British authorities report ‘excessive alcohol consumption’ in Russian military

Is alcohol abuse in its ranks weakening the Russian army? This is what the British Ministry of Defense suggests, Sunday April 2, in a briefing note on the war in Ukraine published on Twitter (in English) and relayed by the newspaper The Guardian. “While Russia has suffered up to 200,000 casualties since its invasion of Ukraine, a significant minority of these are due to non-combat causes,” according to this note, of which “excessive alcohol consumption”.

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According to this memo, “On March 27, 2023, a Russian Telegram news channel reported an ‘extremely high’ number of alcohol-related incidents, crimes and deaths among deployed Russian forces” in Ukraine. “Russian commanders likely consider pervasive alcohol abuse to be particularly detrimental to combat effectiveness”continues the ministry, noting that “Other leading causes of non-combat casualties are likely to include poor weapons practice, road accidents, and weather-related injuries, such as hypothermia”.

It is not the first time since the beginning of the conflict that the alcohol consumption of Russian soldiers has been notified. On February 23, the independent Russian-language media Meduza told how the drink is omnipresent in the life of a group of soldiers in the city of Yelensky, in the West of Russia. Some of them would have died without having seen the conflict and two of these deaths were directly related to alcohol, according to this media.