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VIDEOThere has been a mass callup to induct new recruits into the Russian army. However, as you can see the quality of many of these recruits is of a semi-sober nature.

Russia has forced its way into Ukraine and after months of fighting the Russian army needs to bolster its numbers by bringing in conscripts to step up to the front lines. But life as a Russian conscript is brutal as you will see in today's dark new video that reveals a shocking side to the Russian conflict.

The minority factor in Russian army is vastly underrated when discussing the course of Ukrainian war. Firstly, ethnic minorities are not so much a minority there. Judging from the casualty lists, minorities are wildly overrepresented on the battlefields as the cannon fodderWe don't have aggregated data for the entire Russian army. But we can get some idea of who fights in Ukraine from this list of wounded Russian soldiers lying in Rostov hospital. More than half are clearly Dagestani. Magomed (Muhammad) - the most common name in the list of woundedIt makes total sense. As you see almost all Russian...

video of Russian trucks running on flat tires. https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1505370317228843008Telenko concludes that the lack of professional maintenance and wear, unprofessional use by undertrained troops and soldier exhaustion has already and will continue to cause high levels of “operational attrition” in their truck fleets. The “details” that are being ignored will lead to massive issues. He predicts in six to eight weeks, the entire Russian Army military truck fleet will be “deadlined.” “Between the end of April and Mid-May 2022, the Ukrainian Army will be able to counter-attack EVERYWHERE. Because there will be NOWHERE more than 20 miles/30 km inside Ukraine where...

Russia's ministry of defence has unveiled a new array of war machines that it said would revolutionise the country's army and put it in a position to outclass Western rivals for the first time since the Cold War. Photographs released on Tuesday show the T-14 Armata tank, a semi-robotic replacement for Russia's current T-90, and its sibling armoured personnel carriers, fighting vehicles and self-propelled artillery models which will take pride of place at Saturday's Victory Day parade on Red Square. In earlier photographs released last month the turret was covered with fabric and only the chassis was visible. The Armata...

Army aviation will remain part of Russia's Air Force, and its fleet will be fully upgraded in the future, a deputy Air Force commander said on Wednesday. Army aviation was an arm of the Ground Forces prior to becoming part of the Air Force in 2003. The possible return of army aviation assets to the Ground Forces has been one of the main discussion topics during the ongoing military reform in Russia. "Army aviation will continue to fulfill the set tasks as part of the Air Force," Lt. Gen. Igor Sadofyev said. It will carry out a wide-range of missions,...

Recently, for the first time, the S-300B anti-aircraft missile systems that defend Russian Army units, shot down ballistic missiles. The S-300B was moved around, as it would to support a mobile army, before going into firing position and knocking down two ballistic missile warheads. Two years ago, army S-300 units were transferred to the air force, which now controls all S-300/400 systems (except for a few belonging to the navy.) The air force S-300/400 units are mobile, but are rarely moved, except for those assigned to the army. The S-300B is modified a bit for army use, but there are...

Russia's military on Thursday successfully test-fired three intercontinental ballistic missiles in one day during training of its strategic forces. The Defense Ministry said the Bryansk nuclear submarine of the navy's Northern Fleet on Thursday launched a Sineva missile from the Barents Sea at a range on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Another nuclear sub, the Georgy Pobedonosets of the Pacific Fleet, test fired an RSM-50 from the Sea of Okhotsk at a testing range in the northwestern Arkhangelsk region. Both types of missiles have a range of about 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles), according to Russian media reports. The military also fired a...

The recent Russian decision to buy four Mistral amphibious assault ships from France is just the beginning. According to the Russian Defense Minister, Russia will seek more Western weapons and military equipment. Russia is planning to spend over $600 billion in the next decade to replace aging Cold War gear. The Defense Ministry insists that the Mistral deal is but the first of many. Russia already has a deal with Israel, to build a factory in Russia to build Israeli UAVs under license. This arrangement may be aborted because the Israelis apparently expect Russia to stop selling advanced weapons to...

Russia will buy foreign and possibly U.S. arms because the domestic industry has failed to modernize, Russia's Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has said. In an interview with Russian Newsweek, Serdyukov said Moscow was forced to buy from companies abroad as it plans to spend more than $600 billion to modernize its armed forces. "Our weapons often do not meet the required standards," he said. "We are acting as consumers in this situation ... our producers want to issue outdated models but we don't want to buy them." Serdyukov in the interview even suggested that Russia might buy weapons from its...

The S-400 started its way in 1999 as the S-300PMU3, developed by Almaz Science and Production Association. Russian defense officials claimed in 2006 the missile has been inducted in late 2006 and was due to become operational later in 2007. Suffering from teething problems, this milestone has been delayed three years, allowing designers to work on the 'baseline system', awaiting the completion of the full capability version, by early 2010. Russia plans to buy up to 200 launchers (each with four missiles) by 2015, and phase out the older S-300 and S-200 systems. This would mean deploying at least 18...

All obsolete weaponry in Moscow Military District has been removed as part of Russia's transition to a ‘new-look’ Armed Forces, according to the district commander. Col. Gen. Valery Gerasimov told Ekho Moskvy radio that all old weapons and military equipment was discarded and the bases under his command now had only modern military equipment. "In the course of the transition to a new look, we got rid of all the old equipment at bases and in factories," Ria Novosti quoted him as saying. "The materiel was kept at the bases of the military (district) and declared ready for operational use."...

Russia may showcase its new main battle tank (MBT), the T-95 at the arms show in the Urals Region in summer 2010, a media report said. Russia will become the first country in the world to have the 5th-generartion MBT if its military confirms the commission of vehicle in the army. "The work on the project has been conducted for many years. If the government gives us a 'green light' we will exhibit the tank at the [Russian Expo Arms 2010] arms show in Nizhny Tagil this summer," RIA Novosti quoted General Director of the Uralvagonzavod plant Oleg Siyenko as...

The army insists that the 200 T-72 and T-80 tanks found in the woods next to a railroad station in the Urals last week, was part of a normal movement of military equipment, and the vehicles were under guard. But a week ago, people living in village of Elanskaya (outside the city of Yekaterinburg) noted the vehicles, unguarded, and unlocked, but without ammo or ignition keys. Local kids began crawling in and out of the tanks. Videos of all this began showing up on local, then national, web news programs. The government controlled national media tried to ignore it at...

Russia is buying the largest number of new tanks this year, 300 T-90s, than it has in nearly two decades. During the Cold War, the Russian Army often received over a thousand new tanks a year. But when the Cold War ended in 1991, so did the large procurement budgets for the Russian military. Meanwhile, the biggest user of the T-90 is India, which has been buying them for $3.2 million each. This is about a third less that a new M-1, with similar capabilities, would cost. The most recent M-1 model costs twice that. Four years ago, India adopted...

The Russian S-400 Triumph air and missile defense system was officially inducted into Russian army service – the first two systems have entered operational service with the air defense regiment stationed at the Military Space Defense joint command in Elektrostal, the Moscow Region with additional two scheduled to be deployed by the end of 2010. More systems will be delivered later, along with next generation S-500 currently in early development stage. The Russian Air-defense command is hopeful to achieving full operational capability protecting strategic sites throughout Russia with the new systems by 2015.The S-400 started its way in 1999 as...

Russia's army will get new missiles and nuclear submarines from 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, stressing the need to replace the ageing military arsenal. "Next year, the army will get 30 ballistic missiles...five Iskander (missile) systems, some 300 new armoured vehicles, 30 helicopters, 28 fighter planes, three nuclear submarines, a ship, as well as 11 spacecraft," Medvedev said in his annual address to the nation. "These measures will allow our armed forces and our allies to deal with any threat," he told officials in a speech at the Kremlin. Much of Russia's military equipment dates back to Soviet...

A plan to replace Soviet-era Russian military uniforms with ones by a leading fashion designer has been abandoned because of a lack of money. The plan to bring in the new uniforms, designed by Valentin Yudashkin, was supported by Russian PM Vladimir Putin. There is now only enough money to pay for uniforms for soldiers taking part in the forthcoming Victory Day parade. Everyone else, it seems, will remain in the rather drab olive shades Russia inherited from the former Soviet Union. 'Less frumpy' On Friday, Senator Viktor Ozerov, chairman of Russian Federation Council committee on defence and security, told...

Russian tank rams house on vodka run (AFP) 7 March 2008 MOSCOW - An apparently drunk Russian tank driver rammed his 25-tonne fighting machine into a remote village cottage while on a vodka run, footage aired on Friday on state television showed. The soldier was filmed driving the tank, armed with an anti-aircraft gun, through a tiny street in Oktyabrskaya, in the Ural mountains’ Sverdlovsk region. He clambered unsteadily into his vehicle with two freshly purchased bottles, then rammed a fence and a house while attempting to leave. “He was drunk,” a villager said on Channel One television. An assistant...

via translation - Ukraine: thousands of soldiers move towards Kiev KIEV - Several thousands of soldiers belonging to the troops of the ministry for the Interior, carried out by their commander, honest to president Viktor Iouchtchenko, move towards Kiev, in spite of the order of their minister, faithful to the Ukrainian government, affirmed Saturday the ministry. “On May 26 (...) of the units of the interior, strong troops several thousands of people, took the road towards Kiev”, affirmed the ministry all while being said “worried” by this situation. “The order on their displacement was given personally by the commander of...