Russia

In the middle of WWI, conscripted Imperial Russian soldiers, low on food, equipment, weapons and morale (does this sound familiar?) and fighting a losing war, mutinied, shot their officers and deserted en masse, leading to the revolutions of 1917 (future Communist leader Vladimir Lenin called it ‘‘voting with their feet’’).

Now Vladimir Putin is forcing untrained men into service and arming them. It sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Richard Lea Clough, Rangiora