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 Warfra 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 [music] 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 hazard 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 Vagnner 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 tof face with Russia's meat grinder tactics where Moscow throws waves of men to die as bullet and drone sponges in hopes that they'll wear 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 risk their lives many times over before making it to Turkey. The fact that the Sadden Yikovs 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 over the last couple of weeks, the Satanikov'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 operation is with our own troops.