There is increasingly significant evidence that Russian conscripts sent to Ukraine are poorly equipped and being selected without regard for their age and readiness.
Photos and videos posted online appear to show conscripts aged in their late 40s, or even 50s and 60s. This reflects the desperate effort by Russia’s regional military administrators to fill Kremlin quotas quickly. For example, take the report that a 63-year-old diabetic was conscripted. But the problem is far wider than a few bureaucratic slip-ups. As the New York Times has noted, many conscripts are being forward deployed without even a semblance of adequate military training.
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Numerous videos and photos posted via the Telegram social media outlet show conscripts complaining about their lack of adequate weaponry, body armor, accommodation, and food/medicine/triage equipment. In addition, as Meduza reported on Monday, many conscripts have not received promised mobilization payments.
But with Russia’s active service personnel in Ukraine already suffering from many of these same concerns, it seems implausible that conscripts can expect things to improve anytime soon. On the contrary, things will almost certainly get worse as they are deployed farther away from Russia’s rear logistics hubs. The ensuing risk for Vladimir Putin’s government is that as conscripts keep dying in increasing numbers and Russia fails to make significant battlefield advances (which it will very likely fail to do absent the use of strategic weapons), conscript suffering will become a politically urgent issue.
We’re already seeing the Russian government’s recognition of this risk in its evolving reaction to the draft. Clearly alarmed by a mass exodus of fighting-age males from Russia and by complaints over who was being drafted, the Kremlin has provided various waivers from service for those in middle-class professions. At the same time, the Kremlin appears to have weighted conscription requirements onto rural and poorer communities deeper inside Russia. Considering Russia’s military culture is characterized by pervasive bullying and extortion, it is understandable that many Russians are reluctant to risk death in a war that does not appear of existential interest. This is not to say that Putin’s rule is under threat (at least not yet). But pressure on the battlefield is increasingly, if slowly, translating into domestic populist pressures.
At the same time, the desire of both sides to escalate in short order is only growing.
