When the invasion began on February 24, Moscow believed its forces would topple the Kiev government within days. It appears that Russia has been dragged into a protracted and costly conflict with no end in sight, writes the Moscow Times.
Russian soldiers are being led “straight into a body bag”, a military analyst said, while one soldier claimed he was given just five days of training before being sent to fight on the front line in Ukraine.
The soldier, named only as Ivan to protect his identity, said that in some cases his comrades were sent to fight without even knowing how to use a machine gun, according to the Moscow Times.
It is the latest sign of Russia’s growing desperation to crush Ukraine’s staunch resistance, which has taken the Kremlin by surprise, with some estimates saying President Vladimir Putin has seen more than 30,000 of his troops killed.
When the invasion began on February 24, Moscow believed its forces would topple the Kiev government within days. It appears that Russia has been dragged into a protracted and costly conflict with no end in sight.
“A week of training is nothing to a soldier. It’s the direct route to the hospital or the body bag“, said Pavel Luzina freelance military analyst at the Moscow Times.
The Russian Defense Ministry’s website states that anyone who signs a contract with the Russian military must first undergo four weeks of training. In total, the program lasts 240 hours and includes survival training, shooting, throwing grenades and studying military tactics.
Furthermore, according to Russian law, conscripts cannot be sent into combat unless they have completed at least four months of training.
Luzin told the newspaper that the same standards should apply to those who sign a contract with the Russian military to fight in Ukraine.
However, providing recruits with minimal training appears to be increasingly common in the Russian military and will likely exacerbate Russia’s problems with mobilization, manpower shortages and morale.
Ivan, 31, who signed a three-month contract with the Ministry of Defense in April, described his five-day training. “When the special military operation started, although it is actually a war, I took it as a personal tragedyIvan told the Moscow Times. “I told myself I wanted to go there and no one was going to stop me. I am a patriot».
He was quickly transferred to a military base in western Russia’s Belgorod and within two weeks was on the front lines in Ukraine. “After all the medical tests, they asked me if I was ready to go to the military base“, he said. “We were trained for five days, waited another five days for the change of forces, and then went to our posts».
Ivan revealed that they were training from 10am to 7pm, practicing combat skills, storming buildings and more. The training, he said, differed for each soldier, focusing on the different skills required for their specific positions.
“Of course, that was not enough,” he told the newspaper. “There was a soldier in our company who didn’t know how to operate a machine gun. So I taught him how to disassemble and assemble a machine gun. I wouldn’t want to be by his side in battle. How can you fight like this?“, he added. Other soldiers have shared similar testimonies. An unnamed soldier told the Russian BBC news service last month that he was shocked by the lack of training.
A 24-year-old Russian soldier, Mr Yevgeny Chubarin, was killed in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv after just four days at the Belgorod military base. The accounts paint a picture of a Russian army trying to bolster its numbers in its fight to penetrate further into Ukrainian territory. However, reports of low morale among Putin’s forces continue to circulate.
The Moscow Times also reported that soldiers who refuse to fight are not allowed by their commanders to return home and are threatened and intimidated to return to the battlefield. The newspaper noted that soldiers of the Russian Guard’s 11th Air Assault Brigade tendered their resignations earlier this month, but their request was met with resistance.
THE Vladimir Budaev, co-founder of an anti-war organization, said 78 brigade fighters had submitted their resignations. However, after military officials intervened with intimidation tactics, this number decreased. The mother of one of the soldiers revealed that after refusing to accept the resignations, brigade commanders sent some of the men to a special detention center in the city of Luhansk.
Russia’s invasion has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and leveled cities, particularly in the Russian-speaking regions of eastern and southeastern Ukraine.
The United States estimates that Russian casualties in Ukraine so far have reached about 15,000 dead and perhaps 45,000 wounded, CIA Director William Burns said Wednesday. Other estimates put the Russian dead at over 30,000.
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