Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged on Friday that there have been some problems with the procurement of equipment and clothing for the hundreds of thousands of soldiers Moscow has recruited to fight in Ukraine in recent months, Reuters reported.

He told a news conference in Bishkek that some of the supply problems for the 300,000 people who were called up for a mobilization campaign in September and October were now easing.

Putin’s reaction comes after Russian soldiers and their relatives have complained for months about the conditions in which they are sent to war.

Russia’s first mobilization since World War II faced dissidents on the battlefields or refusing to fight in a context where they were not properly equipped or simply had nothing to eat, were not provided with equipment, and were also not trained.

Although the Russian government claims that at least 50,000 of the newly mobilized are now in Ukraine, a long list of complaints emerges: poor leadership on the battlefield, lack of communication, tactics that lead to heavy casualties, lack of training, promised payments, but what did not come, reports CNN.

There are also logistical difficulties, as reported by soldiers, their families and Russian military bloggers: insufficient uniforms, poor nutrition, lack of medicine.

In addition, there are disciplinary problems: some families complain that their relatives, victims of the war, are accused of desertion and kept in basements in the occupied territory of Ukraine.

The Astra Telegram channel, a project of independent Russian journalists, reported that 300 Russian conscripts are being held in a basement in Zaytsevo, Luhansk Oblast, because, according to their relatives, they refused to return to the front line.

Dozens of videos and testimonies have gone viral on social media so far, showing soldiers complaining about the shortage of any equipment and lack of training.

Thus, the problems begin with the training centers, which are archipelagos, and the soldiers get headaches, as in the case of the training centers of Russian soldiers in the Sverdlovsk region.

“Local doctors are not provided with the minimum necessary equipment, and patients are not provided with medicines,” reports SOTA.

SOTA notes that the mobilized live in extremely crowded conditions, as if in some kind of gym, which probably contributed to the spread of the disease.

A video that surfaced on social media in September shows new Russian conscripts in training being told to get absorbent pads and tampons to stop bleeding in case they are shot.

Another video that appeared on social networks shows how Russian conscripts, who have received an order for enlistment, are forced to build a fire in the forest in order not to freeze to death while waiting to be transported to training centers.

In November, a video appeared online showing a mobilized Russian receiving military equipment under conditions that confirm the catastrophic state of the Russian army’s equipment.

The military quartermaster, who supplies the Russian conscript with clothes and shoes, does not have the necessary measurements and is contemptuous of the person standing in front of him, constantly using the obscene expression “fuck”.

Sometimes the soldiers’ grievances lead to violence against their superiors. Let us recall here the case of a Russian officer who was beaten and cursed by a soldier, dissatisfied with the lack of equipment and training.

A conversation between a Russian conscript and his wife intercepted in October by the Security Service of Ukraine testifies to the organization of Russian troops at the front and the work of “blocking troops” who are supposed to shoot conscripts in the event of an escape attempt.

“The convicts were brought here from the colony. Earlier they were driven somewhere. And we are here as barricades: if someone escapes, we eliminate him. That’s how we do it: I mean, we’re on the second line here, guarding the first line, and there’s another line behind us. You can’t escape there either. It is impossible to escape – our people will be shot…”, says the Russian recruit.

Soldiers of the invasion army deployed to Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin have filmed themselves complaining that they were abandoned in the forest with no food or water and only rifles.

Read also:

• VIDEO Russians are shocked by the Ukrainian bulletproof vest. I shoot at her directly from a Kalashnikov assault rifle: “She’s impenetrable, I don’t understand!”

• VIDEO “Extraordinary Experience”. What Russian military “training centers” look like, from where recruits will be sent to the war in Ukraine

• Is a new mobilization beginning in Russia? Citizens of a city in Russia are ordered to join / They are called to battle, including people who are not citizens of Russia