They should do the swap but at the last moment change them with some poor idiots from the provinces instead of the sons of moscowites here.

Putin couldn’t care less about the lives of his citizens or soldiers.

While that’s what I feel in my heart too - every dead invader is a joyful event - you generally don’t want to do that.

You WANT opposition troops to surrender. In fact, you want to make that the most preferred option for them. If Russian troops would know that surrender only results in death, they basically HAVE to keep fighting. Which is what you don’t want.

That’s also why Russian soldiers were told that ‘Ukrainians are nazi’s who will kill you if you surrender’: it’s a lie to make surrender unattractive.

As much as it pains me to say this, it really is the best option to keep them alive.

one wagner soldier was infamously executed with a sledgehammer when he was let back into his unit

I mean, going by the Soviet-Russian land warfare doctrine, I’m guessing they weren’t safe at any point after the enlistment process. Going by what their leaders are investing in and how they are engaging the world stage, I’m guessing they weren’t safe before that either.

It’s not fun being Russian, i suppose.

there’s an option to join free russia battalion, probably, they don’t take everyone. that’s an unit within ukrainian army. service guarantees citizenship, maybe, or something

Young conscripts from western Russia usually, the type with parents in Moscow that Putin actually cares about