Russia’s Military Morale Problem is Only Getting Worse.

When most people think of russian forces in ukraine a few things usually come to mind if you're like us at the warfights team you probably think of one particularly hilarious video of a soldier losing control of a soviet era machine gun on the back of a truck if you haven't seen that video however then odds are that you've seen the countless other times that

Russian soldiers have had what our millennial audience would describe as epic fails including a soldier who shot an rpg at his own feet now this isn't to take away from the threat that russia poses to kiev its forces are still making their way through ukraine and wreaking havoc wherever they go often at massive cost to themselves take those two sides of the

Same coin and you'll find the image that most people have of the russian military a fighting force that is capable of extreme violence but also one whose soldiers are capable of making some exceptionally stupid mistakes and weird has to guess that most people don't think of the russian military as a place to fall in love but that's what happened with sergey

Sadanikov a combat medic who was on his third deployment with the russian military after a previous stint with the wagner group when he met a woman named alyssa while they were both serving in ukraine alyssa and sergey were initially supportive of the war effort until sergey was sent to the front line and came face to face with russia's meat grinder tactics

Where moscow throws waves of men to die as bullet and drone sponges in hopes that they're wearing down ukraine's defenses with sergey witnessing the horrors of the front lines and alyssa seeing the abuse that women experienced in similar roles to hers they decided to desert they spent months on the run surviving multiple storms and risked their lives many

Times over before making it to turkey the fact that the sadanikovs were willing to endure hundreds of kilometers of rough seas and go days without food in order to escape the front lines says a lot about the state of the russian military and none of it good training equipment and timelines now for the last couple of weeks the sadanikov's desperate flight

From the front line has drawn global attention so we believe that it's only right to begin this episode by talking about how many russian soldiers have actually fled from the front lines for very obvious reasons russia does not publicize the number of defectors within its ranks that would basically be handing the west a massive propaganda win on a silver

Platter essentially admitting i mean yeah look at how unpopular our special military army is right now the russian army has lost more than half a million soldiers since the beginning of the war and our military operation is with our own troops look without official records we have to rely on the press and experts to try and paint an accurate picture of the

Desertion numbers investigative outlet meduza reported that russian courts have convicted about 28 000 soldiers for going a while since the war began although that number might seem small these are only the soldiers who have been caught and prosecuted in 2025 the u.n estimated that 50 000 soldiers had deserted since the war began nearly as only continued to

Climb in september 2025 front intelligence insight estimated that by the end of that year more than 70 000 soldiers would have gone awol close to 10 of the entire force that moscow has deployed in ukraine by their numbers this was in 2025 alone one of the reasons why so many are running away is because they weren't properly prepared to fight in the first

Place the video that we referenced at the start of the russian soldier being rag dolled by a machine gun was taken from a training exercise gone horribly wrong there's a real sense of schadenfreude watching it in retrospect but from a training perspective it's a sign of some horrifically troubling practices lord knows how many more incidents like that

Haven't been recorded but it's not just the infantry who've been poorly trained the tank crews are also suffering according to lieutenant colonel james bowron of the u.s air force soviet era tank crews trained for roughly two years before deployment but russia no longer has the time or equipment to properly train its new recruits a properly trained soldier

Of course would never shoot an rpg at their own feet would they now some recruits told the press that they received only five days of training before they were shipped off to the front lines which is a fraction of the four months that russian law requires another said the training was a joke we fired a few shots from rusted rifles then spent the rest of the

Time wandering around nobody taught us anything end quote the consequence of this woefully insufficient training isn't just that more troops are dying on the battlefield at the same time russia is losing a lot more equipment they can afford to green crews tend to wreck vehicles and equipment that they were never properly taught to operate and that damage

Compounds every month that the war continues and it's not like russian troops were rolling into ukraine fully kitted out in the best gear many of them lacked basic equipment like boots and rifle scopes forcing them to rely on grassroots fundraising campaigns to get what they needed so the fact that they're adding unnecessary damage to the minimal equipment

That the russian military was able to provide them is just another self-inflicted wound for the kremlin although russia's economy is on a war footing it will take years to replace everything that has been lost largely because moscow wanted to throw as many bodies into the war as possible and people who've been tasked to work in russian factories can't go to

The front british military intelligence believes that once the fighting stops it will take russia somewhere between five and ten years to rebuild a highly trained experienced army until then russia will continue to send inexperienced soldiers into an unforgiving front line while keeping its home front as depleted as possible the inexperience of russian

Soldiers and their lack of proper training could help explain why so many of them are dying so quickly on the battlefield in july cia director john ratcliffe repeated a figure that was making the rounds at the time that the average life expectancy of a russian recruit arriving on the battlefield in ukraine is between 20 and 30 minutes and it's because of

Ukraine's ai-powered drones that figure quite understandably went extremely viral most people wrongly assumed that it meant once a russian recruit arrived on the battlefield a timer began and 30 minutes later they were either dead wounded or captured however that math doesn't really hold up according to william spaniel an assistant professor in political

Science at the university of pittsburgh if these numbers were true and all newly deployed russian soldiers died every 30 minutes then it would mean that moscow would need to refresh its front line for 48 times a day just to keep pace with the death toll keeping in mind the total casualty figures if we spaced those casualties out and assumed a total front

Line kill every half hour then that would imply an average of just 21 russian soldiers guard the entire thousand kilometer front line at any given time any more than that and the current casualty estimates would be a horrible undercount instead professor spaniel argues that the 30 minute clock doesn't start when a soldier arrives moment they press forward

Are spotted by a surveillance drone and then get targeted by an attack drone there's historical precedent to this during world war one because of how over-the-top raids tended to play out it could take as little as 15 minutes to render an enemy unit combat ineffective during d-day some companies only lasted 10 minutes for russian soldiers on the front line

The fact that they can be spotted and taken out within 30 minutes of leaving their positions is an extremely frightening thought for ukraine it's a testament to just how much its drones have improved and ukraine isn't just imposing costs on russian troops on the battlefield they're taking the fight directly to putin's doorstep drones fortresses and

Infiltration since this war began ukraine has built what might be the most advanced drone program on the planet rapidly evolving into the undisputed global leader in unmanned aerial warfare in fact ukraine has gotten so good at striking deep within russia all the while managing to avoid russia's air defense systems that recently a drone was able to fly more

Than a hundred miles an hour and a half a second before it could even fly more than a minute more than three thousand kilometers to hit the novi arengoi and porovsky gas condensate plants this was the deepest strike of the war so far and is part of a broader effort by ukraine to cripple the russian economy and stop money flowing into russia's war chest

They're also proof positive that russian air defenses are in horrific shape simply because if that weren't the case then no drone would be able to fly three thousand kilometers into enemy territory while these strikes have undoubtedly imposed a high economic cost on russia they haven't slowed the war down if anything russia's ground offensive has gotten more

Aggressive concentrating on what's known as the fortress belt a string of four industrial cities sloviansk kramatorsk druzhkivka and kostantinivka these formed the backbone of ukraine's eastern defenses the belt is critical for defending what territory ukraine still has in the donbass region specifically donetsk blast and losing it wouldn't just mean losing

The donbass in earlier times it would have meant that russia could blitz through the less defensible sparsely populated flat plains to the west and even now after ukraine's built layers of defense to prevent a russian breakaway moscow's path westward will be smoother once the fortress belt is in the rearview mirror that's why ukraine has spent the past few

Years fortifying these cities to make it as difficult as possible for russia to advance yet despite kiev's best efforts it seems increasingly likely that constantinivka will fall sooner or later recently the institute for the study of war estimated that russian forces were present in 72 percent of the city ukraine does have some drone teams still active in

The city according to open source tracker clement marlin but it's only a matter of time before russian troops overwhelm them while constantinivka is the city most likely to fall into russian hands it isn't the only one that's got observers worried kramatorsk further north is also in a bad way cnn reported that nearly all of the city's bridges have been

Destroyed and guided bombs and drones rained down on the city on a near daily basis arena rybakova a press officer with ukraine's 93rd mechanized brigade based in the city told the outlet quoting the attacks happen dozens of times a day dozens of cars utility buildings residential buildings administrative buildings and garages have been hit they're just

Setting everything on fire end quote now we're not saying that kramatorsk or any of the other fortress bell cities past constantinivka are guaranteed to fall to russia however we would be remiss in our duties if we failed to highlight the risks now you'd think that with all of these advances and the possibility that russia can capture a strategic ukrainian

City morale would be high among russian troops in the donbass and all i can say to that is oh you sweet summer child in order to make these advances russia isn't just relying on guided bombs and drones it's also sending in small teams which sometimes comprise just two or three men into ukrainian held territory these infiltrators are guided by commanders who

Watch from overhead drones giving them critical information to help them evade capture once they make it to their destination they're supposed to cause as much chaos as possible for ukraine's defenders who are off and stretched thin and exhausted some try to seize key positions and hold them until reinforcements arrive while others focus on disrupting

Ukrainian defenses by exposing drone operations or planting mines near their positions this isn't a new tactic that russia just happened to stumble upon however it was relatively rare during the early days of the war as opposed to the situation now where it's quickly becoming the status quo because of how effective it can be but effective doesn't mean that

These missions come without cost the infiltrators do their best to evade detection hiding in abandoned homes and in thick bushes and even starting their missions by hiking several miles to the front but they're constantly at risk of being spotted and killed using drones or artillery strikes even before they sneak into the city and once they do they are in

Incredible danger at all times one ukrainian drone operator who's had to deal with these infiltrators regularly describe russian losses as enormous adding that moscow was treating soldiers like expendable resources which isn't what you want to hear if you're a russian on the ground basically russia is willing to send a hundred men into the city with the

Knowledge that only a handful will survive to do any meaningful damage the rest will at some point hear the buzz of a drone just a little bit too late and then it's permanent lights out this is why so many russian soldiers are willing to do anything to avoid getting sent on these missions inside the military an entire economy has emerged around avoiding the

Front line run by the same commanders who are actively sending men into it investigative outlet medusa reported that soldiers are paying between fifty thousand and a million rubles roughly 580 to nearly twelve thousand dollars just to be kept off assault missions and up to six million rubles close to seventy thousand dollars to obtain a fake wound

Certificate which is necessary for a soldier to qualify for leave and compensation those who refuse or are unable to pay for whatever reason are sent to the front lines where they're almost certain to die but sending soldiers the front line isn't the only thing that commanders can do they can also just kill them independent outlet verdskaer documented

Hundreds of cases of zeroing a term russian soldiers used to describe killing their own comrades these are usually executions carried out as punishment or intimidation or to settle personal scores one unit reportedly had a man whose job was to zero people who refused to participate in meat grinder assaults while another commander had snipers who would zero

Anyone who tried to flee from the front other commanders instead of killing their troops outright sent them to the front without weapons or bulletproof vests for a poorly trained russian conscript who's dependent on well-wishers to provide the necessary equipment there are precious few good choices in this war you can either a be one of the many casualties

Of the meat grinder b bribe your commander with your pay and possibly all of the pay that enticed you into the war or c wait for your commander to kill you because you refuse to do the first two things with that list of options to choose from it's little wonder that some soldiers like the sadanikovs are choosing to brave the elements and escape instead of

Trying to stay and survive but that raises one final all-important question where can these deserters even go fairy tales now if this channel is called fairy tale fronts then this is the part of the video where we tell you that the sadanikov successfully made it to their final destination spain one of the few places where russian defectors can take refuge on

The fairy tales front version of today's episode the happy couple is now running an artisanal bakery selling organic and gluten-free pastries unfortunately for all of the optimists in the audience well this channel is actually called warfronts and as the world likes to remind us every single day life is not a fairy tale as the couple was passing from turkey

Into greece they were intercepted by the greek coast guard which seized their phones and handed them over to turkish border guards in aidin there sergey was allegedly hit by a guard after surveillance cameras were switched off turkey has since issued a deportation order but the couple's lawyer has filed a legal challenge that has suspended the process for

Now at present the future is still uncertain that's the fate waiting for a lot of these defectors illegal entry charges are becoming more common as anti-immigrant sentiment becomes more widespread across europe and today plenty of deserters simply get caught and sent back to russia deserters who managed to evade european immigration officials then face

Another problem entirely getting their asylum claims approved in germany despite the government saying that conscientious objectors and deserters deserved protection fewer than five percent of asylum applications are approved human rights defense defender, Alexei Kozlov, told the German outlet DW that this is because Germany believes that deserters do not

Face a "real risk" of severe persecution or deployment to Ukraine upon return, which Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees confirmed.

But that's only part of the reason that these claims are rejected. The other reason is because there's a fear that applicants aren't actually deserters at all.

Russia has run intelligence operations in Europe for decades, and European officials aren't naive enough to assume that Moscow wouldn't dress up an agent as a defector to get them through the door. And Europe's got good reason to be jumpy right now.

Russia has spent the past year ramping up its grey zone activities on the continent just see our episode from a couple of days before this one came out on NATO's Drone Summer From Hell.

These incidents are meant to test Europe's resolve and see how much Russia can get away with, and so far, Russia is getting away with a lot. Against that backdrop, it's simply not reasonable to welcome every person in the world at the same time, and so far, Russia is getting away with a lot.

Against that backdrop, it's simply not reasonable to welcome every person in the world at the same time, and so far, Russia is getting away with a lot.

Against that backdrop, it's simply not reasonable who claims they've just walked off the Russian front lines. But most deserters don't even make it that far. Some are caught pretty soon after they try to leave the battlefield.

Georgi, a civil engineer who tried to flee multiple times, was ambushed with a group of fellow deserters while trying to slip back across the Russian border. A patrol helicopter spotted them and opened fire, killing two of them. The survivors were then captured and handed over to the military police.

Apart from waiting at border checkpoints, military police also tracked deserters by monitoring phone records and checking registered addresses, often waiting for a slip-up like a call to a loved one or a trip to the local shops. If that doesn't work, they lean on the people a deserter can't cut ties with.

Meduza has documented cases of relatives being abducted and tortured until they gave up a deserter's location, which they often do.

Once they're caught, the deserters have two options. The lucky ones get a trial where they risk prison time or being sent back to the war. The unlucky ones disappear into Russia's unofficial detention network, which survivors have described as hell on earth.

Georgi was one of the unlucky ones. After his capture, he was taken to Rozbina, a repurposed Ukrainian border post that had become an unofficial holding site for Russian soldiers caught trying to flee. New arrivals were split into two groups, one marked for re-education, the other for undesirables.

The undesirables were killed outright, and the killing was done in such a way that those on the re-education side could hear their screams. Those in re-education fared slightly better, receiving just enough food to survive and enduring constant beatings.

Georgi told the Moscow Times, "They used electric shocks, punched us in the gut, just enough to hurt but leave no bruises.

They endured all of this, just to be sent back to the front lines again because Moscow needs all the bodies it can get." And that's perhaps the most demoralizing thought for any Russian soldier thinking about fleeing from the front lines: the fact that they can risk their lives trying to escape, only to land back in the exact same place, often in a worse

Position than they were in before.

For Russia, on the other hand, this is the best-case scenario in a zero-sum war like this one. The Kremlin knows how unpopular this war is, and it knows that, short of ending the war entirely, there's very little it can do to raise morale.

So instead, it raises the cost of desertion to make sure its troops fall in line, no matter how low their morale might be. But Russia isn't the only one celebrating. Low morale among Russian troops is great for Ukraine, because it's much easier to fight an enemy who would rather give up than one who's a true believer in the war effort.

While that might not be enough to win the war on its own, it might just be enough to give Ukraine an edge. And in a war where both sides are trying to find whatever advantages they can, every little inch counts. Thank you for watching.