Ill-equipped Russian soldiers with only days of training are reportedly dying in combat: 'These guys are just literally cannon fodder'
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Russia's military has made it a priority to quickly recoup the number of soldiers it has lost.
Mobilization efforts have resulted in soldiers with little training being sent to the front lines.
Soldiers have also begun complaining on social media about substandard living conditions.
As Russia looks to bolster its defense lines with soldiers, reports are emerging of new recruits dying after receiving little combat training, The New York Times said Sunday.
After Russia sustained heavy losses against the Ukrainian armed forces, President Vladimir Putin announced in September a partial mobilization of the country's military. The move immediately called up 300,000 reservists to join the fight. So far, 222,000 reservists have been mobilized, according to Putin.
To help reach the country's goal of 300,000 reservists on the battlefield, Russian police and military officers are showing up unannounced in cities across Russia and pulling men — some with disabilities — off the streets and out of homeless shelters to send them to fight in the war, The Washington Post reported.
Two professors with expertise on Russia previously told Insider Putin's move to add to the ranks of the Russian military would most likely not change the course of the war, as Ukraine had claimed multiple victories over the past few months.
Putin said at a news conference Friday that 16,000 new recruits were deployed for combat. Some of these recruits had less than 10 days of training, The Times reported.
"They are giving them at best basics and at worst nothing and throwing them into combat, which suggests that these guys are just literally cannon fodder," William Alberque, an expert on the Russian armed forces, told The Times.
As the Ukrainian army continues to make strides, Russia's move to ignore proper training to quickly fill its ranks could backfire in the long run, experts told The Times.
"The Russians will have to make a choice — build a unit properly over time and then risk losing the war, or using that unit now because the war demands it, but the unit will be half ready," Johan Norberg, a Russia analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, told The Times.
Conscripts have also complained about the substandard living conditions they have faced since being recruited.
In a social-media video that shows about 500 unkempt men near a train, a voice says Russian soldiers are living in "inhumane conditions" and have to provide themselves with food, The Times reported. Others complained they had little-to-no experience shooting guns or fighting.
"No machine guns, nothing, no clothes, no shoes," one observer said, according to The Times. "Half of them are hungover, old, at risk — the ambulance should be on duty."
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