this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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Lured with promise of Russian bride & job, 2 tortured for refusing to join army | Times of India (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
submitted 7 months ago by fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

"No bobs or vagene for you. But avoid the army and you'll face torture" perfectly sums up the state of orcland these days.

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[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 70 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Pretty rough, from what I understand:

  • Promised jobs in Germany
  • sent to Bangkok instead
  • Taken to Belarus
  • Taken across border into Russia, kept at camps.

Once in Russia, they were told to join the Russian Army. To motivate them, they were:

  • Offered Russian work visas, brides, and passports
  • Denied food and water when they refused.
  • Burned with heated wood and matchsticks, cut with knives, and other torture methods
  • Threated with knives and guns
  • Finally arrested for illegally entering the Russia.

I've heard other reports of people from India getting forced into fighting for Russia after fraudulent job offers, so it seems like this is becoming fairly widespread.

[–] gaael@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago

Thanks for this summary that's a lot better than the title which implies they went to Russia voluntarily to "get wives".

[–] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 29 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Kidnapping foreigners to fight in their genocidal war is a new low for Russians, but it's not like I'm surprised.

And no, shit like this wouldn't be fixed by replacing Putin – he's not the cause of everything that's wrong with Russia, he's a symptom.

[–] jabjoe@feddit.uk 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's the Russia Putin has created.

[–] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

They have a centuries-long history of extremely brutal and downright psychopathic rule. You really need to read up on Russian history if you think that Putin is the reason things are the way they are.

edit: just ran into this relevant article: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4560963-is-the-problem-putins-russia-or-mother-russia/

Analysts of Russia differ about many things, but the most important difference concerns their interpretation of the roots of Russia’s ongoing aggression. One side argues that Russian history and political culture are to blame — or, to put it more simply, uniquely Russian characteristics are the cause of Russian aggression. The other side argues that the causes are not uniquely Russian, but typical of the behavior of certain kinds of states, regimes, societies and leaders.

Unsurprisingly, historians of Russia and Ukraine tend to fall into the first camp

[–] Zeritu@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They also had Gorbačёv. It's not like all their leaders were psychos, it's just that when they get one who isn't, they hate him.

[–] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Eeeeeeexactly. The few times Russians have managed to produce or acquire leaders who weren't sociopaths, they were fairly universally hated.

It's just incredibly short sighted of people to think that Putin is some kind of an anomaly and that he alone is the reason why Russians are so fucked up, when they have a centuries-long history of genocides, violent repressions by various secret police organizations, colonialism etc. Nobody seems to even understand that Russia is still a colonial empire, just one with contiguous borders

EDIT: Some Russian genocides and ethnic cleansings over the years

Just to drive the point home, here's a list I copied from an earlier comment of mine of just the easiest to find genocides and ethnic cleansings perpetrated by Russians that I found with a minimum of searching based on what I remember from history. Note that there's some overlap between these, so you can't just sum the "victims" column to get a total victim count.

Date Event Victims
1785 – 2017 Chechen genocide 500,000 – 900,000 deaths
1800 – 1870 Circassian genocide 1,500,000 – 2,000,000 deaths
1850s – ongoing Cultural genocide by Russification in colonized areas Hard to estimate. Millions, with many minority cultures lost
1920s – 1930s Genocide of the Ingrian Finns Ingrian population reduced from 140,000 – 160,000 before the persecution to 19,000 today
1920s – ??? Ethnic cleansings on the Kola Peninsula Nordic population of the Kola peninsula dropped from 20% to 0.2%
1930 – 1952 Cultural genocide by forced migration in the Soviet Union 6,000,000 deported
1932 – 1933 Genocide of Ukrainians in the Holodomor 3,800,000 – 5,300,000 deaths
2015 – ??? Syrian, Russian forces carrying out ethnic cleansing around Aleppo, Turkmen accuse Russia of ethnic cleansing in Syria air strikes Tens of thousands displaced and/or dead
2022 – ongoing Genocide in the current Ukraine war ???
2023 – ongoing Pogroms in the Caucasus ???
[–] jabjoe@feddit.uk 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Well I hope we are both differently wrong and we get a peaceful Russia some time soon. Doesn't seam possible with Putin and there doesn't seam much hope after him, but let's hope there is.

[–] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 1 points 7 months ago

Oh yeah, I wouldn't mind being wrong, but unfucking Russia would be an absolutely monumental task and like you said it doesn't seem like there's much hope of it happening. Here's to hoping, I guess

[–] Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It is really an ongoing low. There have been reports of this with nepalese "joining" the Russian military for a year now. Some may have been voluntary but many took jobs as private support staff only to be sent to the front.

[–] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, they've been kidnapping Indians too and literally torturing them if they refuse to join the army.

Wonderful culture, such nice people.

[–] Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I think it is important to remember to separate the regime from the people. This has nothing to do with the Russian public. We know there is real opposition, it is just heavily suppressed.

Please remember that dehumanizing a culture or group is one of the ways used to justify treating them exactly how the Russian regime is these people.

[–] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It's not some abstract regime that is routinely torturing people in Ukraine and elsewhere, though. There's something deeply fucked up about their culture when you consider that absolutely hair-raising brutality has been a hallmark of theirs for centuries now. It's a colonialist, imperialist, violent and deeply racist mentality.

I had a significant proportion of my family tree (who were Ingrian Finns) genocided by Russians. I'm the first generation in my family for about 100 years who hasn't either had to live under Russian occupation, fight invading Russians, or dodge Russian agents because somebody in the family dared stand up to them (yes I'm old and my parents are practically ancient). The argument that the problem is their regime just doesn't sit right with me, considering the shit that the individuals get up to pretty habitually, and the hundreds of years of brutal regimes have to come from somewhere.

This is not to say that all Russians are terrible, nor that it's a fundamental biological feature of the people, but even scholars think that their culture is – to put it very mildly – extremely problematic

[–] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Technically he was the cause. Now his "mandate" has advanced to include every rich asshole Russia has tho, so that's the problem now.

[–] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

They've been like this for centuries now; the Russian Empire was already pretty damn fucked up.

Putin is not the cause.

[–] CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago