This is further proof of the lack of preparation of the “partial mobilization” launched by Vladimir Putin to expand his troops on the Ukrainian front. After the failures of enlistment, here are the mobilized soldiers we don’t know what to do with, who are stationed at stations for want of better, without proper equipment, and without even a thought for their quarters and cutlery. In a video uploaded Wednesday to YouTube and originally viewed by The insidedozens of young Russian recruits denounce their living conditions and administration.
“Horrible conditions”
The undated recording shows them at the Belgorod station, 40 km from the Ukrainian border and about 70 km from Kharkiv. We see scores of soldiers – estimated by one of them to be “500” – concentrated at a railway station.
“We have been living in appalling conditions for a week, absolutely horrible”, launches the author of the recording in the first place.
Another then speaks: “The first day we arrived here, we were outside, the same the second and the third. We have been living like cattle for a week.” Sleeping like this, the general state of health rapidly deteriorates.
“People are sick, they have pneumonia, fever,” complains a soldier.
One of his companions in misfortune gets hold of another record: “Our weapons date from the years 1970-1980!” Almost a lesser evil because in any case, he remarks, “most people don’t have a helmet or protection.”
There is “not even a plan to receive” the reservists
Upon discovering the video on the set of BFMTV on Thursday night, General Jean-Paul Paloméros, former Air Force Chief of Staff and NATO Supreme Commander, commented:
“If it’s not a mutiny, it’s probably a complete lack of motivation. And it is the demonstration that the mobilization of the reservists is a political act without military foundation insofar as there is not even a plan to accommodate these people.”
A demoralization that worries power
In any case, the case is taken very seriously by the Russian political class. According to Moscow TimesYuri Shvytkine, deputy chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, called for a parliamentary investigation into this video and detained the military prosecutor.
It must be said that this demoralization aggravates the precarious and deleterious situation of the Russian army on the battlefield. In his last speech, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, estimated at 500 km2 the land reconquered by his troops in the Kherson region, in the south of the country, since October 1.
Source: BFM TV
