With the destruction of military vehicles, Russia has resorted to sending donkeys into battle to carry supplies and ammunition, and to transport injured troops. Patrick Drennan writes.
IN A RECENT viral video, a Russian soldier angrily explains what happened when they sent a comrade back for supplies:
“Is the situation with transportation shitty for you? It is. Are the Ural trucks burning? They are.”
Describing their radio communications, the soldier continued:
“The Ural transport truck went to receive the equipment and they gave a donkey. A real live f***ing donkey!“
Several media outlets report that units of the Russian army on active service in Ukraine have received donkeys as pack animals, to carry supplies and ammunition, and to transport the injured. The hapless creatures are likely to come under bombardment.
This is out of necessity as military transport vehicles are being destroyed by Ukrainian drones and artillery and cannot be replaced.
According to ORYX, a Dutch open-source intelligence project, the Russian army, since the start of the war, has lost over 15,000 infantry fighting vehicles, including tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and MRAPs (mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles). In addition, 437 units of towed artillery systems, 869 units of self-propelled artillery systems and 451 multiple rocket launchers were lost.
Before the war, Russia produced about 200 new BMP-3 combat vehicles and 90 new T-90M tanks annually.
The Russian soldiers are forced to innovate.
They have been pictured on the frontlines using civilian cars, motorcycles and Chinese-made Desertcross 1000-3 “golf carts”. These vehicles offer no protection from small arms fire and they and their occupants are completely obliterated by drones and mines.
Also popular are the thinly-armoured Bukhanka UAZ-452 vans — a 1960s bread truck. Russian troops have attempted to reinforce the vans with caged armour. More desperate modifications such as covering the vans in Kontakt-5 reactive armour, including its windshield, were observed. Unlike the thick armour of tanks, the van is not capable of handling the explosive charge within the reactive armour blocks and the modifications make it more dangerous for the crew.
Some despairing Russian soldiers even created a “log tank” using the chassis of old tanks and building up the body with sheet metal and cut tree logs. Initially impregnatable to Ukrainian drones, these unwieldy vehicles were soon destroyed by mines and artillery.
These vehicles litter post-apocalyptic Ukraine battlefields in their thousands.
Severe labour shortages are hampering the production of new military equipment.
After years of massed assaults, Russian casualties now number over 80,000 dead. Their families get one-off payments that equal about a year’s income.
The more than 170,000 Russian soldiers that have been injured face mixed outcomes.
Those who return home face grim circumstances. Many are returning with complex, long-term injuries. Russia’s Deputy Minister of Labour himself reported that the majority of disabled veterans have at least one amputation. The many who suffer from PTSD will receive little or no long-term care.
Yet they battle on.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, soldiers of the Russian 15th Motorised Rifle Brigade recently recorded an appeal for assistance claiming that they lacked adequate food, clothing and medical supplies, and that their command threatened to conduct drone strikes against their subordinates for failing to report on time.
A soldier of the 19th Motorised Rifle Division claimed that his commander beat him after he refused to rotate to a frontline position in the Zaporizhia direction under intense artillery fire.
Numerous videos are circulating of Russian soldiers seriously wounded and on crutches being sent back to the frontlines. In another video, infectious and disabled soldiers who dissent are handcuffed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin can end this bloody and pointless war tomorrow.
He issued a series of demands to the United States in December 2021 ahead of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine that NATO would commit to not accepting Ukraine or any other countries as new members. The agreement would force Ukraine to virtually have no defence force at all.
To change Putin's mind and withdraw now without these concessions would make him appear weak to the Russian people. Instead, he continues to focus on massive “meat wave” attacks on Ukraine and dividing America and NATO.
In an interview on 25 January, Putin said:
“...Trump with his character, persistence, he will restore order pretty quickly... it will happen quickly, soon, all of them will stand at the master's feet and gently wag their tails.”
To Russian speakers, he sounds like a Gopnik.
On 1 March, in a fiery meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Trump stated, with some justification:
“If you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.”
Not long afterwards, President Zelenskyy was asked to leave the White House. On 3 March, Trump announced a pause on all military aid to Ukraine.
Putin was delighted. Trump snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. Zelenskyy battles on with European aid. More young men die.
Putin is ruthless and stubborn.
Foreign Policy poignantly summed up his tactics:
‘The Russian meat grinder strategy is terribly effective, terribly wasteful and boundlessly cruel.’
Russian soldiers are like Russian bears — adaptable, tough and resilient.
Bears led by donkeys.
Patrick Drennan is a journalist based in New Zealand, with a degree in American history and economics.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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