Latest / Combat Veteran News / Russia Recruitment Dries Up As Casualties SPIKE!

Transcript

Russia Recruitment Dries Up As Casualties SPIKE! · Combat Veteran News

0:00
You know, there's nothing more
0:01
satisfying than seeing a rich person run
0:04
into a problem they can't buy their way
0:06
out of. Sorry, buddy. I don't care how
0:08
many car dealerships you own, it can't
0:10
make your kids love you. Well, the
0:12
biggest rich [ __ ] in the world,
0:14
Vladimir Putin, is realizing that no
0:16
amount of rubles is going to get the
0:17
Russians to die in his pointless war.
0:20
Let's take a look. So, according to more
0:23
research and statements from inside of
0:26
the Russian recruitment machine,
0:29
new contract soldiers have essentially
0:32
dried up. Now, this is described as a
0:35
crisis in Russian troop recruitment, and
0:38
this is from sources inside of Moscow
0:40
City Hall, military commissariats, and
0:42
the combat zone itself.
0:45
The drop uh was preceded by a surge in
0:51
uh
0:53
recruits in the start of the year
0:55
because, well, thanks to President
0:57
Trump's sort of uh performative peace
1:00
talks, it a lot of uh troops actually
1:03
thought that they were going to sign up,
1:04
get these massive bonuses, and then
1:08
never actually see combat. They would
1:10
serve in some kind of garrison DMZ type
1:13
of force, all while collecting a big fat
1:15
paycheck. Well, that scheme has
1:18
backfired, and now that that surge is
1:21
over, the remaining people willing to
1:23
sign up to fight is essentially
1:26
dropping off a cliff. This uh the exact
1:31
statistics are a little different, but
1:33
the daily number of new contract
1:35
soldiers has fallen about 20% from this
1:38
time last year, but
1:40
the actual uh when you add in things
1:43
like desertions and reduced combat
1:46
effectiveness that of those that do sign
1:48
up, you're seeing Russian units at the
1:50
front are only manned to about 30 to 40%
1:53
of their authorized strength, meaning
1:55
about a 70% hole in the total number of
1:59
troops that the Russians expect at the
2:01
front lines. There's other using other
2:05
methodologies like bonuses paid out,
2:07
you're actually seeing that drop in
2:10
contract soldiers look more like a
2:12
third, a 30% drop. Now, this is
2:16
doesn't This means that Russia has of
2:17
course turned to we'll call it less kind
2:21
methods of filling their
2:24
uh
2:25
ranks, right?
2:27
Because
2:28
uh we've seen increasing reports of
2:31
Russia literally just forcibly
2:33
contracting
2:36
individuals who are in criminal
2:37
proceedings, individuals in serious
2:39
levels of debt. In fact, there's even
2:41
some rumors that the cops in Russia are
2:44
oh, trumping up charges a little bit to
2:48
put some pressure on people, right? What
2:49
normally would be a slap on the wrist
2:51
fine is suddenly facing real jail time,
2:54
which means that Russia or that military
2:55
recruiters have a little bit more teeth
2:59
to put in their incentives. Now, what I
3:02
think is also interesting is that a
3:04
recruitment crisis is also occurring
3:06
inside the Russian military, that it's
3:08
particularly difficult to recruit
3:09
specialists for these specialized units
3:12
like Rubicon. This is kind of a
3:15
Russian military what we would call a
3:17
center of excellence, concentrating the
3:19
best drone pilots and engineers in a
3:21
single place where they can kind of
3:23
share ideas, evolve, and grow tactics
3:25
that then get spread to other units on
3:27
the front.
3:28
Because their Rubicon has a strict
3:30
selection criteria, and well, a lot of
3:34
soldiers keep dying, only about 1/3 of
3:37
the personnel Rubicon needs can actually
3:38
be recruited and pass the selection
3:41
criteria, which from what we've heard is
3:43
really not that high. It's the ability
3:45
to pass like a basic drone uh
3:49
drone course taught by the manufacturer.
3:52
And
3:53
the
3:55
There's also rumors that there are
3:56
covert campaigns lying to individuals
3:59
that they are signing up for civilian
4:01
jobs in the rear. And we talked about
4:03
this occurring in among Russian students
4:05
who are told that they are signing up to
4:07
join drone units or drone support units,
4:10
but in fact become uniform service
4:11
members and are simply reordered to
4:15
attend or
4:17
or join assault units. There's also
4:20
reports that these job postings using
4:22
similar language and very large sums of
4:24
money appear in Belarus and in China.
4:27
And
4:28
the
4:30
Russian federal budget have shown that
4:32
recruitment payouts have been falling
4:34
since the end of last year. The daily
4:36
new number of contract soldiers again
4:38
plummeting nearly 20%. But among those
4:40
that do sign up, Russian commanders
4:42
report that the quality of the newest
4:46
sign-ups have been have quote
4:48
deteriorated significantly. This is
4:50
means an army being filled with old
4:52
people with chronic illnesses, uh former
4:54
prisoners, the homeless, and foreign
4:56
mercenaries who it says lack even basic
4:59
training or motivation or even language
5:02
skills, even the ability to understand
5:04
orders as they're given. This means
5:06
these newer contract soldiers are
5:08
actually suffering massive losses. And
5:10
in turn, those that do survive realize
5:13
how incredibly stacked the deck is
5:15
against them and oftentimes desert. That
5:17
means again that these frontline units
5:20
This is how you end frontline units that
5:22
have a 70% of their authorized strength
5:26
simply never arrives at the front at
5:28
all. And we can see this bear out in
5:31
Ukraine's numbers, right? They Ukraine
5:33
is reporting um
5:35
staggering
5:36
uh rates of kills among Russian
5:39
soldiers. 1,270
5:41
soldiers a day. That's a 30% rise from
5:45
Ukraine's original target. Remember, the
5:47
Ukrainian target for Russian losses is
5:50
30,000 troops a month or 1,000 troops a
5:53
day. The fact that we're seeing on a
5:55
regular basis uh
5:58
numbers 25, 30% higher than that is a
6:01
sign of just how effective the Ukrainian
6:05
drone campaign is, how deep it reaches
6:07
into Russian territory, and how
6:09
committed Russia is to pursuing its
6:12
offensive tactics.
6:15
And
6:16
what's also kind of interesting, I want
6:18
to point out a few stats.
6:20
When we look at Russian
6:23
propaganda strike videos, the FPV drone
6:25
videos of strikes, we see that almost a
6:28
third of what Russia strikes are
6:30
actually these robotic ground systems.
6:32
In contrast, Russia fields almost none
6:34
of them, where Ukraine is simply taking
6:37
out in a typical day one to two. I would
6:39
say that
6:41
based on my conversations when I was at
6:44
the
6:45
uh in eastern Ukraine, that I would say
6:49
Ukraine loses closer to 200 ground
6:52
drones in a in a single day, maybe
6:54
between 20 and 200. So, this is a sign
6:57
that again, Russia still doesn't isn't
6:59
really or hasn't made the investments in
7:02
reducing its human casualty rate uh that
7:05
Ukraine has. Again, these ground robots
7:07
perform um the most dangerous missions
7:11
for these units. And it Every ground
7:16
robot that gets destroyed represents a
7:20
person who didn't have to go on that
7:21
mission.
7:23
And the fact that Russia neither never
7:25
invested in or still does not see the
7:27
need to build cheap ground robots to
7:29
perform these kind of basic tasks is
7:31
itself strange and a little disturbing.
7:35
When we look at the total number of
7:36
casualties though, you see just how
7:38
staggering this can get. You also see
7:41
that the loss rate of Russian troops has
7:45
actually been remarkably steady since
7:48
about
7:51
the middle of last year, over the last
7:52
12 months. You've seen I mean, this is
7:54
insane. In the
7:56
The war has gone on for 4 years. And
7:58
basically Russia hit a million
8:00
casualties almost 6 months ago to the
8:02
day.
8:03
So, it took 3 years to get to their
8:06
first million.
8:08
Right?
8:09
And since then, Russian casualties have
8:12
hit nearly 1. 4 million. So, 40%
8:17
of all deaths in this war or all
8:20
casualties in this war have occurred in
8:22
the last 12 months. No, I'm sorry,
8:25
that's not quite right. A third. A third
8:28
of all of the war's casualties have
8:31
occurred in just the last 12 months.
8:33
Which is kind of insane. You can
8:35
actually see uh very unusual. In this
8:37
war, the first 100,000 Russian
8:41
casualties
8:42
the was the first year. You can see the
8:44
first 18 months of the war was when
8:46
Russia took its first 100,000
8:47
casualties.
8:48
Right? Now, it takes 100,000 casualties
8:52
uh let's see, in about
8:55
according to this in about night every
8:58
90 days.
8:59
Insane. Insane casualty rates. Well,
9:02
surely you say, "Well, Russia is is a
9:04
gas-based economy. They They have a huge
9:07
oil and gas industry. They're They're
9:08
They're They're just going to spend
9:09
money. They're going to pay more
9:10
bonuses. They're going to attract more
9:12
people."
9:13
Well,
9:14
there's just a problem.
9:15
Russia actually doesn't have any gas to
9:18
sell. In fact, it's turning to its
9:20
allies like Kazakhstan,
9:22
begging them for fuel imports.
9:25
And they're also begging India to sell
9:27
them fuel. This is the Russian
9:29
Federation, guys. This is the one of the
9:32
largest oil-producing countries on the
9:35
planet, and they're begging the Indians
9:38
to sell them back gasoline. And by the
9:41
way, guys, it is very expensive to ship
9:44
crude oil to India,
9:46
unload it, refine it, pack it up into
9:48
barrels, and ship it back to Russia.
9:50
And by the time it would get to Russia,
9:52
it would actually be unaffordable for
9:53
Russian citizens.
9:56
To solve that problem, Russia actually
9:58
is starting to pay out subsidies. That
10:00
is to say, Russian taxpayer money is
10:04
reducing the price of gasoline for the
10:06
average Russian. Now, maybe you think
10:08
subsidies for gas is a good idea or a
10:10
bad idea. Uh
10:11
but the the point is that that money
10:15
Russia would rather see it go to funding
10:17
its military, building more ground
10:19
drones, or
10:21
recruiting more unwitting
10:23
drunkards.
10:25
So, the fact is that we're seeing Russia
10:28
just I mean, really engage in some
10:30
desperation here. And
10:33
you think that it's still at least
10:35
selling crude oil is going to be a
10:36
profitable enterprise for Russia, but
10:38
that's not true, either.
10:40
You could see that the price of a barrel
10:42
of Urals crude is under $60 a barrel.
10:44
That's insane because, remember,
10:48
the price cap
10:50
on Urals crude
10:52
is $60 a barrel. That is the sanctioned
10:55
It is below the sanctioned level. That
10:58
is how low it is currently trading.
11:01
Okay? The last time it was trading sub
11:04
60 was right before the Iran war. And
11:07
you could see, in fact, that in October,
11:10
it was trading it was it cracked 60 in
11:14
October of last year. So, you could see,
11:16
Urals crude, the price had been very
11:18
low.
11:19
Putin gets some relief, but then very
11:21
quickly,
11:22
Strait of Hormuz, guys, not even open,
11:24
by the way. This isn't a Strait of
11:25
Hormuz thing. This is some sort of weird
11:27
expectations thing.
11:30
So, you're looking at Vladimir Putin,
11:32
who in some cases, his refineries it it
11:34
or his not even refineries, his crude
11:37
oil production, it may not even be
11:39
profitable in some of the more remote
11:40
regions. At $60 a barrel, some of those
11:42
remote facilities barely make money. It
11:45
is We're talking about
11:48
fractions of a percent of profit. Right?
11:52
Again, the general thinking was and I'll
11:54
explain this, the sanctions regime that
11:56
hit Putin, the thinking was to say,
11:59
"Listen, what we don't want is for us to
12:01
sanction an oil producer, have them shut
12:04
down their oil or remove that oil from
12:06
the global economy, creating an oil
12:09
inflation spike that hurts Western
12:12
countries, right? Where we have
12:14
effectively sanctioned ourselves from
12:15
buying Russian oil instead of
12:17
sanctioning Russian oil for sale." So,
12:18
they said, "Well, why don't we make it
12:20
so that instead of making $60 a barrel
12:24
or
12:25
or $25 a barrel, Russia makes $1 a
12:28
barrel?" So, it's still worth it for
12:30
them to extract it, refine it, pack it,
12:33
ship it, send it to Europe,
12:35
or whoever needs it, keeping global oil
12:37
prices stable, but
12:41
we still And if Russia wants to make
12:42
money, they will. They just have to sell
12:44
a lot of oil to make the same money.
12:46
And you can see that's part of the
12:47
incentive of this shadow fleet. The
12:49
shadow fleet existed because you can see
12:51
here, this is where it exists. It exists
12:52
because
12:54
everything they make above 60 is pure
12:56
profit.
12:57
So, you can see that again, if you
12:58
assume Let's assume it costs about Let's
13:01
say it's costs exactly $60 a barrel for
13:03
Russia to produce oil. Here, it's making
13:05
$8 a barrel.
13:07
Of course, you have to load it onto a
13:08
shadow fleet tanker to sell it, but
13:10
that's not been a problem. Up here, you
13:13
see Russia's making $40 a barrel. Here,
13:15
it's making $60 a barrel. And now,
13:19
today, it's losing $1.20 every barrel it
13:23
produces. And the odds are Again, this
13:27
doesn't appear to be a Hormuz thing cuz
13:29
Hormuz is currently closed.
13:31
The odds that it opens by the end of
13:33
July is basically a coin flip according
13:35
to Polymarket.
13:37
So, you're forced to conclude that
13:39
whatever's going on is a problem inside
13:41
the Russian Federation.
13:43
And whether that's Europe actually
13:45
putting some some violence behind its
13:47
sanctions regime, whether that people
13:49
don't want to hold Urals crude because
13:51
they don't know the deliveries will
13:52
happen and they say, "Listen, I I an
13:54
order for Urals crude today
13:57
might go up in smoke by Ukrainian drone
13:59
next week. I might never see it."
14:02
And I have to price it accordingly.
14:04
So,
14:06
all of this, right? It could also be
14:07
just a function of Iranian oil going
14:09
from sanctioned to unsanctioned. And if
14:10
you were buying sanctioned oil and you
14:12
can suddenly buy Iranian oil, well,
14:14
maybe you just go
14:17
who cares?
14:18
So, this is a absolute uh unmitigated
14:21
train wreck for Vladimir Putin. Now, if
14:23
you guys uh
14:25
feel like your own workout routine is a
14:27
train wreck, uh trust me, I get it. I'm
14:30
a full-time YouTuber, a dad, and I
14:32
really want to have a badass summer bod.
14:34
Um
14:35
you know, listen, you still got to
14:36
impress your wife, all right? Well,
14:38
Strike Gum is my secret weapon. It's
14:40
veteran owned, obviously, owned by this
14:42
veteran.
14:43
It's made in the USA at Liquid Core
14:46
facilities in Denver. It's got 90 mg of
14:48
caffeine in every piece and just 10
14:50
calories. It is a no-brainer.
14:54
Go to Strike Gum, pick some up,
14:56
and
14:58
leave leave leave these these shitty
15:00
energy drinks behind, all right? You get
15:02
the same caffeine as one of these in
15:04
each piece of Strike Gum, not a pack,
15:06
one piece.
15:07
So, check the link in the description.
15:08
Thanks to Brandon Alford, Peter, Mike,
15:10
William, Thomas, Deborah, Paul, Jeff,
15:11
and Lieutenant Tier folks. Really
15:13
appreciate you guys. I'll catch you in
15:14
the next one. Cheers.