There is a long history in modern states of compelling military service. Among the most notorious examples was in Britain during the Napoleonic wars when press gangs roamed ports, coastal areas, and progressively further inland to fill the ever deficient rosters of the navy.
The stories are legion from those decades of ordinary men swept up until naval service for years at a time with their family not knowing for months and more of what had happened to them. Sailors, fishermen and those already familiar with the sea were especially prone to being impressed but all males were vulnerable. Farmers, clerks, storekeepers. Any male.
All this is brought to mind by the chaotic nature of the recent Russian mobilization to feed their need for manpower in the Ukrainian war.
"They were looking for men to fight in Ukraine — and they seized nearly every one they saw. Some musicians, rehearsing. A courier there to deliver a parcel. A man from a Moscow service agency, very drunk, in his mid-50s, with a walking disability." https://t.co/VACA0OSfYJ
— Michael Weiss 🌻🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@michaeldweiss) October 16, 2022
And
Practices for impressment from the 1790s till to be seen in the streets of Moscow today.🤷♀️Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg (Russia), military commissars are playing Pac-Man, trying to catch up another Russian and mobilize him. pic.twitter.com/wV3legbFUR
— Toronto Television / Телебачення Торонто (@tvtoront) October 16, 2022
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