Vladimir Putin has lost the trust of Russian soldiers after deploying many without enough weapons to go around, an expert says.
The Russian President is trying to avoid mobilising more men to fight in the war.
But Professor Sergey Radchenko, a Soviet-born British historian and expert on Russia, says Putin’s words won’t be trusted by Russian soldiers.
This isn’t helped by the first mobilisation of Russian men in 2022, where there were not enough weapons to go around.
Professor Radchenko told Times Radio: “[Mobilisation] was a big problem for Russia. The political decision entailed in mobilisation is difficult to make. Putin of course mobilised some people.
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“We remember when mobilisation started in 2022 there was an outflow of people fleeing Russia.
“In the meantime, Russia has been offering money to contact soldiers and offering amnesty to those in prisons. The problem for Russia is not only that these people don’t have a lot of experience, but also Russia did not have enough weapons to equip them.
“Russia continues this practice of seeking contract soldiers from both inside Russia and outside. Putin is currently promising not to use mobilised soldiers for conflict, but it is very difficult to believe these promises.”
His comments come as BBC research finds that more than 50,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the invasion in 2022.
The research also found that the Russian death toll in 2023 was 25 percent higher than that of 2022.
The Institute for the Study of War has described how Russia used “ineffective human-wave style frontal assaults” in the battle for Vuhledar.
They added that “challenging terrain, a lack of combat power, and failure to surprise Ukrainian forces” were among the key problems.
Russia’s relentless attacks have been described as a “meat grinder” tactic, endlessly throwing men into the battle to exhaust Ukrainian forces.
