President Vladimir Putin on Thursday inspected a training ground where Russians have been mobilized in Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow, Russian news agencies reported, after a series of setbacks on the battlefield, images of Russians complaining they were being sent to the front without training and an attack during an exercise in Belgorod that killed at least 11 Russian soldiers.

This is the first time since the announcement of the partial mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists on September 21, when the Russian leader went to observe training for these civilians, who are called to support the Russian offensive in Ukraine, reports AFP.

At the shooting range, the Russian president himself tried to fire an automatic weapon, lying on the ground with a helmet over his ears, according to images published by Russian television.

Vladimir Putin was also filmed exchanging a few words with some mobilized Russians. “Good luck!” he said to one of them, patting him on the shoulder.

According to Russian agencies, the Russian president also observed tactical exercises or even fire control in case of a large fire.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was also present on this visit, also briefed him on the training of these hundreds of mobilized reservists, Russian agencies reported.

On September 21, Vladimir Putin announced the partial mobilization of several hundred thousand reservists to try to stop the flow of troops from Kyiv to Ukraine.

According to the figure he gave last Friday, 222,000 people have already been mobilized, of which 16,000 are already in “combat units” in Ukraine.

The lack of training of the Russians has been the subject of analysis since the beginning of the war

Military analyst and independent researcher Chris Owen wrote in an extensive analysis posted on his Twitter page shortly before Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists that many Russian soldiers had been sent to the front with a “joke” level of training. .

At the beginning of the invasion, some soldiers were given weapon systems they had never seen before and did not know how to use. Training activities were often falsified so that officers could report completion and evade supplies.

The soldier reported that “we arrived at the training ground and were forced to stand with a rifle at the target. As soon as you were photographed, you were released.”

This type of forgery has been reported not only by regular Russian infantry divisions, but also by Moscow’s elite units such as the Airborne Forces, indicating that the practice is widespread in the Russian military.

In late September, a Russian man who had just been drafted into the army following President Vladimir Putin’s decision to partially mobilize Russian reservists says in a video that he had no briefing or training before he was sent to Kherson.

“Hello everyone, this is the 1st Tank Regiment. We were officially told that there would be no training until we were sent to the war zone. The command of the regiment officially confirmed the information. On the 29th, we are sent to Kherson. So think and decide for yourself… what to do next,” says the Russian in a video shared by Dmytro, the founder of WarTranslated.

A video shared on social media shows other recruits at a briefing being told to get hygroscopic pads and tampons to stop bleeding if injured, while other videos on social media show the training conditions of Russian recruits who have been ordered to sign up. “Great conditions in authentic wooden barracks for an unforgettable impression of the Russian army,” says Dmytro, founder of the WarTranslated website, wryly.

Multiple videos that have surfaced on social media in recent days show that the mobilization ordered by Vladimir Putin last Wednesday is going haywire, with some footage of heavily intoxicated Russian recruits heading to training centers going viral. in social networks.

Recruits shoot at each other

Putin’s visit to the training ground came days after at least 11 people were killed and 15 injured at a Russian training ground in the Belgorod region when two attackers opened fire on a group of volunteers.

Zelenskyi’s aide, Oleksiy Arestovich, said the attackers were from Tajikistan, an ally of Russia, and opened fire on comrades after a religious dispute.

Tajikistan is predominantly Muslim, while about half of Russians are Christian.

Russian authorities said the attackers were from the Commonwealth of Independent States country, which unites nine former Soviet republics, including Tajikistan.

Hotnews wrote on Thursday that the TV presenter Olga Skabeeva, nicknamed the “iron doll” of President Vladimir Putin, is trying to prepare viewers of the “Russia-1” TV channel for the possible defeat of the troops of General Sergei Surovikin in the Kherson region, where the Russians began to evacuate the civilian population due to the threat of a powerful offensive by troops from Kyiv.

American journalist Julia Davis, who watches Russian television, notes that while General Surovikin is declaring a “tense situation” in the Kherson region, in Olga Skabeeva’s studio, the Kremlin propagandist is trying to prepare public opinion for another defeat of the Russians on the Ukrainian front. .

Most analysts, including ISW and British military intelligence, believe that all public appearances, including General Armageddon, as the new commander of Russian forces in Ukraine is called, are being done to prepare Russian citizens for another defeat under the pretext that civilian lives in Kherson, it is more important to evacuate them because of the Ukrainian forces, who are planning an attack on the hydroelectric plant, which will flood a large area of ​​Kherson.

Perhaps the funniest and most painful loss for Putin was when the Ukrainian army entered Liman a day after Putin annexed Donetsk.

Russian troops retreated from the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman due to the threat of encirclement, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported, as quoted by the RIA news agency.

Due to the threat of the encirclement, the Allied troops left Liman and moved to more profitable areas, the Ministry of Defense reported.

“Despite the losses suffered, having a significant advantage in forces and means, the enemy pulled up reserves and continued the offensive in this direction,” the Ministry of Defense added.

The loss of Lyman to the Ukrainian army was another setback for the Russian army after several military setbacks since early September and the start of Kyiv’s counteroffensive in southern and eastern Ukraine.

It is extremely humiliating for the Kremlin that its armed forces were unable to fully occupy the territory of the Donetsk region, where pro-Russian separatists have been fighting against the Ukrainian government since 2014 and which Putin used as a pretext for invading Ukraine.