RUSSIAN soldiers have been complaining bitterly about their shoddy equipment, including flimsy helmets and useless first-aid kids.
In a viral video, a soldier crushes a Russian helmet with just his foot to show how poor quality they are.
Putin‘s mercenaries have also shared pictures of their inferior first-aid kits alongside the Ukrainian one, to show the contrast in equipment.
The Ukrainian kit seems to contain a number of tools, including scissors, an intubation tube to help someone breathe with a blocked airway, and much more.
In contrast, Russian troops have been sent to war with a kit appearing to contain nothing more than several instruction manuals and something to tie off a tourniquet.
Russian mercenaries who allegedly posted the picture on social media complained: “This is what Putin and Shoigu brought us,” referring to the defence minister Sergei Shoigu.
The photo’s original source is unclear, but it’s believed it was originally shared on several popular Russian Telegram accounts and blogs, including one which is crowdfunding to buy Putin’s soldiers equipment.
In a video shared online by a Canadian foreign fighter who joined the Ukrainian military, a Russian helmet is seen being easily crushed underfoot.
A second earlier video shared on Twitter shows two Ukrainian soldiers picking up an abandoned Russian helmet.
One takes off the helmet cover to reveal a large hole where a bullet or shrapnel has torn through the thin metal.
Despite Russia having the fifth biggest military budget in the world – around £52.4 billion last year – their own soldiers’ welfare doesn’t appear to have been a priority.
“The Russians have invested a lot of money in their military, and I’m certain the combat first-aid kits would not have broken the bank,” former White House National Security Council director for Russia Jeffrey Edmonds told The Daily Beast.
He went on: “If I were a Russian soldier, I might think, ‘Well, okay, my general health in combat really isn’t something that’s valued that much,’. It just shows a level of concern for your soldiers.”
Some of Russia’s military equipment could date back to the 1990s, or even earlier to before the fall of the USSR.
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