The Russian army is sending draftees to the front lines in Ukraine with just a day or two of training—or none at all.
Unhappy, unfit, poorly-equipped and poorly-led, these draftees are little more than cannon fodder as Ukrainian brigades continue their twin counteroffensives in the south and east. “Mobilized men with a day or two of training are unlikely to meaningfully reinforce Russian positions,” explained the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C.
The Russian army was on the retreat in the east, and fraying in the south, when the Russian government announced a general mobilization on Sept. 21. Officially, the Kremlin planned to draft at least 300,000 men with previous military experience, offer them refresher training then deploy them to Ukraine to make good the estimated 80,000 dead and wounded the Russian army has suffered in nearly eight months of war.
In practice, the mobilization hasn’t been so orderly. Protests, some violent, broke out across Russia as tens of thousands of draft-eligible men fled Russia for neighboring countries. Men who should not be subject to the draft—students, sick older men—are finding themselves under armed guard on buses bound for army bases, where instructors advise them to pack tampons for plugging bullet wounds before shipping them off to the front.
ISW noted a video from a draftee with the army’s 1st Tank Regiment, complaining he’s receiving no new training before being sent to Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine. “Unprepared as individuals, not part of a team, lack of trust in leaders, no belief in a cause, little chance for survival, no support from citizens—all contribute to failure,” tweeted Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army general. “Yeah, 300,000 mobilized. Premeditated murder of his own army by [Russian president Vladimir] Putin.”
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Callousness and desperation alone do not explain Russia’s utterly reckless deployment of unready draftees. The Russian army literally cannot train new troops.
That’s because, in Russian practice, front-line brigades handle most of the training for new recruits. Contrast this with the practice in Western armies, where recruits spend weeks or months at dedicated training bases before arriving at their home units, where they receive some additional training before they’re eligible to deploy.
Russian brigades, each with a couple thousand troops, typically include three battalions. Two battalions are manned and equipped for combat. The third battalion includes conscript support troops and instructors. The third battalions receive new recruits and train them to a deployable standard before assigning them to the same brigades’ front-line formations.
But in a lot of brigades, those third battalions aren’t available for training. “Russia has deployed many of these third battalions to Ukraine,” the U.K. Defense Ministry noted. Some disintegrated in combat. Others remain on the front line.
Having raided its training base as an expedient, in the short term the Russian army no longer can generate combat-ready manpower. It’s possible, over the longer term, for the army to restore its third battalions and resume unit-level training, of course—but only if it pauses combat operations and shifts large numbers of experienced personnel away from the front.
That’s risky as long as the Ukrainian army has the momentum. The Russians face a choice: either trade ground in Ukraine for a chance at restoring its combat power, or try stiffening the existing front lines with masses of untrained men.
The former could be immediately fatal for a regime that projects strength in order to preserve its legitimacy. The latter keeps the regime in power, for now, but risks eroding legitimacy over the longer term as more and more families say goodbye to their brothers, sons and fathers—possibly forever.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Russia reverses its tragic direction and salvages its war aims. “It’s just a question of whether this wraps up this year or next,” tweeted Mike Martin, a fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College in London.
Unhappy, unfit, poorly-equipped and poorly-led, these draftees are little more than cannon fodder as Ukrainian brigades continue their twin counteroffensives in the south and east. “Mobilized men with a day or two of training are unlikely to meaningfully reinforce Russian positions,” explained the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C.
The Russian army was on the retreat in the east, and fraying in the south, when the Russian government announced a general mobilization on Sept. 21. Officially, the Kremlin planned to draft at least 300,000 men with previous military experience, offer them refresher training then deploy them to Ukraine to make good the estimated 80,000 dead and wounded the Russian army has suffered in nearly eight months of war.
In practice, the mobilization hasn’t been so orderly. Protests, some violent, broke out across Russia as tens of thousands of draft-eligible men fled Russia for neighboring countries. Men who should not be subject to the draft—students, sick older men—are finding themselves under armed guard on buses bound for army bases, where instructors advise them to pack tampons for plugging bullet wounds before shipping them off to the front.
ISW noted a video from a draftee with the army’s 1st Tank Regiment, complaining he’s receiving no new training before being sent to Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine. “Unprepared as individuals, not part of a team, lack of trust in leaders, no belief in a cause, little chance for survival, no support from citizens—all contribute to failure,” tweeted Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army general. “Yeah, 300,000 mobilized. Premeditated murder of his own army by [Russian president Vladimir] Putin.”
View on Watch
Callousness and desperation alone do not explain Russia’s utterly reckless deployment of unready draftees. The Russian army literally cannot train new troops.
That’s because, in Russian practice, front-line brigades handle most of the training for new recruits. Contrast this with the practice in Western armies, where recruits spend weeks or months at dedicated training bases before arriving at their home units, where they receive some additional training before they’re eligible to deploy.
Russian brigades, each with a couple thousand troops, typically include three battalions. Two battalions are manned and equipped for combat. The third battalion includes conscript support troops and instructors. The third battalions receive new recruits and train them to a deployable standard before assigning them to the same brigades’ front-line formations.
But in a lot of brigades, those third battalions aren’t available for training. “Russia has deployed many of these third battalions to Ukraine,” the U.K. Defense Ministry noted. Some disintegrated in combat. Others remain on the front line.
Having raided its training base as an expedient, in the short term the Russian army no longer can generate combat-ready manpower. It’s possible, over the longer term, for the army to restore its third battalions and resume unit-level training, of course—but only if it pauses combat operations and shifts large numbers of experienced personnel away from the front.
That’s risky as long as the Ukrainian army has the momentum. The Russians face a choice: either trade ground in Ukraine for a chance at restoring its combat power, or try stiffening the existing front lines with masses of untrained men.
The former could be immediately fatal for a regime that projects strength in order to preserve its legitimacy. The latter keeps the regime in power, for now, but risks eroding legitimacy over the longer term as more and more families say goodbye to their brothers, sons and fathers—possibly forever.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Russia reverses its tragic direction and salvages its war aims. “It’s just a question of whether this wraps up this year or next,” tweeted Mike Martin, a fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College in London.
