As the death toll of the largest war in Europe since World War 2 mounts, the situation only seems to worsen by the day. The stories of brutal war crimes, terrible loss of life, and civilian suffering have already become widely known, and despite their horrific nature, not given too much thought. They have become simply thought of as natural products of war; once again, despite the gruesome results of such. Yet, this time, the already terrible situation has seemingly gotten far worse.

On September 21st, 2022, Vladimir Putin, head of the United Russia Party (the dominant party in Russia’s controlled democracy) and president of Russia, announced a full scale mobilization of the Russian armed forces, including the implementation of a draft. Despite Russia claiming that it has only lost 5000 soldiers in its war with Ukraine, Russia has begun a draft with the eventual goal of raising nearly 200,000 soldiers to fight in Ukraine, despite Russia’s crippling logistical problems.

The response to the draft itself within the Russian Federation has been overwhelmingly negative. Draft dodging has already been reported, especially with Russia’s strange decision to force any protesters of the draft or the war to serve in the armed forces. The violent push back against the draft has been seen in arrests of protesters, as well as a large exodus of draft eligible Russian citizens to foreign nations, with flights to Turkey reportedly sold out entirely within Russia. Russia has attempted to crackdown on this resistance with a great amount of violence, dropping the masquerade that Russia is a democracy entirely.

Even extremely violent push back against the draft has been reported. In one instance, a Russian man forced into basic training was made the target of derogatory speech by his superior officer. Unwilling to deal with the demeaning of himself, in an institution he had not voluntarily wanted to join, the man utilized the gun he had been provided for training, and shot and killed the superior officer. In another incident, a man lit himself on fire in protest of the draft, reminiscent of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc in South Vietnam, who burned himself alive to protest the persecution of Buddhism in South Vietnam. More violence, including riots, shootings, and even police flatly refusing orders have been reported.

In a frightening move in order to frighten the international community, the Russian Federation issued a nuclear threat against Ukraine. Vladimir Putin made public threats of use of the many nuclear weapons possessed by Russia against Ukraine. Russia possesses many nuclear weapons from its time as the Soviet Union, and as such, these threats of nuclear violence can be certainly considered to be frightening.

This threat has largely been met with criticism and condemnation from the international community, especially NATO. The United States quickly met these threats with their own assurances if Russia were to resort to such violent measures. The United States government released a statement that if nuclear weapons were used against Ukraine that the United States and NATO would decimate the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and take much greater action against the Russian nation. Russia has yet to comment on this.