Russia's army is decaying. It behaves like an occupier and marauds even in its own territory. This army is also dangerous for the Russians themselves. And the sleeping Russian society does not yet realize what kind of experiment the regime is doing with it.
In the late 1980s, while serving in the army, I decided to ask my commanding officer when the perversions of the old soldiers against the young appeared in the army. The lieutenant colonel explained: “This happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the last officers who had fought were dismissed. They knew that constant combat training was needed, not building sheds and participating in harvesting. They understood that discipline must be conscious and realized that not every recruit can make a good soldier – for example, if he is in poor health or has criminal tendencies“.
„The Perversions” as a system
According to my commander, it was then that the army began to be affected by the decrease in population – as a result of the endless wars and the Gulag penal colonies. The military commissions began to round up everyone. The morals of the Soviet neighborhood gangs and the camp areas became commonplace for the armed forces as well. The lack of sergeants to be responsible for basic training and maintaining combat readiness turned officers into supervisors who had less and less time to improve their professional skills. The prestige of the military profession in society collapsed.
To this I would like to add the following from myself: corruption and theft in the army, judging by the accounts of other soldiers, was not as large-scale as it is today, but it was noticeable and constant. One of the reasons for the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War was the realization of the simple fact that, despite the abundance of “iron”, the Soviet army was simply not capable of opposing NATO.
Army personnel
I remembered this conversation when I read about the looting of Russian soldiers in the Kursk region. They ransacked the homes of local residents who fled the Ukrainian army. By statute it is a crime for which the guilty must be brought before a tribunal. And violence against peaceful inhabitants of a foreign country is also a crime. I.e. even under Russian law the murderers and robbers of Bucha and Irpen should have been arrested and court-martialed. But that didn't happen and it won't happen.
From 2007 onwards, Putin began to create a professional army. In large part, he succeeded in this endeavor thanks to the non-military Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov – unrelated to the post-Soviet military caste, a former furniture dealer who carried out a series of drastic reforms that transformed the Russian military. She became more modern and more combat-ready. But the army of the Russian Federation was clearly not ready for the war in Ukraine, started by the Kremlin in February 2022, which has been going on for almost three years now. The army simply did not have enough personnel for such large-scale and prolonged combat operations.
Marauding – part of the “total package“
After the failed mobilization of 2022, the Russian regime bet on the creation of a mass army of mercenaries. “Wagnerians”, prisoners, investigators, recruited for “fee” - they are all the personification of the same thing: poor and criminal Russia has become the regime's main strike force and cannon fodder. Soon after arriving at the front, and sometimes even at the training center, mercenaries begin to understand the dos and don'ts of this war. One can, for example, become as rich as the commanders allow. And it doesn't matter on whose territory.
The Russian residents of the Kursk region who fled from the Ukrainians experienced this informal feature of Russia's military policy. Looting today is actually just part of “the whole package”. And the fact that some individual looter from the homes of local people can be brought before a tribunal does not fundamentally change the picture. The virus of impunity among armed people with a criminal past is very contagious. “The rifle gives birth to power!“, said Mao Zedong at the time.
Russia's army is decaying. Its new motto is “Impunity for life”. But this is the morale of the medieval militia, not of the modern armed forces. And this army is dangerous not only to the enemy, but also to its own citizens. The sleeping (or pretending to be sleeping) Russian society seems to have not yet realized what kind of experiment the regime is doing with it.
Much more dangerous than the Soviet veterans of Afghanistan
The dictatorship seems to hope that the war will “clean“ society from criminals – they may die somewhere at the front, and the prisons will be emptied and the streets safer. However, it is a mistake to think so. The almost daily reports of murders and robberies committed by “special military operation veterans” confirm it. But this is only the beginning. In their Telegram channels, many of them threaten to return home to “show up” with the judges and the cops, “who do not protect the people from corrupt officials and migrants”. Of course, not everyone will live to see their return. But the survivors will be much more dangerous than the Soviet veterans of Afghanistan. Many of them became bandits. And many of them will reach for power.
This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and DV as a whole.