proceeding as planned everywhere except for the Western Ukraine, which is also known for having the highest number of vocal Ukrainian nationalists. So apparently, Ukrainian nationalists, despite their vocal support of the war, are also less willing to actually fight in it than people from less nationalistic oblasts - maybe this is due to closeness to the action, maybe due to something else, but all I was saying is that there is this positive correlation between the number of Ukrainian nationalists in an oblast and the number of draft dodgers in it.

[Helgoland]

So apparently, Ukrainian nationalists, despite their vocal support of the war, are also less willing to actually fight in it than people from less nationalistic oblasts

But here you make the step from correlation to causation... How many radical nationalists are there in the West? Are their noumbers significant enough to have an impact on dodge rates, or are they simply a very vocal minority?

[Knit tie]

So apparently, Ukrainian nationalists, despite their vocal support of the war, are also less willing to actually fight in it than people from less nationalistic oblasts

But here you make the step from correlation to causation... How many radical nationalists are there in the West? Are their noumbers significant enough to have an impact on dodge rates, or are they simply a very vocal minority?

Ukraine is not the West, to be exact, the Western Ukrainian population in general is - and always was - nationalistic. In the same way the population of, say, Jordan believes in Allah, the denizens of the Western Ukraine believe in the Ukrainian nation. And the resistance of the Western Ukraine to mobilisation is not limited to individual people refusing to show up for mobilisation - Yuri also comments on how entire villages have purposefully avoided being delivered official draft notices and how members of the local administration have actively sabotaged the mobilisation efforts. All in all, the resistance to mobilisation there was several orders of magnitude higher than in other parts of Ukraine. Although, perhaps, you are right.

[smjjames]

I wonder how similar it is to draft dodging in the Vietnam War? Then again, probably more a combination of political views against the war and not wanting to die because, well, Vietnam was a bloody war.

[Knit tie]

Ladies and gentlemen, dynamic graphs of Russian basic social opinion indicators. As we can see here, nobody is going to overthrow Putin any time soon.

[smjjames]

Lolwut webroot, why do you like to mark sites from Russia as unsafe sometimes?

Also, wow on the massive dip in the unemployment index in 2008, was that you guys getting hit by ripple effects from the crisis we were having over here at that time? Unemployment index is a bit confusing, seems like it's upside down? Because 96 unemployment, really?? Or rather, maybe it should be employment index? The way that they did that graph is confusing my logic sense.

[Knit tie]

According to the Russian version of the site, unemployment index = (a-b)+100, where a is the % of people who are feeling that unemployment is decreasing and b is the % of people who are feeling that unemployment is increasing. So low unemployment index means that there are more people thinking that umeployment is increasing than there are people thinking that unemployment is decreasing and vice versa.

[Knit tie]

Wait, it's not the unemployment index but the percentage of people who think that the unemployment is getting better/worse?

Yes, the website I linked deals exclusively with polls and opinions, economic research is not its domain. I think I should edit the original post, not that you mention it.