where do the weaknesses of the Russian army come from?

With its 850,000 soldiers, the Russian army is officially the second military power in the world. According to the parade of May 9, 2021, it is an impressive model of rigor and organization. Vladimir Putin demonstrates this every year.

However, since the start of the invasion in Ukraine, the army has shown its main weakness: its structural disorganization. “They failed to develop (…) an intermediate corps, an execution corps that we have in Western armies. [Cela] leaves the soldiers on their own, without the possibility of containing them and commanding them as closely as possible“, explains General Christophe Gomart, former director of military intelligence.

Some generals had to go to the front to compensate for these shortcomings, and were killed. The soldiers are mostly very young, some not even 20 years old, and come from very poor regions of Russia. Committing then becomes interesting financially, but also because it becomes a social lift for these young people.