Dmitri Kovalevich is the special correspondent in Ukraine for Al Mayadeen English. He writes monthly situation reports as well as occasional special reports, including the following.
In early August, deputies of the Ukraine president’s ‘Servant of the People’ party in the national legislature (‘Rada’) introduced a bill that provides for the conscription of forced labor of all those who have not been conscripted to the armed forces. Formally free citizens who already cannot legally leave the country due to wartime restrictions will now also be subjected to forced labor.
I don’t think that you fully understand what’s happening. This is not Call of Duty. Leave any internal political issues until the end of the war. Right now, you’re helping Russia.
Leave any internal political issues until the end of the war
and how do you imagine they’ll do that exactly? how are they even to begin resolving their political issues when all leftwing parties have been banned, unions are severely restricted, and strikes and protests have been made illegal? even if the allow for free elections again, any post-war government will have to act adhere to the neoliberal repayment programs of the IMF and other foreign actors, meaning further wage cuts, more austerity, more privatization
That’s not my business. Ukrainians have showed multiple times over the past 30 years that they know how to deal with bad politicians. Don’t try to come up and solve problems that don’t exist today. Today the country as at war and not spreading Russian propaganda the least we could do.
but these problems do exist today? that’s literally the whole point of the article. and what they’re experience today—extreme salary cuts, austerity, longer work days, poorer access to public goods—isn’t going to magically go away once the war is over. especially not when every avenue ukrainians have to protests their government is being criminalized
Okay, go ahead, attack the Ukrainian government for having poor living conditions during the war if that makes the most sense to you under given circumstances.
What is your business then exactly? Is it property, or people? You seem to be on the side of property with no regard for the conditions of the people who exist on that property.
It’s the Sargon of Akkad tactic of screaming “I don’t care!” while inserting themselves into every single conversation. Somehow they seem to think their dumb uninformed opinions are always equally worthy of merit despite doing zero homework. If you look into the thread, you’ll notice most people didn’t even read the article.
Usually, yeah, reading and investigation is the main basis for getting informed. Specially for something so far away. How do you get “informed”? Through sheer willpower and thought?
So are we just supposed to allow (heck, even support!) Ukraine despite them implementing a system of modern slavery for their people, blocking civilians from fleeing, and forced conscription, some of it even slated to last even beyond the end of the war, because to even criticise it is “helping Russia”? Helping Russia do what, exactly? Look better than Ukraine? That’s on Ukraine to be the big boy.
This is not Call of Duty, a war is waged for political reasons, and therefore the politics of it should be laid bare.
The new draft law on the mobilization of workers is intended to “ensure the functioning of the national economy under martial law”, in the words of those drafting the law. It is noteworthy that in early August, Ukraine began to talk about a likely ban against military conscripts leaving the country for three years following an eventual end to military hostilities and martial law. Just such a proposal was recently made by Vadym Denysenko […], head of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future and a former advisor to the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Denysenko said, “I am sure that even after the war it will be necessary to extend the ban on men traveling abroad for at least another three years. Otherwise, we simply will not survive as a nation.”
Please illuminate me in your wisdom, how banning people from leaving while conscripting them to either fight in the front or forced labour is not a form slavery. Whose lives are being saved by arresting people trying to flee the country?
Don’t you get it? People come and go, they live and die but what lasts is lines on maps. The lines on the map are the only thing that matters. If Russia moves the line on the map into Ukraine to cover people that want to live in Russia whats to stop them from moving other lines into other nations where people who speak Russian feel persecuted by their government and nazis?
People over here sound so much like CK2 players that I get flashbacks to the thrashfire Pagan Fury dlc soundtrack. “You don’t understand, they’re fighting a genocide! Which is why we must conscript and self-genocide the entirety of Ukraine to prevent the separatist half of Ukraine from being genocided by their allies!”
Jesus, you sound psychotic. borderline nationalist. people being forced into slavery for the sake of their countey? for the sake of the donbas? really? would you be a slave for lines on a map?
like, seriously. jews in the Holocaust did hard labor for Germany’s lines on the map. is that justified? to save germany from the allies? what is wrong with you?
Care to elaborate? AFAIK, forced labour under the threat of harm and no conditions for escape fits very well into most modern definitions of slavery. But go on, why should I support Ukraine despite this?
I don’t follow. Yes, they are at war. How does that justify labour conscriptions and banning fleeing? I do care about people not dying and having dignity, you see. But sending teenagers into slaughter or forcing them to work to that same slaughter industry doesn’t help anybody. It is basically a self-genocide by the Ukrainian government. No wonder that it started as a war against eastern Ukrainians.
Who here exactly defends genocide when the only thing I want in this war is for the suicidal tactics of the Ukrainian government to pause for a second so that civilians can flee and live better lives elsewhere? But you don’t care about that, you’re a liberal who will justify every war crime from your favourite North Atlantic countries and their puppet governments, under the guise of empathy.
See, 2 can play that game of ad hominem. Answer the question: “How is this not comparable to a modern slave state?”
Lol we’ve have a news megathread every day since the SMO started full of military, economic, historical and sociological analysis regarding every new develpoment in the region. You should stop in sometime, you might learn something.
Like how the US and it’s vassals are shoving Ukranians into the meat grinder by torpedoing every round of negotiations while buying up Ukranian land and assets at rock bottom prices. But hey, I don’t expect you forced conscription and cluster bomb enthusiasts to be well-versed in any situation when it’s so much easier to just vibe out and cheer for Our Team.
To be allowed to migrate and seek asylum because the people don’t want to die in the front for a piece of land? That’s exactly what I would want if it were me. Would you want to be conscripted for forced labour with the risk of getting sent to the front lines because of some war you don’t want to be part of? And if you say “they definitely want to be part of it,” then explain why the draft and conscription are needed in the first place.
Well, if they’re democratic they should let the people (in which case my self-insert would apply) decide what to do. But a reasonable government could, for example, negotiate an immediate ceasefire and acquiesce to the winning side’s demands to prevent further bloodshed. Or it could grab teenagers off the street and tentative migrants and send them to their deaths. Obviously, I already know that the Ukrainian government and their NATO allies prefer the latter, but we shouldn’t pretend there weren’t other options.
Edit:
What would you do if you were their absolute ruler? Surrender?
Well, yes? Assuming I give even half a fuck about people’s lives, I’d prefer a negotiated peace instead of this shitshow any day. Russia’s demands aren’t even that hard to meet, they’re just dragging this out for profit at this point.
I usually don’t spring that one on them because I’m pretty sure that a lot of Ukraine enjoyers don’t actually know about the Donbas war. It’d be a while to explain, so I try to meet them in the middle a bit, but yes, that would have been the absolute best decision back in 2014.
It’s a lemmygrad stooge. He wants them to drop their weapons, be slaughtered and raped by the glorious army of the tzar, and have Ukraine be given up as a tribute to the new Russian empire. The world has allowed past Russian rulers to slaughter millions before, why not now?
Enjoy watching Mother Russia get decimated by secondhand weapons that were mothballed in a wearhouse.
Please don’t deny reality just because it’s uncomfortable to your genocidal desires.
Russia has been holding strong to the land for about an year now, and it seems the Ukrainian counter-offensive didn’t work as advertised. Nobody should be enjoying anything in this war, including your imagined situation of Russian obliteration, but thankfully that is only your sadistic thoughts and not reality. This war needs to end ASAP, or what we will actually see is just even more of what we’re already seeing, a lot of suffering and death of both Russians and Ukrainians (but mostly Ukrainians) for absolutely nothing.
the fact that you likely genuinely believe what you wrote makes it all the more hilarious, thanks for confirming that your brain is truly as smooth as a bowling ball
Totalitarian dipshit that ruined communism. Though I am willing to overlook authoritarian wartime measures taken in the defense of the country against the invading nazi germany, because that’s what I just said no?
What’s yours of the Russian agenda? Why must Ukraine surrender its territory to an aggressor in the name of saving lives, and not the Russians get the fuck out to save lives?
I wish liberals would understand this in the context of communist movements struggling to get out from under global capitalist hegemony and violent dominance. Like, China pushing into the South China Sea is seen as terrible and authoritarian but Taiwan is literally a separatist government from the losers of the civil war protected by the global imperialists who dominated China for well over a century and have encircled China with 600+ military bases and a global torture program, among other things.
Living conditions subpar in a country fighting of a brutal invasion & genocide?
Get the fuck outta here.
This was really inevitable, yeah.
I don’t think that you fully understand what’s happening. This is not Call of Duty. Leave any internal political issues until the end of the war. Right now, you’re helping Russia.
and how do you imagine they’ll do that exactly? how are they even to begin resolving their political issues when all leftwing parties have been banned, unions are severely restricted, and strikes and protests have been made illegal? even if the allow for free elections again, any post-war government will have to act adhere to the neoliberal repayment programs of the IMF and other foreign actors, meaning further wage cuts, more austerity, more privatization
Good points, but what’s the alternative? At least Ukraine has a chance to even have internal politics after the war.
That’s not my business. Ukrainians have showed multiple times over the past 30 years that they know how to deal with bad politicians. Don’t try to come up and solve problems that don’t exist today. Today the country as at war and not spreading Russian propaganda the least we could do.
but these problems do exist today? that’s literally the whole point of the article. and what they’re experience today—extreme salary cuts, austerity, longer work days, poorer access to public goods—isn’t going to magically go away once the war is over. especially not when every avenue ukrainians have to protests their government is being criminalized
Okay, go ahead, attack the Ukrainian government for having poor living conditions during the war if that makes the most sense to you under given circumstances.
What is your business then exactly? Is it property, or people? You seem to be on the side of property with no regard for the conditions of the people who exist on that property.
It’s the Sargon of Akkad tactic of screaming “I don’t care!” while inserting themselves into every single conversation. Somehow they seem to think their dumb uninformed opinions are always equally worthy of merit despite doing zero homework. If you look into the thread, you’ll notice most people didn’t even read the article.
Oh, you think that reading nonsense online makes you smart, worthy and informed? Lol.
Usually, yeah, reading and investigation is the main basis for getting informed. Specially for something so far away. How do you get “informed”? Through sheer willpower and thought?
I think you don’t realize the irony of you saying that
So are we just supposed to allow (heck, even support!) Ukraine despite them implementing a system of modern slavery for their people, blocking civilians from fleeing, and forced conscription, some of it even slated to last even beyond the end of the war, because to even criticise it is “helping Russia”? Helping Russia do what, exactly? Look better than Ukraine? That’s on Ukraine to be the big boy.
This is not Call of Duty, a war is waged for political reasons, and therefore the politics of it should be laid bare.
They are not implementing a system of modern slavery, they’re protecting their country and fighting for their lives.
I’m quoting again:
Please illuminate me in your wisdom, how banning people from leaving while conscripting them to either fight in the front or forced labour is not a form slavery. Whose lives are being saved by arresting people trying to flee the country?
Don’t you get it? People come and go, they live and die but what lasts is lines on maps. The lines on the map are the only thing that matters. If Russia moves the line on the map into Ukraine to cover people that want to live in Russia whats to stop them from moving other lines into other nations where people who speak Russian feel persecuted by their government and nazis?
People over here sound so much like CK2 players that I get flashbacks to the thrashfire Pagan Fury dlc soundtrack. “You don’t understand, they’re fighting a genocide! Which is why we must conscript and self-genocide the entirety of Ukraine to prevent the separatist half of Ukraine from being genocided by their allies!”
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Jesus, you sound psychotic. borderline nationalist. people being forced into slavery for the sake of their countey? for the sake of the donbas? really? would you be a slave for lines on a map?
like, seriously. jews in the Holocaust did hard labor for Germany’s lines on the map. is that justified? to save germany from the allies? what is wrong with you?
You’re correct but you might wanna check your sarcasm detector lol
Yes, you should support Ukraine. No it’s not slavery.
Care to elaborate? AFAIK, forced labour under the threat of harm and no conditions for escape fits very well into most modern definitions of slavery. But go on, why should I support Ukraine despite this?
They are being invaded.
But you don’t care about that, you’re a tankie who defends genocide.
I don’t follow. Yes, they are at war. How does that justify labour conscriptions and banning fleeing? I do care about people not dying and having dignity, you see. But sending teenagers into slaughter or forcing them to work to that same slaughter industry doesn’t help anybody. It is basically a self-genocide by the Ukrainian government. No wonder that it started as a war against eastern Ukrainians.
Who here exactly defends genocide when the only thing I want in this war is for the suicidal tactics of the Ukrainian government to pause for a second so that civilians can flee and live better lives elsewhere? But you don’t care about that, you’re a liberal who will justify every war crime from your favourite North Atlantic countries and their puppet governments, under the guise of empathy.
See, 2 can play that game of ad hominem. Answer the question: “How is this not comparable to a modern slave state?”
Theres also a difference between these actions to defend a far right corrupt regime and some actual democracy
You’re excusing the genocide of the separatist regions and making up nonsense about this being ww2 2.0. You’re the real genocide denier.
Proving once again you’re just a genocide apologist willing to use “genocide” to excuse a genocide.
oh my god you’re one of those idiots
This war is a result of Ukraine’s internal political issues, namely it’s insistence on claims to territories that don’t want to be a part of Ukraine.
Ha, a throwback to my childhood.
“If we don’t send thoughtlessy load more people and munitions into the meat grinder right this minute, then the terrorists win!”
Ukraine has never asked to send people. You have no idea what’s happening and why, do you?
Lol we’ve have a news megathread every day since the SMO started full of military, economic, historical and sociological analysis regarding every new develpoment in the region. You should stop in sometime, you might learn something.
Like how the US and it’s vassals are shoving Ukranians into the meat grinder by torpedoing every round of negotiations while buying up Ukranian land and assets at rock bottom prices. But hey, I don’t expect you forced conscription and cluster bomb enthusiasts to be well-versed in any situation when it’s so much easier to just vibe out and cheer for Our Team.
He WANTS to help Russia… Don’t feed the troll.
So uh, what do you expect them to do when invaded by a foreign army?
To be allowed to migrate and seek asylum because the people don’t want to die in the front for a piece of land? That’s exactly what I would want if it were me. Would you want to be conscripted for forced labour with the risk of getting sent to the front lines because of some war you don’t want to be part of? And if you say “they definitely want to be part of it,” then explain why the draft and conscription are needed in the first place.
No, I didn’t ask what “you would want”. I mean I want a million dollars, but wanting things is easy.
I asked what should they do? What should their country do?
What would you do if you were their absolute ruler? Surrender?
Well, if they’re democratic they should let the people (in which case my self-insert would apply) decide what to do. But a reasonable government could, for example, negotiate an immediate ceasefire and acquiesce to the winning side’s demands to prevent further bloodshed. Or it could grab teenagers off the street and tentative migrants and send them to their deaths. Obviously, I already know that the Ukrainian government and their NATO allies prefer the latter, but we shouldn’t pretend there weren’t other options.
Edit:
Well, yes? Assuming I give even half a fuck about people’s lives, I’d prefer a negotiated peace instead of this shitshow any day. Russia’s demands aren’t even that hard to meet, they’re just dragging this out for profit at this point.
also I feel like ukraine should have just let the separatist regions be independent, and not try to erase them from the face of the earth
I usually don’t spring that one on them because I’m pretty sure that a lot of Ukraine enjoyers don’t actually know about the Donbas war. It’d be a while to explain, so I try to meet them in the middle a bit, but yes, that would have been the absolute best decision back in 2014.
It’s a lemmygrad stooge. He wants them to drop their weapons, be slaughtered and raped by the glorious army of the tzar, and have Ukraine be given up as a tribute to the new Russian empire. The world has allowed past Russian rulers to slaughter millions before, why not now?
fuck off dronie
Must have hit pretty close to the mark to get you all worked up there, sweetheart.
Enjoy watching Mother Russia get decimated by secondhand weapons that were mothballed in a wearhouse. Slava Ukraini!
Please don’t deny reality just because it’s uncomfortable to your genocidal desires.
Russia has been holding strong to the land for about an year now, and it seems the Ukrainian counter-offensive didn’t work as advertised. Nobody should be enjoying anything in this war, including your imagined situation of Russian obliteration, but thankfully that is only your sadistic thoughts and not reality. This war needs to end ASAP, or what we will actually see is just even more of what we’re already seeing, a lot of suffering and death of both Russians and Ukrainians (but mostly Ukrainians) for absolutely nothing.
the fact that you likely genuinely believe what you wrote makes it all the more hilarious, thanks for confirming that your brain is truly as smooth as a bowling ball
It doesn’t really matter who it is. I want to hear what he thinks a smart idea would be, from him.
Even though we don’t agree on these things, I think that’s a nice thing of you to say. Thanks!
Literally every single country on this planet will do this when forced to fight a defensive war.
Civil liberties are fine and well but in wartime that goes out the window real quick regardless of ideological orientation of the government.
Now let’s here your opinion on Stalin.
Totalitarian dipshit that ruined communism. Though I am willing to overlook authoritarian wartime measures taken in the defense of the country against the invading nazi germany, because that’s what I just said no?
What’s yours of the Russian agenda? Why must Ukraine surrender its territory to an aggressor in the name of saving lives, and not the Russians get the fuck out to save lives?
Why shouldn’t the people of the region, who really want to be a part of Russia, get to decide?
You’re fine when Texas leaves Mexico to join the US, but not when the Donbas leaves Ukraine to join Russia?
I wish liberals would understand this in the context of communist movements struggling to get out from under global capitalist hegemony and violent dominance. Like, China pushing into the South China Sea is seen as terrible and authoritarian but Taiwan is literally a separatist government from the losers of the civil war protected by the global imperialists who dominated China for well over a century and have encircled China with 600+ military bases and a global torture program, among other things.