> Private fertility clinics began offering what's known as crypto preservation to servicemen and women in 2022 at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.
I'm pretty certain it's "cryo" and not "crypto". Am I wrong, or has the BBC's standards slipped so badly?
Genetics live in the block chain now
I assumed the servicemen's identities were obfuscated.
"The study examined different scenarios, from a "best case", in which the war ended in 2023 without significant further escalation, to a "worst case", ending in 2025 after further escalation."
As they point out: "... the issue of Ukraine’s supposed manpower crisis. This idea has been a key part of the analysis for more than two years now, analysis saying Ukraine was on the verge of military failure."
The Ukrainians are adapting their battle tactics and use of drones to reduce their casualties. The Russians are not, and are suffering huge casualties as a result. Yet no-one is saying the Russian invasion is doomed because they're going to run out of young men.
The United States military was apparently interested in the idea in a 2022 article, although I can't find any recent information on it.
what is the point? genetic diversity? women and the length of pregnancy is the limiting bottleneck. Men can have kids very late, and from what I heard, only a certain top percentage of sperm donors' products get picked.
The headline is misleading.
It's simply so now-widows can have another child (or two) with their late husband.
It's motivation for the soldiers -- even if you don't make it, you can still have another child after your death, and in that way you'll live on.
It might even just be a cynical motivation to with zero actual intent on using it. Men under pressure to be thrown into the meat grinder will be more encouraged and motivated if they believe their legacy can continue even without what they know is a death sentence.
> The politicians' initial efforts caused a public outcry though, when they stipulated that all samples should be destroyed on a donor's death.
Looks like you're right.
A cheap morale booster.
No, the bottleneck is the desire to have children. Unless you are planning to force the women, you need policies (such as these) that encourage them to want children.
Maybe Ukrainian women want to have kids with their partners who are soldiers? Morale boost, probably a higher willingness to fight to the possible death if you know there's a chance your genes will survive...
It's about more than simply having anyone's children...
There will be a million women without mates by the end of this war.
Its a crude solution that is deemed more acceptable than polygamy or, shudder the thought, peace negotiations.
So easy to demand they cede territory for “peace” from your couch in Austin. But hey, I get it. Breitbart said they should.
[deleted]
Some ukarians would probably prefer to be on a couch too, even if it's West of the donbass, but not like they have a choice about martial law or conscription or the suspension of voting, but hey just some details right?
Ceding territory to end the war will surely fix the problem. That worked out well with Crimea, after all.
They didn't cede anything there. They continued to claim that Crimea was theirs, with support from the US. Less than a year before Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine was openly speaking of all options to retake Crimea which would obviously entail war with Russia. [1] All the while they were actively seeking to join NATO, and Biden was certainly implying it would happen soon.
This certainly contributed to Russia's decision to invade, as they likely saw the future as being a war on their terms, or a war on NATO's terms. And the narrative about aggressor would have likely played out similarly even if Ukraine/Biden had moved to invade Crimea, precisely because nothing was ever conceded.
Why not let Ukrainians decide if they want to take land? Have elections. A referendum.
yawn More obvious bullshit and agitprop. You’re not fooling anyone.
Russians torture and mutilate their prisoners. If they get caught, they likely will not be returned with their gonads intact.
Is this a war crime? Yes. Is the rest of world letting it happen or actively abetting? It is!
Here's how Ukraine can still win
[flagged]
Interesting choice of word to describe a country trying to survive against an aggressor that started the war
The civil war began in 2014, after the Maidan coup. Donesk was shelled for 8 years by the Ukrainians.
It's not a civil war if it was started by Russian special forces and continued with Russian soldiers, "advisors" and weapons.
It was far closer to an actual invasion than it was to any form of uprising.
That sure is a peculiar way to talk about the large number of clandestine Russian troops that were sent into donesk to take it over in 2014.
Yeah and the rebels just found those T-72B3 tanks in storage somewhere. lmfao
Interesting choice of words to reduce complicated conflict to a black and white situation.
You forgot to add "unprovoked aggression" to fully regurgitate mass media cliches.
Pray tell, why is it "complicated"? And what's the situation behind the cliche that you're "more educated" in?
Colour me as old fashion but in my book when a country invades another, it's an aggression.
Especially when the one that started it seems inclined to target civilians that they supposedly want to help. Unless you also consider this a "mass media cliché".
[deleted][deleted]
What a waste of life. Why hasn’t someone taken out Putin, is it really that hard? It can’t possibly be that hard for a state.
A state can do it, but it might fail, and the result of a failure would be a catastrophe so everyone is very cautious.
Only the US and Europe stoop this low.
Putin is a symptom, not the problem.
The problem is that Russia is the one surviving major imperialist state (as in annexing land) of the four that existed in the 1930s. We defeated the other three and rebuilt their constitutions, but we didn't have the manpower or the will to do this to Russia as well.
And so, Russia continued in its imperialist tradition: Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and next Moldova and Lithuania if they're not stopped.
The West naively believed that commerce would tame Russia, but an imperialist is never satisfied with riches and friends - only land gives them a true sense of status.
And so we must learn this painful lesson yet again.
Killing Putin would only make a temporary dent. The only way to stop this kind of beast is to destroy and rebuild like we did with Italy, Germany, and Japan.
And then you get Medvedev. His finger is so itchy for the red button he has to rub it with vagisil.
At a certain point we have to understand that Putin is about the most pro-Western person left in Russia.
>Putin is about the most pro-Western person left in Russia.
Appearing more sane than Putin while simultaneously being in a position to plausibly serve as Putin's successor is likely to be fatal.
Yes, it is difficult to take out the leader of a world nuclear world power.
Especially one as shrewd as Putin. Especially when you're expecting the EU to do it. Not sure why this is a surprise.
The world is not an action film.
This.
Never mind that they tried a month ago with the drone attacks.
How would this work exactly? The most protected person in the world, thousands of km from hostile borders, in the city with the world best AD surrounded, by bureaucrats who, if anything, think Putin is too soft on the West.
And what happened? They poked the bear and it turned their electricity grid off. Something NATO would have done in the first 4 hours, not take 4 years.
Ok sure, you go try it! Just remember that even if you succeed, the consequences may be everyone you know and love dying in nuclear fire.
You think the war ends if they kill Putin? Medvedev would very likely nuke Kiev 30 minutes later.
I seriously doubt it. You have to be absolutely bonkers to start nuclear war over one person. Russia is insane but not suicidal.
[flagged]
Zelenskyy could die tomorrow and Ukraine would keep fighting. Your brain's been melted by Russian propaganda.
This post’s comments has seen a special military operation or something, it’s straight up Soviet radio in here
big uptick in authoritarian bootlicking in this place unfortunately
> Zelenskyy could die tomorrow and Ukraine would keep fighting
That's your delusion and it has nothing to do with reality. Take out their army "recruiters" grabbing and beating people on streets, and there will be noone to fight anymore. No need even to take out zelenski.
> Your brain's been melted by Russian propaganda.
How predictable lol. So happy your "brain" is not melted by anything.
The Ukraine conscription age is 25. If they were desperate for soldiers it would be lowered. It was 18 for the United States in the Vietnam war. Definitely wouldn't be grabbing people off the streets.
The US was a large country with normal demographics in the era of Vietnam, fighting a war with low deaths - less than 60k over 15 years of war. Ukraine is a fraction of the size of the US, was already in a major demographic crisis before the war started, and is fighting a war where they are suffering high death rates.
This [1] is a population of pyramid from Ukraine 2 years ago. It's going to look dramatically worse now. They simply don't have many people below the age of 25. And you shouldn't just view those people as fodder. That is essentially the future of Ukraine. Send them off to die and you literally and figuratively send the future of Ukraine off to die.
So the two wars aren't especially comparable at all.
> Take out their army "recruiters" grabbing and beating people on streets
He says, and then unironically whines about being called propaganda.
The extreme brutality of Ukrainian press gangs is well documented, including repeated incidents of them beating people to death. Even Wiki lists a bunch of incidents [1] which should obviously be considered a very small sampling.
Who walked away from the Istanbul offer and killed their negotiating team? There's no better outcome for Ukraine than that offer, plus a million dead.
Thank you Boris Johnson.
[flagged]
Funny how my comment on how this article is evidence that The Ukraine is winning gets disappeared but calling for the assassination of a nuclear superpower's president is acceptable.
> Private fertility clinics began offering what's known as crypto preservation to servicemen and women in 2022 at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.
I'm pretty certain it's "cryo" and not "crypto". Am I wrong, or has the BBC's standards slipped so badly?
Genetics live in the block chain now
I assumed the servicemen's identities were obfuscated.
"The study examined different scenarios, from a "best case", in which the war ended in 2023 without significant further escalation, to a "worst case", ending in 2025 after further escalation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine
People who actually know about the Ukrainian war are countering the idea that Ukraine is running out of men: https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-fewer-soldiers-on...
As they point out: "... the issue of Ukraine’s supposed manpower crisis. This idea has been a key part of the analysis for more than two years now, analysis saying Ukraine was on the verge of military failure."
The Ukrainians are adapting their battle tactics and use of drones to reduce their casualties. The Russians are not, and are suffering huge casualties as a result. Yet no-one is saying the Russian invasion is doomed because they're going to run out of young men.
The United States military was apparently interested in the idea in a 2022 article, although I can't find any recent information on it.
https://qz.com/610131/the-us-military-will-pay-for-soldiers-...
https://www.progress.org.uk/us-military-to-offer-egg-and-spe...
And Israel has been freezing soldiers' sperm post-mortem: https://www.npr.org/2026/01/18/nx-s1-5658287/families-of-isr...
what is the point? genetic diversity? women and the length of pregnancy is the limiting bottleneck. Men can have kids very late, and from what I heard, only a certain top percentage of sperm donors' products get picked.
The headline is misleading.
It's simply so now-widows can have another child (or two) with their late husband.
It's motivation for the soldiers -- even if you don't make it, you can still have another child after your death, and in that way you'll live on.
It might even just be a cynical motivation to with zero actual intent on using it. Men under pressure to be thrown into the meat grinder will be more encouraged and motivated if they believe their legacy can continue even without what they know is a death sentence.
> The politicians' initial efforts caused a public outcry though, when they stipulated that all samples should be destroyed on a donor's death.
Looks like you're right.
A cheap morale booster.
No, the bottleneck is the desire to have children. Unless you are planning to force the women, you need policies (such as these) that encourage them to want children.
Maybe Ukrainian women want to have kids with their partners who are soldiers? Morale boost, probably a higher willingness to fight to the possible death if you know there's a chance your genes will survive...
It's about more than simply having anyone's children...
There will be a million women without mates by the end of this war.
Its a crude solution that is deemed more acceptable than polygamy or, shudder the thought, peace negotiations.
So easy to demand they cede territory for “peace” from your couch in Austin. But hey, I get it. Breitbart said they should.
Some ukarians would probably prefer to be on a couch too, even if it's West of the donbass, but not like they have a choice about martial law or conscription or the suspension of voting, but hey just some details right?
Ceding territory to end the war will surely fix the problem. That worked out well with Crimea, after all.
They didn't cede anything there. They continued to claim that Crimea was theirs, with support from the US. Less than a year before Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine was openly speaking of all options to retake Crimea which would obviously entail war with Russia. [1] All the while they were actively seeking to join NATO, and Biden was certainly implying it would happen soon.
This certainly contributed to Russia's decision to invade, as they likely saw the future as being a war on their terms, or a war on NATO's terms. And the narrative about aggressor would have likely played out similarly even if Ukraine/Biden had moved to invade Crimea, precisely because nothing was ever conceded.
[1] - https://www.unian.info/politics/russian-aggression-ukraine-a...
Why not let Ukrainians decide if they want to take land? Have elections. A referendum.
yawn More obvious bullshit and agitprop. You’re not fooling anyone.
Russians torture and mutilate their prisoners. If they get caught, they likely will not be returned with their gonads intact.
Is this a war crime? Yes. Is the rest of world letting it happen or actively abetting? It is!
Here's how Ukraine can still win
[flagged]
Interesting choice of word to describe a country trying to survive against an aggressor that started the war
The civil war began in 2014, after the Maidan coup. Donesk was shelled for 8 years by the Ukrainians.
It's not a civil war if it was started by Russian special forces and continued with Russian soldiers, "advisors" and weapons.
It was far closer to an actual invasion than it was to any form of uprising.
That sure is a peculiar way to talk about the large number of clandestine Russian troops that were sent into donesk to take it over in 2014.
Yeah and the rebels just found those T-72B3 tanks in storage somewhere. lmfao
Interesting choice of words to reduce complicated conflict to a black and white situation.
You forgot to add "unprovoked aggression" to fully regurgitate mass media cliches.
Pray tell, why is it "complicated"? And what's the situation behind the cliche that you're "more educated" in?
Colour me as old fashion but in my book when a country invades another, it's an aggression.
Especially when the one that started it seems inclined to target civilians that they supposedly want to help. Unless you also consider this a "mass media cliché".
What a waste of life. Why hasn’t someone taken out Putin, is it really that hard? It can’t possibly be that hard for a state.
A state can do it, but it might fail, and the result of a failure would be a catastrophe so everyone is very cautious.
Only the US and Europe stoop this low.
Putin is a symptom, not the problem.
The problem is that Russia is the one surviving major imperialist state (as in annexing land) of the four that existed in the 1930s. We defeated the other three and rebuilt their constitutions, but we didn't have the manpower or the will to do this to Russia as well.
And so, Russia continued in its imperialist tradition: Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and next Moldova and Lithuania if they're not stopped.
The West naively believed that commerce would tame Russia, but an imperialist is never satisfied with riches and friends - only land gives them a true sense of status.
And so we must learn this painful lesson yet again.
Killing Putin would only make a temporary dent. The only way to stop this kind of beast is to destroy and rebuild like we did with Italy, Germany, and Japan.
And then you get Medvedev. His finger is so itchy for the red button he has to rub it with vagisil.
At a certain point we have to understand that Putin is about the most pro-Western person left in Russia.
>Putin is about the most pro-Western person left in Russia.
Appearing more sane than Putin while simultaneously being in a position to plausibly serve as Putin's successor is likely to be fatal.
Yes, it is difficult to take out the leader of a world nuclear world power.
Especially one as shrewd as Putin. Especially when you're expecting the EU to do it. Not sure why this is a surprise.
The world is not an action film.
This.
Never mind that they tried a month ago with the drone attacks.
How would this work exactly? The most protected person in the world, thousands of km from hostile borders, in the city with the world best AD surrounded, by bureaucrats who, if anything, think Putin is too soft on the West.
And what happened? They poked the bear and it turned their electricity grid off. Something NATO would have done in the first 4 hours, not take 4 years.
Ok sure, you go try it! Just remember that even if you succeed, the consequences may be everyone you know and love dying in nuclear fire.
You think the war ends if they kill Putin? Medvedev would very likely nuke Kiev 30 minutes later.
I seriously doubt it. You have to be absolutely bonkers to start nuclear war over one person. Russia is insane but not suicidal.
[flagged]
Zelenskyy could die tomorrow and Ukraine would keep fighting. Your brain's been melted by Russian propaganda.
This post’s comments has seen a special military operation or something, it’s straight up Soviet radio in here
big uptick in authoritarian bootlicking in this place unfortunately
> Zelenskyy could die tomorrow and Ukraine would keep fighting
That's your delusion and it has nothing to do with reality. Take out their army "recruiters" grabbing and beating people on streets, and there will be noone to fight anymore. No need even to take out zelenski.
> Your brain's been melted by Russian propaganda.
How predictable lol. So happy your "brain" is not melted by anything.
The Ukraine conscription age is 25. If they were desperate for soldiers it would be lowered. It was 18 for the United States in the Vietnam war. Definitely wouldn't be grabbing people off the streets.
The US was a large country with normal demographics in the era of Vietnam, fighting a war with low deaths - less than 60k over 15 years of war. Ukraine is a fraction of the size of the US, was already in a major demographic crisis before the war started, and is fighting a war where they are suffering high death rates.
This [1] is a population of pyramid from Ukraine 2 years ago. It's going to look dramatically worse now. They simply don't have many people below the age of 25. And you shouldn't just view those people as fodder. That is essentially the future of Ukraine. Send them off to die and you literally and figuratively send the future of Ukraine off to die.
So the two wars aren't especially comparable at all.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ukraine2024.jpg
> Take out their army "recruiters" grabbing and beating people on streets
He says, and then unironically whines about being called propaganda.
The extreme brutality of Ukrainian press gangs is well documented, including repeated incidents of them beating people to death. Even Wiki lists a bunch of incidents [1] which should obviously be considered a very small sampling.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_Center_of_Recruitm...
Who walked away from the Istanbul offer and killed their negotiating team? There's no better outcome for Ukraine than that offer, plus a million dead.
Thank you Boris Johnson.
[flagged]
Funny how my comment on how this article is evidence that The Ukraine is winning gets disappeared but calling for the assassination of a nuclear superpower's president is acceptable.
Hypocrisy News.