Back in July, Insider reported here that Russian replacements were being sent to Ukraine with little training.
Following Putin’s mass mobilization to replenish his forces in Ukraine, other sources also report that conscripts get little or no training, and now aren’t even undergoing medical exams to determine their fitness to be deployed (see, e.g., story here).
Two weeks ago, Newsweek and other sources reported that newly-mobilized Russian troops were being issued “old rusty rifles,” and Russia was bringing Soviet-era tanks vulnerable to modern anti-tank weapons out of storage (see story here).
Does Putin have a death wish for his troops? Possibly.
About a week ago, a writer for The Atlantic speculated at a “darker motive” than just bolstering his forces. Looking for a way to “motivate the Russian people to endure more sacrifices,” he annexes Ukrainian land (as he did last weekend), then turns it into “Russia” by soaking it with Russian blood. “He could then say, to his own people and to the world, that the buried bones of so many Russian men make Ukraine hallowed ground from which Moscow will never retreat.” (See story here.)
Of course, that doesn’t solve the practical problem of getting pushed out. Putin’s answer for this is nuclear weapons, a threat he’s made repeatedly, and which the West is taking seriously. In this war, Russians have bombed hospitals and schools, tortured and murdered civilians, kidnapped and raped children, and conscripted Ukrainians to fight against their own country. This shows — and perhaps is intended to demonstrate — that the people running Russia’s war have no moral or humanitarian restraints whatsoever and are capable of anything.
Sending conscripts, including elderly and disabled men, against a well-armed and highly motivated enemy without medical exams, training, or functioning weapons dovetails with a scheme to turn them into cannon fodder, and doesn’t dovetail with anything else. It’s cynical beyond belief; even Stalin, who freely spent Russian lives to prosecute wars against Finland and then Germany, didn’t deliberately get his troops killed.
There’s no question Russia is hard up for military manpower (although that’s not its only deficiency; it’s also short of weapons and ammo, transport, and basic supplies). Two months ago, Putin was trying to recruit prison inmates to fight in Ukraine (see story here).
Then came Putin’s call up of 300,000 “reservists,” supposedly military-age men with prior service, but in fact a dragnet scooping up anyone it can grab. So far 370,000 Russian men have fled the country, according to Newsweek (see story here). But no matter how demoralized the Russian people may be, or may become, Russia is a dictatorship where the will of the people has little or no sway.
One of the mysteries of history is how one person (invariably a man, not a woman) can ruin the lives of millions of people.