Vladimir Putin is fearful the return of his convict army could destabilise Russian society, sources say

Such as it is

It's like their thing.

It's actually kind of mind boggling. Lenin knew this was a thing and took all sorts of steps to correct it, but his mistake was demanding it to improve by force. "We're making your lives better now, or else."

I mean, shit, a big ass group of armed dudes on horses show up in my cold ass disconnected village and they say we need to do x, y, and z to improve our lives or else? Yeah that's sus.

Someone said that Russian history can be condensed into “…and then everything went to shit”

thank you for your service

That's the background for the story: Russia sent their convicts to war in trade of a "get out of jail"-card.

The guy was in jail for killing his wife. He took the deal and was sent to war. He got shot, got sent home as a free man, and immediately started killing people again.

It's not a single case. It's likely that convicts are taking the deal, not just to get out of jail, but also so they can go back and get revenge over those that put them in jail in the first place.

I'll buy the most expensive alcohol available the day that happens, hopefully recorded in 4K.

To NATO staging a coup and overthrowing a popular leader because the leader did not obey their OPEC cartel?

At least Ukraine can show that some positives have come out of the war for them, too. Their bonds with Europe have strengthened, their national identity has been forged in fire. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been awesome if the war had never happened, or that it was a net benefit, but at least they are coming out of this with some real tangible benefits in addition to the tragic losses.

Russia gets nothing and loses everything.

Jep, except according to their own recruitment claims (which are naturally also off), they either have casualties in the 10s per month, or much more troops in Ukraine than anyone can cofirm.

Yeah, more like "brief moment of self awareness"

Yes, but that is nothing. They loose 1000 soldiers every single day. Why should they care about a few (Russian) victims per month extra? Putin does not fear that at all. It is so irrelevant he might not even know about it to begin with. Let alone destabilizing the whole society, that is pure nonsense.

He probably just shoots himself in the head. Or Mossad 2.o gets him. Or the ulcer. Or the Botox from his fluffy little cheeks seeps into his brain. Or the windows.. darn Russian windows

Broskys about to stroke out from the stress. His own body will kill him if not someone else. When you're responsible for a cumulative 1.5-2.5 million deaths, you're not a person people are sad to let go.

Economy tanking, losing the battle, 1.5 million dead Russians, he's not the mafia-fluencer he was in his youth. Lavrov is a fat slob, dude can't even stop his own drooling.

Modern warfare is entirely non beneficial to huge land masses. Try playing air defense swap-a-roo when the next missile or drone is 1k km away.

Also if Europe decides to ram his ass, they will, that will be his excuse to wind down the war, but to get to that tipping point, is so stress inducing, no amount of drugs will help. The drugs induce a spiral.