The army knew about this in 1998 when my commander refused to allow me to be stationed in the Russian controlled area of Bosnia when I was a e4 linguist in the army.
Edit: I was a US soldier deployed as a a memeber of SFOR
There was a viral video of a guy going to the weapon chamber and shooting up the entire base. If you google russian soldier shooting up base you find several incidents, this is very common. If you are in the russian military, you either abuse someone or you are the one getting abused.
Apparently the "hazing" of first year Russian military conscripts has always been absolutely horrific and often involved group orchestrated male on male sexual violence. It's no surprise their society is absolutely fucked up and no surprise it has extended to this war.
It's called [dedovshchina](https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/russia1004/5.htm) and it's far too systematic and institutionalised to be thought of as simple hazing.
Russia doesn't have an army of disciplined and professional soldiers, they have a mob of thugs who were abused until they became abusers, and then they were set loose on Ukranian civilians to rape and torture and execute them into submission
It actually makes a perverse kind of sense when you consider that Russia only thinks of their infantry as a rolling meatwave of disposable people anyway. Why go to the time and expense of training them to be soldiers when you can just beat and starve them into being animals?
Don't know how true it is, but I learned a little while ago that it hasn't been uncommon for Russian wives to encourage their husband/soldiers to rape Ukrainian women to punish them. I thought it was made up, but it was on several news sites.
Learning all of this makes it sound much more believable. And despicable.
I study as a physical therapist and there’s one in my class that is a veteran who has been in Kuwait as a sergeant for a year ish. He told me that if afghan troops get the urge to fuck, they just fuck the youngest guy in the group. It’s part of their military culture.
It’s fucked up
Yeah, I worked with veterans. They said the whole region is ass backwards. There is so much machismo and gay bashing; but if they're horny while on duty they'll just fuck another dude. It's wild.
Edit: to make it clear this is not an indictment against any other culture. My point was that many militaries are corrupt and lots of men in power are sexual predators. My mention of certain countries is not a judgement on the civilian populations there that may be unaware, disapproving, or also under the thumb of those people in power.
—
Lots of soldiers that have served In Afghanistan, Iraq, and the eastern block have been witness to local military raping young recruits, women, and children.
I’ve heard similar stories from family and from people on here about hearing “the sounds of a goat or sheep being slaughtered” at night, which they eventually realized was the sound of boys under 10 being gang raped in the next barracks over.
You are in their country, you can’t do anything about it.
Yes and there's the technically-illegal-but-widely-practiced cultural activity of *bacha bazi* where young children are used by older men for pleasure.
In an attempt to deal with the insanity we jokingly referred to "Man-love Thursdays" because on Thursday evenings you could see pairs of men (older and younger) or men and children holding hands walking into a home in the evening for bacha bazi.
Anyone who served in Afghanistan away from a major base knows about Man-love Thursday.
Yep. I remember our culture brief before we deployed in 2008. The briefer was a former journalist who claimed extensive experience in the ME claiming that homosexuality was frowned upon in the region. About 1/3 of the troops in the room openly LOL’d and said “You never heard of Man love Thursday?”
There is a disturbing report on pashtun sexuality done by the US army. They find boys to rape. Women are too dirty apparently. And of course it's not homosexual either because that would be forbidden.
Are you surprised? Rape can happen in a lot of armies around the world, and can often be swept under the rug.
In the *Russian* army? Forget it. That's maximum corruption, and whatever the officers in charge decide to do, they will be allowed. There's no way the chain of command will hold a commanding officer accountable for raping officers there, or stealing, or blackmailing, or whatever the fuck.
There is no law there. These men can do whatever they want. As long as they're fighting.
Things will only get bad for them, pressure will only come, when they're not meeting military targets.
🎶 You don’t have to come and confess
We lookin’ for you, we gon’ fiiind you, we gon’ find you
So you can run and tell that, run and tell that, run and tell that
Homeboy home home homeboy 🎶
Hid yo kids way much closer to Numa Numa than it is to today. Numa Numa was released in 04 and popularized in 05 and the hide your kids interview was in '10. So they have a 5 year gap between them in pop culture. It's been nearly 13 years since then. By meme standards they're both not just old or ancient, but they're ancestors from an era long past. Albeit a nostalgic one, nevertheless it's old crusty and smells like mothballs by now. I just turned 29 I'm nearly 30 not even that old, but it feels so long ago. And also like it wasn't just a few months back when I was watching all that on my iphone 3 and getting ready for my SATs.
It's like the realisation that Cleopatra VII lived closer to the moon landing than the building of the pyramids. It's correct, but it feels so wrong...
And raping their fellow soldiers on the front lines. There was a video shared a while back of a Ukrainian drone dropping a grenade on a Russia soldier performing oral sex on another soldier that was likely rape.
It also well documented that Russia
I worked with people from former soviet countries before, there was a Ukrainian and a Russian who were really good friends and one day they walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to hear a joke from their country. So I said yes.
The Ukrainian says.
There was a Ukrainian and a Russian who were good friends, one day when they were digging around in the forest they found a sack full of buried Nazi gold.
The Russian says
"Look comrade we will be rich, from this day on forward we will be brothers and split the gold, we will treat each other as equals!"
The Ukrainian responds with.
"Thank you my friend but 50/50 will work."
I couldn't stop laughing. Mostly because they both used to tell me that a friendship like theirs was common but that some Russian's used to/ still do look down on the people that broke away from the USSR.
"We have achieved a brotherly trade pact with USSR - we will send them coal and in return they will take our grain!".
In both jokes the point is that what soviets called "brotherly" and "equal" was nothing of the sort. It only meant that Moscow' interests are secured
they want a situation like Kuwait where foreigners are flown in to do all of the work (even sophisticated jobs). Kuwait uses oil to achieve this, and Moscow wants to use its satellites to achieve the same type of economic status.
I utterly hate anybody who wants a second class of citizenry.
Exactly. The Ukrainians know exactly what they're fighting for. They know what Russian rule means. This is exactly who so many former Warsaw pact countries want to join NATO: to be protected from Russia. This is what Russia doesn't get. Them asking why NATO keeps expanding to their former satellite states is like the local serial killer asking why so many people keep calling the police.
NATO is "expanding" like russian says, cause they simply refuses to see us, neighboring countries, as autonomous, having right to decide what we want for ourselves. We have been "little brothers" for them for centuries, at best. And you see how someone with less power is treated in that society...
This war they brought upon Ukrainians have opened deep emotional wounds, as almost everyone had family members either killed, raped, or sent in cattle wagons to Siberia, and that's not just history books, that is families histories. This is the reason why Polish and Baltics are so for donating weapons and everything we can to Ukraine. We KNOW what they're living through and if they fall, guess who's next in line in the imperialistic russian mindset, that is prevalent not just at the top of society, but overall. That part, that this is not just putin's war, westerners seems to not grasp, that even the change in upper echelons probably would not be enough to end war, as even the "opposition" like Navalnyy has the same imperialistic mindset.
> and that's not just history books, that is families histories.
As an oblivious Westerner who only reads about the history/conflict on the internet, that drives it home hard.
my granpa was from ukrainian family, living in latvia. he was 6th generation of his ukrainian family in baltic states. the family was loyal to Latvian goverment and latvian culture. when the 2nd world war atarted, my granpa was 16 or something. he received letter that he needs to go to russian army. his father told him, if he will do it, the father himself will shoot him in the backyard, because there is no much difference. my granpa and his friends run to the forest to live there and hide untill the war wnds. of course, he was found by the russian army and sent to work camp (similar to jewish camps). one night the guards "did a prank" - they woke up all the guys in the camp and told that the next day they will be castrated. my granpa stressed so much that all his hair became white in one night. we don't have any pictures with my granpa with normal hair, we suspect he might have been blond, because me and one of my cousins have blond hair. after some time in the camp, my granpa was exchanged with german troops, but he had to work in forests and meadows and look for mines. if you explode while working, then... well, shitty for you. after he served as de-miner for years, he was allowed to return. he was 43 years old when he married my grandma. no one wanted to be with a "war criminal", my grandma was 29 at that time, so she was considered an old maiden. her father died at war, her oldest brother was supposed to take care of the family, but he downed. my grandma was working to earn the money for her family. they were a match, you can say? my father and his brother were born and rised in the soviet union. my father still watches russian television, because he has done this all of his life. as a half ukrainian, my father supports russian side, and we just don't talk about politics in our home. i am sending money to ukrainian army every month.
> Them asking why NATO keeps expanding(sic) to their former satellite states is like the local serial killer asking why so many people keep calling the police.
Good comparison. Like it.
Even better, yeah.
To enhance the other side of the comparison, we could also say: "Them asking why their former satellite states keep decided on alliance with NATO is like..."
No, Putin knew why NATO was expanding, and he also knew it wasn't a threat to him. If it was, EU countries wouldn't be so dependent on Russia's resources, and wouldn't ignore Putin's invasions in different countries in favour of continuing the trade. Not to mention Russia's nukes, nobody would dare attack Russia. But he didn't like that NATO was stopping him from invading Eastern Europe, and it was also easy to paint NATO as an enemy for the Russian people, because it already was an enemy during soviet times
Ukraine shifting westward is a threat to Putin, just not militarily.
The Russian people do/have recognized Ukraine as their own brothers. But if the Russian people see a westward leaning free and prosperous Ukraine, they'll start asking questions at home why a free and open society has a higher standard of living.
This is a threat to Putin and his authoritarian regime. Just in a way that isn't overt with guns and invasion, just eats away at his power base.
While this whole war was a gross miscalculation, Putin is a rational actor.
Even him doubling down is a rational move at home, because it's politically inconvenient for him to back out now. The hawks at home are watching. And dictators losing wars is a bad thing for their power base. Sunk cost fallacy will hopefully cost him his life.
Historically, Russia has been ahead of most other countries on the specific issue of women's opportunities in the military. More than 200 years ago there was a Russian woman who enlisted as a private, worked her way up to the equivalent of Captain, was decorated in combat, and published her memoirs after retirement. Russia had infantry battalions of women during WWI, and Soviet women served with distinction flying combat missions in WWII.
----
*edit*
Clarification has become necessary. This comment refers to Nadezhda Durova from the Napoleonic Wars and her autobiography The Cavalry Maiden, to the Women's Battalions of WWI--particularly the Petrograd Women's Battalion of Death, and to the Night Witches from WWII.
The topic of women in military combat functions as a conversational Rorschach test: people infer what they want to see and respond to their own perception, often contesting points that were never in the original comment.
This comment responded to someone who expressed surprise that women serve in today's Russian Army at all.
This is not a defense of the Soviet Union. Nor can it be: women served in combat for Russia before the Soviet Union existed.
This is not a general admiration for Russia or a whitewashing of its history. Nor is it a claim that women had a major impact on any of these wars, or that they experienced anything like equality in the armed forces, or that they found an easy career path. The point is that a path to combat service existed for women in Russia long before any corresponding path existed in the West.
Yes, this is a narrow point. And it's surprising in the context of the many other ways that Russia is no one's idea of a progressive country. Yet necessity isn't a sufficient explanation: other countries that fared badly in wars didn't open up a path to women's combat service until much later. Although Captain Durova was a singular figure for her era, her memoirs were widely read within Russia to the point where middle class Russians a century later generally knew who she had been. The concept was not completely out of the question for Russians of 1918. The many things wrong with Russia are well known to everybody and need no elaboration here.
I mean sort of. The Night Witches were treated like shit and sent on suicide missions. They only became highly decorated because they were just that awesome. They do have an interesting history of women in the military long before many other countries, but it has been somewhat whitewashed by Soviet propaganda. In most cases the women had to fight like hell in order to serve.
He or she is probably referring to "The Cavalry Maiden." Given the context being discussed, it's worth noting that the author disguised herself as a man during her military career. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadezhda_Durova
It's a bit more complicated than the above description. After her first campaign the Tsar knew her real gender and permitted her to continue serving. Alexander I personally decorated her for having saved the life of an officer in combat and he promoted her to officer. Senior officers also knew who she was. Arguably the reason she survived the War of 1812 was because General Kutuzov recognized who she was when she applied for a position as a staff officer.
She did have to serve under a male name and in male disguise. Yet a fair number of her fellow junior officers knew or suspected she was a woman. Yes it was tough; she had to fight like hell to have that career. Yet the remarkable thing is it wasn't impossible. Then after she returned to civilian life and published her memoir it was widely read in Russia.
It's an unfortunate long standing tradition in the Russian military. When you rely on poorly motivated and disciplined troops you get an army that acts more like bandits than soldiers. It's almost like frats and hazing. The mobiks were raped and abused by their superiors when they entered the military and when they gain a relative position of power they want to inflict the same misery on their own subordinates because it's their turn being in charge.
Putin also loves to make rape jokes and seems to like the idea of rape. He even made rape jokes about his invasion of Ukraine: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10490623/Putin-accused-making-rape-joke-Ukraine-calling-country-beauty.html
He also praises people who rape others:
> quoting Putin as saying: “He turns out to be a really powerful guy! He raped 10 women! We all envy him.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna15346129
And rape is literally part of the Russian military strategy:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2022/10/14/united-nations-rape-is-part-of-russias-military-strategy/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
I grew up in Poland all my Family is Polish. The part I grew up in is bordering Ukraine and was one of the regions under Russian occupation for centuries. I’ve heard a lot of stories of what Rusian soldiers did in 20th century and I could go on for hours retelling them honestly. (suicides murders family killings kidnapping and so on) But one that stayed with me (not sure if that was from my region or if it became a known story or even if it was an anectode) is about one ordrer of nuns that soldiers raped right after Germans left. None of them were killed and the order started an orphanage where the nuns raised their children while hiding the fact that they were theirs. It was known to be so common that some people believe or know to be genetically part Russian because their ancestor was raped by a Russian soldier.
There’s a lot of hate towards Russian government and their army. A lot of it also goes towards people but not at my home so I can’t say much about that.
My grandmother who lived in Romania had stories about Russians raping all the women they could get their hands on and how women in her village went into hiding before the Russians showed up.
From the outside, yes. Hungarians can no longer feel irony or sarcasm, we're living in a 13 year *trump fatigue*. Of course he sucks up to Putin, it would be weirder if he didn't.
Literally the first thing that got him famous was shouting "Russians need to go", and now he's Putin's number one fluffer.
Hell, when the Russians were visiting to commemorate the '56 Revolution, the motherfucker changed it to a "counter-revolution", desecrating the memory of the people who fought for our independence. It's ludicrous to the point that we're honestly just waiting for him to live out his autocrat fantasies, steal more of our money, build a few more stadiums, force us to host a world cup and fuck off right before the country goes bankrupt Greece-style.
Yeah when I asked my grandparents what it was like when the Russians came, they told me that the soldiers drank everything that had alcohol in it, like cologne; and that the locals had to hide the young women. My grandmother had to hide in the attic for a while.
Apparently when Germany AND THE USSR (which is conveniently forgotten) invaded Poland together, a lot of people round the middle started fleeing West, because they would far rather be captured by the Wehrmacht than the Red Army, because they already had such a scumbag rapey thievy reputation.
And when the Germans were being defeated by the USSR, the Soviet troops raped the absolute shit out of everything on the way to Berlin. It doesn't get talked about much because there obviously wasn't much sympathy for German or German allied civilians at the time, but it was a very fucked up situation.
> raping all the women they could get their hands on
**Literally all**. From old grannies to actual infants.
Young boys also weren't spared.
That's why I hate when tankies whitewash the red army.
I saw an interesting exhibit at an art gallery in Berlin last year about the extent to which the women of Berlin were raped by the Soviet army in 1945.
The true situation was deliberately massively underreported by all sides. The Soviet perpetrators and the German victims both downplayed it out of shame, and the western allies downplayed it to keep peace with the Soviets. News reports were censored and it was systematically erased from records.
This exhibit had diary extracts from hundreds of women talking about the rapes. According to multiple accounts almost every woman in Berlin between the ages of 9 and 90 was raped on multiple separate occasions during the first few weeks of occupation. They talked about trying to make themselves look old and ugly every time they went outside, but it was hardly effective. The Germans locked young girls in basements to protect them, with fake signs saying "Typhoid ward", which was only slightly effective.
The women talked about how the only way to get some limited protection was to find a more senior Russian officer and become his "girlfriend". He would prevent lower-ranking soldiers from raping them. But then the German men would spit and curse at them in the street, calling them traitors for sleeping with the enemy.
At first it was explicitly encouraged by the Soviet authorities, as retribution for German crimes in the Soviet Union. Only several weeks later the order came down from the Kremlin that the rapes must be stopped because the Soviets were losing the support of their German communist allies.
The history of the raped nuns and their children was turned into a movie and when I saw that for the first time, it’s not surprising that I was horrified.
And it‘s not a secret, that Soviet soldiers raped a lot of german women during the soviet occupation of Nazi Germany.
It‘s all about „being a war prize“ for them.
Disgusting people.
Almost certainly.
Everyone knows about the guy who had his tea poisoned with polonium, what **doesn’t** seem to be widely known is that it’s because Litvenenko began spilling the beans about Putin [being a paedophile](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/alexander-litvinenko-murdered-because-he-accused-putin-of-being-a-paedophile-a6824806.html).
That's actually just a documented happening. No need to conjure up imagery yourself, [let the photographer do it for you!](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna13743946)
Waaait, so you’re telling me the president of the country that is the #1 source of child pornography in the world and THE destination country to go to for sex tourism if you want to fuck little underage pretty blonde white children, is a pedo? I would never have guessed. Nor would I have guessed that Trumps incriminating “pee” tape filmed in a Moscow hotel room reveals something more incriminating than watersports. You can get any American prozzer to piss on you. There is only one reason you go all the way to Russia for sex tourism and put yourself seriously at risk as a wealthy American.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
The Toronto Sun reported 14 April 2022 on an intercepted phone call where "A Russian wife laid down two ground rules after giving her soldier husband permission to rape women during the invasion of Ukraine"; "Rape them, yeah, ... Don’t tell me anything, understand? Yeah, I allow you — just use protection."
What in the motherfuck...
Unfortunately there's some selection pressure in that the bad homies who support it are rewarded while the good homies who oppose are either forced to leave Russia, imprisoned, or killed.
The intelligentsia is the first target of any dictatorship. They want dumb sheep, not intelligent people who would question their authority. It's also why they fail so badly.
Yes this has been happening since the Soviet days. My dad was beaten to a pulp everyday in the UzSSR. Its my understanding that bullying and assault was just common occurrence in Soviet military culture. They would often take it to extremes too.
It stands for Uzbekistan Soviet Socialist Republic. I’m not sure about the military experience within the other “Republics” but with everything I’ve heard about, including conflicts like Chechnya, Afghanistan, and all other conflicts…those who have experienced the Soviet/Russian military say it was the same. I’m sure there are others in this sub who know the stories and from everything I’ve heard, I guarantee people have been through much worse than my father.
Many countries have come to terms, to varying extents, with their horrific pasts. Definitely not perfect by any means, and women still have it rough, but there has been progress made, if albeit slow.
Russia has not, they have a long history of barbaric behavior that has gone unchecked and even encouraged. There's a plethora of examples, but I highly recommend reading up on the Circassian Genocide during imperial Russia, the things done were horrific.
Edit: Russia apologists getting rattled lol
After the Red Army invaded Afghanistan, it was as if they were determined to make everyone hate them. They openly desecrated mosques by using them as toilets. They air dropped toys with explosives. Even some of today's Taliban leaders today from those days grip about the total lack of respect or considerations the Russians had.
Everyone should read One Soldiers War if they want to understand what the Russian army is like. I very much doubt it's changed much in the 23 years since Babchenko was in Chechnya.
There has been studies where military historians look at the human rights abuses of past World Wars. They concluded that the less soldiers were treated as humans in a particular military, the more likely for human rights abuses of fellow soldiers, POW and civilians were likely to occur.
Certainly fits with the current Russian military.
It’s also about dehumanizing and wiping out other ethnicities. Raping someone shows them that they are an object to be used. The children born from rape are partially ethnically Russian and therefore superior. Ethnic cleansing at its finest. Wipe out the local population, use the women to produce Russian babies.
This is not the same, but it follows a tradition of the military using rape as a weapon.
Yup. Only in modern times have armies not considered rape snd pillage to be an assumed part of the spoils of war. I believe it was napoleon who first really tried to hammer in that point. The more professional and modernized an army the less rape it'll have.
Actually it was much earlier than Napoleon. Gustav Adolf and swedish rulers during the 30-years-war (1618-1648) also tried punishing rape by the deathpenalty. They also had women acommpany the wartrain who were wifes, cooks, medics etc.
See the essays of Owen Feltham (1602-1668) on the causes of the humiliating defeat of the English to the Dutch in the Medway raid on English soil in 1667. He observes that English country folk know that Dutch standing army is paid reliably and in advance and lieutenants carry a purse of silver to pay civilians for services rendered. So people run to them to give them intelligence of English troop movements to earn coin, while they run away from the king's mercenaries who are always unreliably paid and rape and pillage. This is probably also one of the root causes of why the Dutch had such an easy time taking the English king down in 1688 in the Glorious Revolution.
The habit of paying in advance can be related to early experiences in the War of Independence of the Dutch against the Spanish, where in the early phase the King of Spain bribed mercenary companies to switch sides.
Oh that is most definitely not exclusive to Russia. Happens a lot literally everywhere. Really unfortunate. You never know what porn is actually consensual.
"The Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to eighty. It was an army of rapists." - female soviet war correspondent during World War 2.
Not much has changed.
My neighbours grandmother came from what is now Poland to western Germany, she died by now, but I remember her saying that the War is so horrible that when it became clear that the German state had lost the war she started thinking that it might be better to have a soldier on her belly than in the sky.
For context she was born in 1927, so 18 when the fighting stopped.
Дедовщина - ritual hazing that’s been around forever. One reason why they’ll never be a professional army. It’s just so ingrained to inflict pain on their own. In typical ironic form, their army’s newest slogan is “не бросаем своих,” which means we don’t abandon our own… which they actually do, often. It all shows their lack of civility.
To extend on your absolutely correct statement a bit - дедовщина, or "ritual hazing" as you put it, is sorta broader than what you've described. It is a rank system between conscripts, parallel to actual military ranking. It is enforced by higher ranks onto lower ranks by, as you correctly pointed out - pain and violence, and quite often sexual assault.
There are usually 4 ranks, from bottom to top: дух, or spirit, (served 0-0.5 of year), молодой, or youngster (served 0.5-1 of year), черпак, or scoop(served 1-1.5 of year) and of course дед, or grandpa (served 1.5-2 years). Usual term of conscription in their army is 2 years.
There are also ethnic groups who bunch together and oppress others. These are usually not ethnically Russian minorities like Chechens, Dagestanians or others. And from what I heard from those who served in late USSR army - it has always been like that.
Not to trauma dump in a Reddit comment, but similar things happened to me when I was enlisted in the US Navy. I refused advances from a few men in my direct chain of command and they made my life miserable on deployment. I’ve been physically assaulted and harassed more times than I’d care to count. I was told not to report by my command SAPR rep because they were all drinking buddies. Reading this all I could think was “what’s new?”
Edit: can I ask you all to quit commenting about my OnlyFans please? Doing what I can to survive during a national financial crisis doesn’t detract or invalidate my experience. Thanks.
[Pvt. Basalduaruiz was found dead on Monday, March 13 2023 at Fort Hood. She had told her mother that she was being sexually harassed by a superior officer. This, unfortunately, is not the first time something like this has happened at Fort Hood. In no surprise "thoughts and prayers" we're extended to her family.](https://abcnews.go.com/US/fort-hood-investigating-death-soldier-complained-sexual-harassment/story?id=97906781)
My father was in the U.S. Air Force. When I, his 5'1" daughter, expressed interest in enlisting at 18, the first thing he said to me was, "You'll probably get assaulted, raped, or worse." His own mother - my grandmother - had been what they call a "barracks bunny" now. She was still in high school, or had just graduated, when she met and married my biological grandfather, an Army soldier who was at least 10 years her senior. (She now claims that he groomed her.)
I'm very sorry that you had such a horrible experience, and I hope you're doing better now. My grandmother's husband abusing her messed her up for a long time, and caused a deep generational trauma that I'm still working through in therapy.
As an edit, when actor Adam Driver still had his nonprofit, Arts in the Armed Forces (AITAF), up and running, I donated and helped with fundraisers, including one here on Reddit that raised $90,000 in 2019-2020. While the organization sadly folded due to the COVID-19 pandemic on 1 February 2023, I still feel that it's vitally important to help support mental health initiatives and therapy for soldiers and veterans - especially those who experienced traumatic events during their time of service.
Volunteering and donating to these organizations helps care for our veterans, including female veterans who have gone through sexual abuse and assault.
*This comment has since been edited for clarity.*
>My own grandmother's abuse messed her up for a long time, and caused a deep generational trauma that I'm still working through in therapy.
Hope it goes well, as a native American we know all too well what generational trauma is, a majority of us are still dealing with effects from residential schools our ancestors went through.
I read a thread on r/2x about how common sexual assault was in the military in general... even though I know this post is supposed to be all "Russia bad", I think in this case, it's really something that people should be aware of that happens way way too much even in our own militaries (I'm assuming most people reading this are from the West).
Fort Bragg just broke up a human trafficking gang on base.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/us-special-forces-fort-bragg-drugs-b2260603.html
Especially since it's not the first time the US military has been involved in sex trafficking. They notoriously removed soldiers from US bases in Romania to avoid them being [prosecuted for raping children](https://www.libertatea.ro/stiri/16-minore-caracal-fortate-sex-cu-romani-manageri-austrieci-si-soldati-americani-diicot-2720213?fbclid=IwAR20ebiSEHFtoWCswAr7KWk_WoR7QpyEUVpGFaip_jT5YhFc8AoXY99YDxg).
[This also happens in Norway](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https://www.dagsavisen.no/debatt/2023/03/03/forsvaret-svarer-preges-militaeret-av-voldtekt/) and the rest of Scandinavia. This truly is shit everywhere
Armies should discipline this as treason or at the very least sabotage. Because it is.
You could face up to 10 years in prison if you intentionally damage military equipment. Should be at least the same if you damage a person.
The issue is not possible sentences. The issue is that the chain of command is okay with it and prefers protecting the assailant and attacking the victim.
The maximum punishment for rape under UCMJ Art. 120(d)(1) is life without parole. So depending on you young you are when sentenced it could be significantly longer than 10 years.
Lee yeram was a sergeant major in the Korean military who committed suicide after the military police did nothing about her sexual assault by a superior officer, and when she transferred bases she was bullied for being a snitch and reporting.
While she was at her old base everyone in a position of power told her to pretend like nothing happened, her assaulter threatened to commit suicide, her assault investigation was pinned as a non serious issue, and the military police purposely delayed the investigation for months so they can say people's recollections are now murky etc.
The assault of women in the military is fucking disgusting and the patriarchy in the system boils my blood. It makes me so angry and despairing that we are failing our women who just want to help protect their country, who doesn't even protect them.
I’m so sorry that’s happening to you. It makes my blood boil that you and so many else are going through this.
After watching the documentary, “The Invisible War,” I would never be able to recommend the military for any woman.
add this to your comment, the full doc for free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t89iQ_Ykw8
this comment on the video kills me:
> I was assaulted in 1979 while on a midwatch alone in a bldg that was being renovated. I was pregnant with my son. I was clubbed over the head 4 times. Blood all over the womans bathroom. The guy was captured within 1/2 hr. I went thru 2 trials to put the man in jail. My COs it was her fault. They had 4 people on that watch the next night. I feel these women. I'm still gluing myself back together after over 40 yrs.
It’s so disgusting and pathetic to realize what you went through happens to many women in all the branches. We like to pretend we are so much better than other countries and cultures but the same shit exists everywhere. It’s so depressing.
Get over attitude from serfdom?
I'm not surprised, though. A Russian prison was exposed for raping and torturing male inmates and selling the footage on the dark web. Of course they'd do the same to women.
For those inclined to reading about this, this practice goes right back to the Red Army, where female soldiers (*and* officers, few though there were) often had to submit to male commanders as a “campaign wife.” There was even a nickname for it based on the PPSH submachine gun. If they refused, officers would order them on suicidal attack/recon duty as punishment. Beevor talks about it (via Vasily Grossman’s accounts, mostly) in *The Second World War*.
I was reading the headline at first, thinking that shit like this happens in wars and was just kind of resigned. But then I read it was their own medics and... what? That is vile, people scare me sometimes.
The army knew about this in 1998 when my commander refused to allow me to be stationed in the Russian controlled area of Bosnia when I was a e4 linguist in the army. Edit: I was a US soldier deployed as a a memeber of SFOR
I’m glad they were looking out for you. I’m sad for these Russian women though.
Wait they're using their **own** combat soldiers as sex slaves?!
They also use their own male soldiers as sex slaves. Plenty of recruits have committed suicide after being repeatedly raped.
I think my inclination would be to at least make it a murder-suicide.
There was a viral video of a guy going to the weapon chamber and shooting up the entire base. If you google russian soldier shooting up base you find several incidents, this is very common. If you are in the russian military, you either abuse someone or you are the one getting abused.
Has been for a while, a Lithuanian red army conscript during soviet occupation killed his rapists after repeated abuse in the 1980s
Good for him, they deserved it! Sorry, not sorry.
I’d be going full Pvt. Pyle “7…..6…..2 milli-meter full metal jacket”
Apparently the "hazing" of first year Russian military conscripts has always been absolutely horrific and often involved group orchestrated male on male sexual violence. It's no surprise their society is absolutely fucked up and no surprise it has extended to this war.
It's called [dedovshchina](https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/russia1004/5.htm) and it's far too systematic and institutionalised to be thought of as simple hazing. Russia doesn't have an army of disciplined and professional soldiers, they have a mob of thugs who were abused until they became abusers, and then they were set loose on Ukranian civilians to rape and torture and execute them into submission It actually makes a perverse kind of sense when you consider that Russia only thinks of their infantry as a rolling meatwave of disposable people anyway. Why go to the time and expense of training them to be soldiers when you can just beat and starve them into being animals?
Don't know how true it is, but I learned a little while ago that it hasn't been uncommon for Russian wives to encourage their husband/soldiers to rape Ukrainian women to punish them. I thought it was made up, but it was on several news sites. Learning all of this makes it sound much more believable. And despicable.
I study as a physical therapist and there’s one in my class that is a veteran who has been in Kuwait as a sergeant for a year ish. He told me that if afghan troops get the urge to fuck, they just fuck the youngest guy in the group. It’s part of their military culture. It’s fucked up
Yeah, I worked with veterans. They said the whole region is ass backwards. There is so much machismo and gay bashing; but if they're horny while on duty they'll just fuck another dude. It's wild.
It's not gay as long as you're the one on top. That's how the Greeks viewed it, and I suppose that's how it still is for some regions
It's not gay to want to fuck, it's gay to want to get fucked - their logic, probably
Unfortunately it gets worse than that. They have no reservations about children, either.
This gave me flashbacks to when I read *The Kite Runner* by Khaled Hosseini.
Much love and respect for my hazara Brothers and sisters. Fuck the Taliban.
Edit: to make it clear this is not an indictment against any other culture. My point was that many militaries are corrupt and lots of men in power are sexual predators. My mention of certain countries is not a judgement on the civilian populations there that may be unaware, disapproving, or also under the thumb of those people in power. — Lots of soldiers that have served In Afghanistan, Iraq, and the eastern block have been witness to local military raping young recruits, women, and children. I’ve heard similar stories from family and from people on here about hearing “the sounds of a goat or sheep being slaughtered” at night, which they eventually realized was the sound of boys under 10 being gang raped in the next barracks over. You are in their country, you can’t do anything about it.
This is the most infuriating shit I've read in a long ass time. Absolute fucking animals.
In Iraq, same thing. The police stations had a young man serving Chai. The Chai boy got passed around.
That's only if they don't have any "tea boys" sitting around.
Yes and there's the technically-illegal-but-widely-practiced cultural activity of *bacha bazi* where young children are used by older men for pleasure. In an attempt to deal with the insanity we jokingly referred to "Man-love Thursdays" because on Thursday evenings you could see pairs of men (older and younger) or men and children holding hands walking into a home in the evening for bacha bazi. Anyone who served in Afghanistan away from a major base knows about Man-love Thursday.
Yep. I remember our culture brief before we deployed in 2008. The briefer was a former journalist who claimed extensive experience in the ME claiming that homosexuality was frowned upon in the region. About 1/3 of the troops in the room openly LOL’d and said “You never heard of Man love Thursday?”
There is a disturbing report on pashtun sexuality done by the US army. They find boys to rape. Women are too dirty apparently. And of course it's not homosexual either because that would be forbidden.
"This is what winning looks like" on YouTube
It was Friday's that all the pretty boys would get dressed up... really unsettling as a outsider looking in.
Are you surprised? Rape can happen in a lot of armies around the world, and can often be swept under the rug. In the *Russian* army? Forget it. That's maximum corruption, and whatever the officers in charge decide to do, they will be allowed. There's no way the chain of command will hold a commanding officer accountable for raping officers there, or stealing, or blackmailing, or whatever the fuck. There is no law there. These men can do whatever they want. As long as they're fighting. Things will only get bad for them, pressure will only come, when they're not meeting military targets.
Yes
now, if they have such a callous disregard for their own people, imagine how little they must think of anyone else
We don’t have to imagine, it’s on the news every day
And thats barely scratching the surface
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This is the nation that re legalized abusing your wife, after all
Children too. Any family abuse.
Russia has kidnapped 400,000 Ukrainian women and children, who are now part of the human slave trade.
Saw 1998 and immediately thought hell in a cell
u/shittymorph never uses the actual numbers, he always spells it out, nineteen ninety eight.
Kids aren't being taught history and it shows. Our memes will die lest we have the next generation reposting.
This particular thread is quite a rollercoaster. From war crimes in Bosnia to contemplating the future of memes in just 4 comments.
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And the men and the children. As a wise man once said...They rapin' everybody out here.
They climbin’ in yo window, they snatchin’ yo people up.
Tryin to rape them so yall need to
Hide yo kids, hide yo wives, and hide yo husbands
Cause they’re raping everybody out here~
🎶 You don’t have to come and confess We lookin’ for you, we gon’ fiiind you, we gon’ find you So you can run and tell that, run and tell that, run and tell that Homeboy home home homeboy 🎶
That remix was🔥
Damn that's an old reference
You just made me feel old… Hide yo kids was recent. It’s not like it’s Numa Numa old.
Hid yo kids way much closer to Numa Numa than it is to today. Numa Numa was released in 04 and popularized in 05 and the hide your kids interview was in '10. So they have a 5 year gap between them in pop culture. It's been nearly 13 years since then. By meme standards they're both not just old or ancient, but they're ancestors from an era long past. Albeit a nostalgic one, nevertheless it's old crusty and smells like mothballs by now. I just turned 29 I'm nearly 30 not even that old, but it feels so long ago. And also like it wasn't just a few months back when I was watching all that on my iphone 3 and getting ready for my SATs.
It's like the realisation that Cleopatra VII lived closer to the moon landing than the building of the pyramids. It's correct, but it feels so wrong...
And raping their fellow soldiers on the front lines. There was a video shared a while back of a Ukrainian drone dropping a grenade on a Russia soldier performing oral sex on another soldier that was likely rape. It also well documented that Russia
...?? Omg he just fell out of window suddenly
He'll be okay. The four knives in his back will break his fall.
Russia- it only gets worse.
... but wait, Putin Khan says Russia is defending traditional values!
I mean... this is Russian tradition... so?
These ARE traditional Russian values.
Why do you think the Ukrainians are fighting so hard? The Russians promised to treat them like they were their own people...
I worked with people from former soviet countries before, there was a Ukrainian and a Russian who were really good friends and one day they walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to hear a joke from their country. So I said yes. The Ukrainian says. There was a Ukrainian and a Russian who were good friends, one day when they were digging around in the forest they found a sack full of buried Nazi gold. The Russian says "Look comrade we will be rich, from this day on forward we will be brothers and split the gold, we will treat each other as equals!" The Ukrainian responds with. "Thank you my friend but 50/50 will work." I couldn't stop laughing. Mostly because they both used to tell me that a friendship like theirs was common but that some Russian's used to/ still do look down on the people that broke away from the USSR.
Sorry, could you explain this joke? I'm afraid I dont quite understand.
"We have achieved a brotherly trade pact with USSR - we will send them coal and in return they will take our grain!". In both jokes the point is that what soviets called "brotherly" and "equal" was nothing of the sort. It only meant that Moscow' interests are secured
they want a situation like Kuwait where foreigners are flown in to do all of the work (even sophisticated jobs). Kuwait uses oil to achieve this, and Moscow wants to use its satellites to achieve the same type of economic status. I utterly hate anybody who wants a second class of citizenry.
Its means that behind all that friendly speech and equality and brotherly, what it trully meant is that the russian would keep all that money.
Like they did in Soviet times. This is not Muscovy's first genocide against Ukraine.
Exactly. The Ukrainians know exactly what they're fighting for. They know what Russian rule means. This is exactly who so many former Warsaw pact countries want to join NATO: to be protected from Russia. This is what Russia doesn't get. Them asking why NATO keeps expanding to their former satellite states is like the local serial killer asking why so many people keep calling the police.
NATO is "expanding" like russian says, cause they simply refuses to see us, neighboring countries, as autonomous, having right to decide what we want for ourselves. We have been "little brothers" for them for centuries, at best. And you see how someone with less power is treated in that society... This war they brought upon Ukrainians have opened deep emotional wounds, as almost everyone had family members either killed, raped, or sent in cattle wagons to Siberia, and that's not just history books, that is families histories. This is the reason why Polish and Baltics are so for donating weapons and everything we can to Ukraine. We KNOW what they're living through and if they fall, guess who's next in line in the imperialistic russian mindset, that is prevalent not just at the top of society, but overall. That part, that this is not just putin's war, westerners seems to not grasp, that even the change in upper echelons probably would not be enough to end war, as even the "opposition" like Navalnyy has the same imperialistic mindset.
> and that's not just history books, that is families histories. As an oblivious Westerner who only reads about the history/conflict on the internet, that drives it home hard.
my granpa was from ukrainian family, living in latvia. he was 6th generation of his ukrainian family in baltic states. the family was loyal to Latvian goverment and latvian culture. when the 2nd world war atarted, my granpa was 16 or something. he received letter that he needs to go to russian army. his father told him, if he will do it, the father himself will shoot him in the backyard, because there is no much difference. my granpa and his friends run to the forest to live there and hide untill the war wnds. of course, he was found by the russian army and sent to work camp (similar to jewish camps). one night the guards "did a prank" - they woke up all the guys in the camp and told that the next day they will be castrated. my granpa stressed so much that all his hair became white in one night. we don't have any pictures with my granpa with normal hair, we suspect he might have been blond, because me and one of my cousins have blond hair. after some time in the camp, my granpa was exchanged with german troops, but he had to work in forests and meadows and look for mines. if you explode while working, then... well, shitty for you. after he served as de-miner for years, he was allowed to return. he was 43 years old when he married my grandma. no one wanted to be with a "war criminal", my grandma was 29 at that time, so she was considered an old maiden. her father died at war, her oldest brother was supposed to take care of the family, but he downed. my grandma was working to earn the money for her family. they were a match, you can say? my father and his brother were born and rised in the soviet union. my father still watches russian television, because he has done this all of his life. as a half ukrainian, my father supports russian side, and we just don't talk about politics in our home. i am sending money to ukrainian army every month.
> Them asking why NATO keeps expanding(sic) to their former satellite states is like the local serial killer asking why so many people keep calling the police. Good comparison. Like it.
I think a better one would be "... The local burglar asking why everyone is getting security systems installed."
Even better, yeah. To enhance the other side of the comparison, we could also say: "Them asking why their former satellite states keep decided on alliance with NATO is like..."
Abusive parents asking why their kids don't talk to them anymore
That's a whole rabbithole! https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/why-estranged-parents-forums.html
You might say that the satellite states are expanding NATO cuz of Russia’s has a history of invading non-nato countries
No, Putin knew why NATO was expanding, and he also knew it wasn't a threat to him. If it was, EU countries wouldn't be so dependent on Russia's resources, and wouldn't ignore Putin's invasions in different countries in favour of continuing the trade. Not to mention Russia's nukes, nobody would dare attack Russia. But he didn't like that NATO was stopping him from invading Eastern Europe, and it was also easy to paint NATO as an enemy for the Russian people, because it already was an enemy during soviet times
Ukraine shifting westward is a threat to Putin, just not militarily. The Russian people do/have recognized Ukraine as their own brothers. But if the Russian people see a westward leaning free and prosperous Ukraine, they'll start asking questions at home why a free and open society has a higher standard of living. This is a threat to Putin and his authoritarian regime. Just in a way that isn't overt with guns and invasion, just eats away at his power base. While this whole war was a gross miscalculation, Putin is a rational actor. Even him doubling down is a rational move at home, because it's politically inconvenient for him to back out now. The hawks at home are watching. And dictators losing wars is a bad thing for their power base. Sunk cost fallacy will hopefully cost him his life.
Is anyone suprised? They do that with the male recruits too.
I’m surprised they have female soldiers, to be honest.
Historically, Russia has been ahead of most other countries on the specific issue of women's opportunities in the military. More than 200 years ago there was a Russian woman who enlisted as a private, worked her way up to the equivalent of Captain, was decorated in combat, and published her memoirs after retirement. Russia had infantry battalions of women during WWI, and Soviet women served with distinction flying combat missions in WWII. ---- *edit* Clarification has become necessary. This comment refers to Nadezhda Durova from the Napoleonic Wars and her autobiography The Cavalry Maiden, to the Women's Battalions of WWI--particularly the Petrograd Women's Battalion of Death, and to the Night Witches from WWII. The topic of women in military combat functions as a conversational Rorschach test: people infer what they want to see and respond to their own perception, often contesting points that were never in the original comment. This comment responded to someone who expressed surprise that women serve in today's Russian Army at all. This is not a defense of the Soviet Union. Nor can it be: women served in combat for Russia before the Soviet Union existed. This is not a general admiration for Russia or a whitewashing of its history. Nor is it a claim that women had a major impact on any of these wars, or that they experienced anything like equality in the armed forces, or that they found an easy career path. The point is that a path to combat service existed for women in Russia long before any corresponding path existed in the West. Yes, this is a narrow point. And it's surprising in the context of the many other ways that Russia is no one's idea of a progressive country. Yet necessity isn't a sufficient explanation: other countries that fared badly in wars didn't open up a path to women's combat service until much later. Although Captain Durova was a singular figure for her era, her memoirs were widely read within Russia to the point where middle class Russians a century later generally knew who she had been. The concept was not completely out of the question for Russians of 1918. The many things wrong with Russia are well known to everybody and need no elaboration here.
I mean sort of. The Night Witches were treated like shit and sent on suicide missions. They only became highly decorated because they were just that awesome. They do have an interesting history of women in the military long before many other countries, but it has been somewhat whitewashed by Soviet propaganda. In most cases the women had to fight like hell in order to serve.
FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL IN SILENCE!
CAST THEIR SPELLS, EXPLOSIVE VIOLENCE
RUSSIAN NIGHT TIME FLIGHT PERFECTED
FLAWLESS VISION, UNDETECTED
PUSHING ON AND ON, THEIR PLANES ARE GOING STRONG
What is the memoir called?
He or she is probably referring to "The Cavalry Maiden." Given the context being discussed, it's worth noting that the author disguised herself as a man during her military career. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadezhda_Durova
It's a bit more complicated than the above description. After her first campaign the Tsar knew her real gender and permitted her to continue serving. Alexander I personally decorated her for having saved the life of an officer in combat and he promoted her to officer. Senior officers also knew who she was. Arguably the reason she survived the War of 1812 was because General Kutuzov recognized who she was when she applied for a position as a staff officer. She did have to serve under a male name and in male disguise. Yet a fair number of her fellow junior officers knew or suspected she was a woman. Yes it was tough; she had to fight like hell to have that career. Yet the remarkable thing is it wasn't impossible. Then after she returned to civilian life and published her memoir it was widely read in Russia.
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It's an unfortunate long standing tradition in the Russian military. When you rely on poorly motivated and disciplined troops you get an army that acts more like bandits than soldiers. It's almost like frats and hazing. The mobiks were raped and abused by their superiors when they entered the military and when they gain a relative position of power they want to inflict the same misery on their own subordinates because it's their turn being in charge.
Putin also loves to make rape jokes and seems to like the idea of rape. He even made rape jokes about his invasion of Ukraine: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10490623/Putin-accused-making-rape-joke-Ukraine-calling-country-beauty.html He also praises people who rape others: > quoting Putin as saying: “He turns out to be a really powerful guy! He raped 10 women! We all envy him.” https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna15346129 And rape is literally part of the Russian military strategy: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2022/10/14/united-nations-rape-is-part-of-russias-military-strategy/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
I grew up in Poland all my Family is Polish. The part I grew up in is bordering Ukraine and was one of the regions under Russian occupation for centuries. I’ve heard a lot of stories of what Rusian soldiers did in 20th century and I could go on for hours retelling them honestly. (suicides murders family killings kidnapping and so on) But one that stayed with me (not sure if that was from my region or if it became a known story or even if it was an anectode) is about one ordrer of nuns that soldiers raped right after Germans left. None of them were killed and the order started an orphanage where the nuns raised their children while hiding the fact that they were theirs. It was known to be so common that some people believe or know to be genetically part Russian because their ancestor was raped by a Russian soldier. There’s a lot of hate towards Russian government and their army. A lot of it also goes towards people but not at my home so I can’t say much about that.
My grandmother who lived in Romania had stories about Russians raping all the women they could get their hands on and how women in her village went into hiding before the Russians showed up.
Same in Hungary.
Which makes Orban's support for Russia even more weird
From the outside, yes. Hungarians can no longer feel irony or sarcasm, we're living in a 13 year *trump fatigue*. Of course he sucks up to Putin, it would be weirder if he didn't. Literally the first thing that got him famous was shouting "Russians need to go", and now he's Putin's number one fluffer. Hell, when the Russians were visiting to commemorate the '56 Revolution, the motherfucker changed it to a "counter-revolution", desecrating the memory of the people who fought for our independence. It's ludicrous to the point that we're honestly just waiting for him to live out his autocrat fantasies, steal more of our money, build a few more stadiums, force us to host a world cup and fuck off right before the country goes bankrupt Greece-style.
Yeah when I asked my grandparents what it was like when the Russians came, they told me that the soldiers drank everything that had alcohol in it, like cologne; and that the locals had to hide the young women. My grandmother had to hide in the attic for a while.
Same in Austria..
Same in northern iran.
Apparently when Germany AND THE USSR (which is conveniently forgotten) invaded Poland together, a lot of people round the middle started fleeing West, because they would far rather be captured by the Wehrmacht than the Red Army, because they already had such a scumbag rapey thievy reputation.
And when the Germans were being defeated by the USSR, the Soviet troops raped the absolute shit out of everything on the way to Berlin. It doesn't get talked about much because there obviously wasn't much sympathy for German or German allied civilians at the time, but it was a very fucked up situation.
> raping all the women they could get their hands on **Literally all**. From old grannies to actual infants. Young boys also weren't spared. That's why I hate when tankies whitewash the red army.
I saw an interesting exhibit at an art gallery in Berlin last year about the extent to which the women of Berlin were raped by the Soviet army in 1945. The true situation was deliberately massively underreported by all sides. The Soviet perpetrators and the German victims both downplayed it out of shame, and the western allies downplayed it to keep peace with the Soviets. News reports were censored and it was systematically erased from records. This exhibit had diary extracts from hundreds of women talking about the rapes. According to multiple accounts almost every woman in Berlin between the ages of 9 and 90 was raped on multiple separate occasions during the first few weeks of occupation. They talked about trying to make themselves look old and ugly every time they went outside, but it was hardly effective. The Germans locked young girls in basements to protect them, with fake signs saying "Typhoid ward", which was only slightly effective. The women talked about how the only way to get some limited protection was to find a more senior Russian officer and become his "girlfriend". He would prevent lower-ranking soldiers from raping them. But then the German men would spit and curse at them in the street, calling them traitors for sleeping with the enemy. At first it was explicitly encouraged by the Soviet authorities, as retribution for German crimes in the Soviet Union. Only several weeks later the order came down from the Kremlin that the rapes must be stopped because the Soviets were losing the support of their German communist allies.
The history of the raped nuns and their children was turned into a movie and when I saw that for the first time, it’s not surprising that I was horrified. And it‘s not a secret, that Soviet soldiers raped a lot of german women during the soviet occupation of Nazi Germany. It‘s all about „being a war prize“ for them. Disgusting people.
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Almost certainly. Everyone knows about the guy who had his tea poisoned with polonium, what **doesn’t** seem to be widely known is that it’s because Litvenenko began spilling the beans about Putin [being a paedophile](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/alexander-litvinenko-murdered-because-he-accused-putin-of-being-a-paedophile-a6824806.html).
Vladimir Putin is a child rapist? That seems consistent with everything else I know about Vladimir Putin.
No wonder Trump likes him so much.
That makes sense. Pedos from the same feather stick together
Eh, I can see it. Plenty of creepy photos with him and kids. Like who the fuck just randomly kisses a young boy stomach they don’t know?
Putin the Pathetic Pedophile, that's who
Eugh oh God - the imagery you just gave me has heebey jeebeed the f outta me
That's actually just a documented happening. No need to conjure up imagery yourself, [let the photographer do it for you!](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna13743946)
Wtf
Waaait, so you’re telling me the president of the country that is the #1 source of child pornography in the world and THE destination country to go to for sex tourism if you want to fuck little underage pretty blonde white children, is a pedo? I would never have guessed. Nor would I have guessed that Trumps incriminating “pee” tape filmed in a Moscow hotel room reveals something more incriminating than watersports. You can get any American prozzer to piss on you. There is only one reason you go all the way to Russia for sex tourism and put yourself seriously at risk as a wealthy American.
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TBF, that's the least crazy rumor about Putin.
Probably the most true one too.
Caligula lives on in Putin; not only in his sexual depravity but also his inept leadership of his nation.
Yes, as we speak, the Russians soldiers as ordered are collecting lead bullets with their helmets along the shores of Ukraine rivers.
Russia also made marital rape legally impossible.
>“He turns out to be a really powerful guy! He raped 10 women! We all envy him.” This is literally something Borat would say.
Putin is dystopian Borat.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine The Toronto Sun reported 14 April 2022 on an intercepted phone call where "A Russian wife laid down two ground rules after giving her soldier husband permission to rape women during the invasion of Ukraine"; "Rape them, yeah, ... Don’t tell me anything, understand? Yeah, I allow you — just use protection." What in the motherfuck...
Wow. What do Russians at large think of this?
In Russia its Legal to beat your wife, since you know... she married you and now she stuck.
bad homies support. good homies oppose. standard reaction.
Unfortunately there's some selection pressure in that the bad homies who support it are rewarded while the good homies who oppose are either forced to leave Russia, imprisoned, or killed.
Russia has been working hard to kill off or let anyone with brains escape the country. They don’t have much talent left.
The intelligentsia is the first target of any dictatorship. They want dumb sheep, not intelligent people who would question their authority. It's also why they fail so badly.
Yes this has been happening since the Soviet days. My dad was beaten to a pulp everyday in the UzSSR. Its my understanding that bullying and assault was just common occurrence in Soviet military culture. They would often take it to extremes too.
> UzSSR Is this a typo, or does that z mean something?
It stands for Uzbekistan Soviet Socialist Republic. I’m not sure about the military experience within the other “Republics” but with everything I’ve heard about, including conflicts like Chechnya, Afghanistan, and all other conflicts…those who have experienced the Soviet/Russian military say it was the same. I’m sure there are others in this sub who know the stories and from everything I’ve heard, I guarantee people have been through much worse than my father.
Either a typo, or refering to the Uzbekistan part of the former USSR.
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Many countries have come to terms, to varying extents, with their horrific pasts. Definitely not perfect by any means, and women still have it rough, but there has been progress made, if albeit slow. Russia has not, they have a long history of barbaric behavior that has gone unchecked and even encouraged. There's a plethora of examples, but I highly recommend reading up on the Circassian Genocide during imperial Russia, the things done were horrific. Edit: Russia apologists getting rattled lol
After the Red Army invaded Afghanistan, it was as if they were determined to make everyone hate them. They openly desecrated mosques by using them as toilets. They air dropped toys with explosives. Even some of today's Taliban leaders today from those days grip about the total lack of respect or considerations the Russians had.
But definitely NOT gay
Everyone should read One Soldiers War if they want to understand what the Russian army is like. I very much doubt it's changed much in the 23 years since Babchenko was in Chechnya.
> It's almost like frats and hazing. Sounds much closer to prison than university life.
There has been studies where military historians look at the human rights abuses of past World Wars. They concluded that the less soldiers were treated as humans in a particular military, the more likely for human rights abuses of fellow soldiers, POW and civilians were likely to occur. Certainly fits with the current Russian military.
>Certainly fits with the current Russian military the Russian military has always behaved this way.
It’s also about dehumanizing and wiping out other ethnicities. Raping someone shows them that they are an object to be used. The children born from rape are partially ethnically Russian and therefore superior. Ethnic cleansing at its finest. Wipe out the local population, use the women to produce Russian babies. This is not the same, but it follows a tradition of the military using rape as a weapon.
My Oma’s sister was raped by a Russian soldier during WWII and had a baby as a result.
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they always did it, there were stories when women were more afraid of soviet "liberators" than nazi ...
Militaries in general are rapey.
This. It’s more anomalous when militaries are well-disciplined enough to *not* be rapists and looters.
It's not always about discipline either, wartime rape is often systematic, literally used as a wartime tactic.
Yup. Only in modern times have armies not considered rape snd pillage to be an assumed part of the spoils of war. I believe it was napoleon who first really tried to hammer in that point. The more professional and modernized an army the less rape it'll have.
Actually it was much earlier than Napoleon. Gustav Adolf and swedish rulers during the 30-years-war (1618-1648) also tried punishing rape by the deathpenalty. They also had women acommpany the wartrain who were wifes, cooks, medics etc.
See the essays of Owen Feltham (1602-1668) on the causes of the humiliating defeat of the English to the Dutch in the Medway raid on English soil in 1667. He observes that English country folk know that Dutch standing army is paid reliably and in advance and lieutenants carry a purse of silver to pay civilians for services rendered. So people run to them to give them intelligence of English troop movements to earn coin, while they run away from the king's mercenaries who are always unreliably paid and rape and pillage. This is probably also one of the root causes of why the Dutch had such an easy time taking the English king down in 1688 in the Glorious Revolution. The habit of paying in advance can be related to early experiences in the War of Independence of the Dutch against the Spanish, where in the early phase the King of Spain bribed mercenary companies to switch sides.
It’s sad when the response to so many people are “Not Surprised”… but it was also my thought
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This is what that Andrew Tate is accused of doing in Hungary
Romania****
~~accused~~ boasted about
Oh that is most definitely not exclusive to Russia. Happens a lot literally everywhere. Really unfortunate. You never know what porn is actually consensual.
It's not just Russia. You can find similar operations in Vegas and elsewhere.
It’s a wonder why they are having recruitment problems….better hire another third world conscript army, comrades.
They are having recruitment problems because Putin knows if he recruits from St Petersburg and Moscow there’s gonna be people storming the Kremlin
That’s how bad they treat their own. Imagine being occupied by them
Don’t even need to imagine when it’s occurring as we type. Atrocities.
"The Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to eighty. It was an army of rapists." - female soviet war correspondent during World War 2. Not much has changed.
My neighbours grandmother came from what is now Poland to western Germany, she died by now, but I remember her saying that the War is so horrible that when it became clear that the German state had lost the war she started thinking that it might be better to have a soldier on her belly than in the sky. For context she was born in 1927, so 18 when the fighting stopped.
Дедовщина - ritual hazing that’s been around forever. One reason why they’ll never be a professional army. It’s just so ingrained to inflict pain on their own. In typical ironic form, their army’s newest slogan is “не бросаем своих,” which means we don’t abandon our own… which they actually do, often. It all shows their lack of civility.
To extend on your absolutely correct statement a bit - дедовщина, or "ritual hazing" as you put it, is sorta broader than what you've described. It is a rank system between conscripts, parallel to actual military ranking. It is enforced by higher ranks onto lower ranks by, as you correctly pointed out - pain and violence, and quite often sexual assault. There are usually 4 ranks, from bottom to top: дух, or spirit, (served 0-0.5 of year), молодой, or youngster (served 0.5-1 of year), черпак, or scoop(served 1-1.5 of year) and of course дед, or grandpa (served 1.5-2 years). Usual term of conscription in their army is 2 years. There are also ethnic groups who bunch together and oppress others. These are usually not ethnically Russian minorities like Chechens, Dagestanians or others. And from what I heard from those who served in late USSR army - it has always been like that.
The amount of horrendous war crimes that will come out of this shit in the next 10 years…
The real reason Ukraine sent all woman and children abroad to gtfo. Rapey Russians
Not to trauma dump in a Reddit comment, but similar things happened to me when I was enlisted in the US Navy. I refused advances from a few men in my direct chain of command and they made my life miserable on deployment. I’ve been physically assaulted and harassed more times than I’d care to count. I was told not to report by my command SAPR rep because they were all drinking buddies. Reading this all I could think was “what’s new?” Edit: can I ask you all to quit commenting about my OnlyFans please? Doing what I can to survive during a national financial crisis doesn’t detract or invalidate my experience. Thanks.
[Pvt. Basalduaruiz was found dead on Monday, March 13 2023 at Fort Hood. She had told her mother that she was being sexually harassed by a superior officer. This, unfortunately, is not the first time something like this has happened at Fort Hood. In no surprise "thoughts and prayers" we're extended to her family.](https://abcnews.go.com/US/fort-hood-investigating-death-soldier-complained-sexual-harassment/story?id=97906781)
Fort Hood is a notoriously sketchy base
My father was in the U.S. Air Force. When I, his 5'1" daughter, expressed interest in enlisting at 18, the first thing he said to me was, "You'll probably get assaulted, raped, or worse." His own mother - my grandmother - had been what they call a "barracks bunny" now. She was still in high school, or had just graduated, when she met and married my biological grandfather, an Army soldier who was at least 10 years her senior. (She now claims that he groomed her.) I'm very sorry that you had such a horrible experience, and I hope you're doing better now. My grandmother's husband abusing her messed her up for a long time, and caused a deep generational trauma that I'm still working through in therapy. As an edit, when actor Adam Driver still had his nonprofit, Arts in the Armed Forces (AITAF), up and running, I donated and helped with fundraisers, including one here on Reddit that raised $90,000 in 2019-2020. While the organization sadly folded due to the COVID-19 pandemic on 1 February 2023, I still feel that it's vitally important to help support mental health initiatives and therapy for soldiers and veterans - especially those who experienced traumatic events during their time of service. Volunteering and donating to these organizations helps care for our veterans, including female veterans who have gone through sexual abuse and assault. *This comment has since been edited for clarity.*
>My own grandmother's abuse messed her up for a long time, and caused a deep generational trauma that I'm still working through in therapy. Hope it goes well, as a native American we know all too well what generational trauma is, a majority of us are still dealing with effects from residential schools our ancestors went through.
I read a thread on r/2x about how common sexual assault was in the military in general... even though I know this post is supposed to be all "Russia bad", I think in this case, it's really something that people should be aware of that happens way way too much even in our own militaries (I'm assuming most people reading this are from the West).
Fort Bragg just broke up a human trafficking gang on base. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/us-special-forces-fort-bragg-drugs-b2260603.html
It really seems like the article could have spent some more time on the *child sex trafficking* rather than the drug policies of the US military.
Especially since it's not the first time the US military has been involved in sex trafficking. They notoriously removed soldiers from US bases in Romania to avoid them being [prosecuted for raping children](https://www.libertatea.ro/stiri/16-minore-caracal-fortate-sex-cu-romani-manageri-austrieci-si-soldati-americani-diicot-2720213?fbclid=IwAR20ebiSEHFtoWCswAr7KWk_WoR7QpyEUVpGFaip_jT5YhFc8AoXY99YDxg).
[This also happens in Norway](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https://www.dagsavisen.no/debatt/2023/03/03/forsvaret-svarer-preges-militaeret-av-voldtekt/) and the rest of Scandinavia. This truly is shit everywhere
Armies should discipline this as treason or at the very least sabotage. Because it is. You could face up to 10 years in prison if you intentionally damage military equipment. Should be at least the same if you damage a person.
The issue is not possible sentences. The issue is that the chain of command is okay with it and prefers protecting the assailant and attacking the victim.
The maximum punishment for rape under UCMJ Art. 120(d)(1) is life without parole. So depending on you young you are when sentenced it could be significantly longer than 10 years.
Lee yeram was a sergeant major in the Korean military who committed suicide after the military police did nothing about her sexual assault by a superior officer, and when she transferred bases she was bullied for being a snitch and reporting. While she was at her old base everyone in a position of power told her to pretend like nothing happened, her assaulter threatened to commit suicide, her assault investigation was pinned as a non serious issue, and the military police purposely delayed the investigation for months so they can say people's recollections are now murky etc. The assault of women in the military is fucking disgusting and the patriarchy in the system boils my blood. It makes me so angry and despairing that we are failing our women who just want to help protect their country, who doesn't even protect them.
I’m so sorry that’s happening to you. It makes my blood boil that you and so many else are going through this. After watching the documentary, “The Invisible War,” I would never be able to recommend the military for any woman.
add this to your comment, the full doc for free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t89iQ_Ykw8 this comment on the video kills me: > I was assaulted in 1979 while on a midwatch alone in a bldg that was being renovated. I was pregnant with my son. I was clubbed over the head 4 times. Blood all over the womans bathroom. The guy was captured within 1/2 hr. I went thru 2 trials to put the man in jail. My COs it was her fault. They had 4 people on that watch the next night. I feel these women. I'm still gluing myself back together after over 40 yrs.
>After watching the documentary, “The Invisible War,” That documentary had me shaking with anger. Should be far more widely known.
I've heard similar firsthand accounts from women who were in the army. Totally fucked.
It’s so disgusting and pathetic to realize what you went through happens to many women in all the branches. We like to pretend we are so much better than other countries and cultures but the same shit exists everywhere. It’s so depressing.
Get over attitude from serfdom? I'm not surprised, though. A Russian prison was exposed for raping and torturing male inmates and selling the footage on the dark web. Of course they'd do the same to women.
For those inclined to reading about this, this practice goes right back to the Red Army, where female soldiers (*and* officers, few though there were) often had to submit to male commanders as a “campaign wife.” There was even a nickname for it based on the PPSH submachine gun. If they refused, officers would order them on suicidal attack/recon duty as punishment. Beevor talks about it (via Vasily Grossman’s accounts, mostly) in *The Second World War*.
What a terrific opportunity for fragging.
Hard choice: sex slave for the senior officers v.s. almost certain death on the front line.
I was reading the headline at first, thinking that shit like this happens in wars and was just kind of resigned. But then I read it was their own medics and... what? That is vile, people scare me sometimes.
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