Moscow is in such a hurry with the mobilization declared last week that some called-up reservists without training are being sent straight to the front. Others are told to just bring their own supplies, such as medicine. Video footage circulating on independent Russian sites illustrates the chaotic course of the mobilization. At one assembly point, called-up reservists were told by an officer to arrange their own sleeping bags. 'You get a uniform and armor, nothing else,' the officer said. 'You have to bring your own stuff.' There also appears to be no medicine for diarrhea or pressure bandages (to stem bleeding) available. 'Just ask your wife or mother for pads and tampons,' is the advice. 'Do you know what to use a tampon for? Pushing it in when you have a gunshot wound, it swells up and stops the bleeding. I've known that since (the war in) Chechnya,' says the officer.
In another video, a called-up reservist says they have been told they will be sent to the front immediately. "No training, no shooting practice, no theory, nothing!" he observes with exasperation. A woman from Lipetsk told the news site Nastoyashche Vremya that her husband received a call at five in the morning last Thursday. At 7 a.m. he reported to the recruiting office, by 10:30 a.m. he was already on a bus to the border area, and on Sunday he was sent on to the front in the Donbas. The first brand-new reservists had reportedly already been taken prisoner of war by the Ukrainians. A Ukrainian site showed images of a 45-year-old man from Moscow sent to the front near Kupyansk, where he immediately fell into the hands of the Ukrainians.
The situation is reminiscent of the beginning of the war in Chechnya in the 1990s, when Moscow also sent barely trained soldiers to the front. Young Russian prisoners of war told that they had been in service for only a few weeks and had fired only a handful of bullets before being sent into the hell of Grozny. There, the first Russian troops, totally unprepared for urban warfare, were immediately pummeled. To prevent demoralized Russian reservists from heeding Ukrainian calls to lay down arms and surrender immediately, the Russian parliament last week introduced harsh penalties. Those who surrender without necessity could face 15 years in a penal camp. Refusal to serve is punishable by 10 years.
Still, military experts question whether Russia will succeed in filling the gaps left on the front lines by the heavy losses troops have suffered recently in Ukraine. 'You can't fight with flesh against iron,' says a Ukrainian military expert, who puts his faith in the Western weapons the Ukrainian army has received. According to independent Russian media, the Kremlin wants to call up more than 600 thousand troops over the next three months, on top of the first round of about 300 thousand reservists, but that seems unfeasible given the lack of equipment and widespread protests against mobilization.
Translated from
https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-ach...ront~bec1dcfc/