Russia’s mobilization encounters other problems. Equipment worth millions of rubles is apparently missing due to years of corruption and thefts in the military.
Moscow – Russian President Vladimir Putin needs more soldiers for the Ukraine war. However, even the Kremlin has already acknowledged problems with “partial mobilization”. The recruitment of personnel is not the only challenge: In their current report, the war experts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assume that Russia does not have enough equipment for the newly mobilized soldiers. One reason: theft and corruption in the military over many years.
Putin speaks of difficulties with partial mobilization: is it also about a lack of equipment?
Putin wants to draft at least 300,000 reservists across the country. Experts believe this is a reaction to Ukraine’s successful counter-offensive. However, war researchers also believe that the partial mobilization could only have an impact on the battlefield in the coming year. Putin faces problems in recruiting new soldiers. Apparently, Russian officials don’t always follow the Kremlin’s criteria.
It was reported that some recruits had been drafted without combat experience, despite serious chronic illnesses or old age. The morale in the ranks of the reservists is low. Some Russian citizens even resisted the mobilization. There were protests, although in Russia it means up to 15 years in prison. On Sunday, an unknown person carried out an arson attack on a military recruiting office in Arkhangelskoye. After the mobilization was announced, hundreds of thousands of Russians fled abroad to avoid being sent to the military.
Most recently on Monday, Kremlin boss Putin again emphatically called for the problems with partial mobilization to be eliminated. Many difficulties have only now become apparent, but they have probably accumulated over a long period of time, said the Kremlin boss, without giving any further details.
However, one of these difficulties could also be related to the equipment for the new recruits, war experts at the ISW believe. According to them, Russian court records indicate that the Ministry of Defense is unable to provide the mobilized troops with essentials – such as weapons, protective equipment or medical supplies. The reason for this is said to be years of corruption in the military and the theft of equipment by military personnel. This emerges from the report by the ISW experts on Monday (October 10). According to a BBC report, over the past eight years at least 558 military personnel have been convicted of stealing clothing, 12,000 for fraud and 700 for embezzlement.
Russia lacks equipment: military personnel apparently stole goods worth millions of rubles
At the beginning of October, a video was made public in which new recruits filmed their rusty machine guns. In his analysis, the adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, Anton Herashchenko, assumed that the Russian soldiers would go to war with them and not just use the rusty weapons for training purposes. This information from the opposing war party could not be verified, but the BBC and ISW reports on Monday make Herashchenko’s claims seem plausible. Over the years, equipment worth millions of rubles has been stolen from the Russian military, according to US war experts.
Including not only bulletproof vests, boots or diesel fuel, but even soap, toilet paper or socks. The number of unreported cases is probably much higher: the ISW war experts assume that the actual corruption in the Russian military could be significantly more extensive than the court files indicate. There are also isolated voices from the Russian side describing supply bottlenecks. The governor of the autonomous Russian republic of Mari El, for example, acknowledged supply problems on the part of the Russian Ministry of Defense on Sunday. According to the ISW report, these would make themselves felt in the mobilized troops.
Supply bottlenecks in the Ukraine war: soldiers take care of equipment, help also from Belarus
Allegedly, the Ministry of Defense is currently dependent on the soldiers procuring the necessary equipment themselves. According to the ISW report, a center to support mobilized soldiers and collect donations was set up at the State University of Novosibirsk. Several pro-Russian military bloggers also shared links to crowdfunding sites asking for money to equip Russian soldiers.
According to the Ukrainian general staff, Russia is said to want to get supplies from its Belarusian ally Alexander Lukashenko. Accordingly, the neighboring state of Belarus plans to send 13 trains with ammunition and other military equipment to Russia shortly. Moscow is also said to be in negotiations with other countries in order to obtain artillery shells, mortar shells and components for rocket launcher systems from there. However, the analysis by the US war experts did not reveal which countries were involved. However, there have been several reports that Russia is using Iranian-made Shahed 136 drones in Ukraine. (bme)
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