A FUTURE PLOT COMPLICATION FOR THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC.

Kurt Schlichter has been writing a series of novels about an internal split of the United States into coastal areas controlled by the communist wing of the Democrats as the People's Republic of North America, and a surviving United States of America with fewer states.  In a few of those novels, the Democrats create a People's Militia out of liberated prisoners.  "The formula is simple enough: arm some former felons, tell them they are facing a race and class enemy, condition them to think of that enemy is "deplorable" (an Americanized version of Untermenschen), then turn them loose." That works to deal with the cowed normals within the People's Republic, but it doesn't work so well in the contested territory, or the United States, where people with field or military experience have better fire discipline.

Here's the plot complication.  Vladimir Putin is apparently freeing prisoners and turning them into irregulars.  It isn't working so well.  "They’re finally realizing they’ve been duped." They're moping off, or turning themselves in to Ukrainians, and asking not to be returned in any prisoner swaps. In addition, the recruitment videos include recorded executions of deserters.

About 20 armed inmates fled from the frontline in occupied Donetsk in recent days and the Russian military was forced to launch a manhunt for members of its own team, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Thursday. Three of the “fugitives” were killed in the ensuing search, Ukrainian authorities said, wryly noting: “Beat your own, so that others are afraid, as they say.”

The hunt was reportedly still on for the other fleeing inmates.

Even the people who do their hitch, and earn their freedom, return to Mother Russia with whatever bad memories combat brings, and their criminal skills intact.