'Not war, alcohol abuse is killing Russian soldiers, making them ineffective in war'

London: British intelligence sources explored reasons behind Russia’s huge death toll and found that a “significant minority” of the total 200,000 dead troops were not caused by fighting but excess alcohol consumption along with a number of other issues.

UK Ministry of Defence, which provides regular updates on the conflict in Ukraine, made the observation about bad habits among Putin’s forces.

According to the MoD, there are “extremely high” numbers of incidents, crimes, and fatalities among deployed soldiers that are associated with alcohol.

This claim was supported by a message from a Russian news channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

The message said, “With heavy drinking pervasive across much of Russian society, it has long been seen as a tacitly accepted part of military life, even on combat operations,” implying that this was largely expected due to views in Russian society at large.

The report listed “poor weapon handling drills, traffic accidents, and climatic injuries like hypothermia” as other non-combat causes of death.

However, there seemed to be one issue that was more prevalent than the others, as Russian commanders “likely identify pervasive alcohol abuse as particularly detrimental to combat effectiveness.”

Daily life in Donetsk. Drunk Russian soldiers lying in In draughty cold stairways, too drunk to find the homes they occupy. pic.twitter.com/MApnmIVSLl

— NOËL