Russia Expands Deployment of Wounded Troops at the Front

Manpower Shortage or Moneypower Shortage? I’d say it’s a bit of both.

Russian commanders are no strangers to deploying evil strategies. Sometimes, they unleash it on the people they’re fighting against; other times, they turn it against their own. Russia is the only professional army in the world with disciplinary units—units ordered to shoot their own comrades if they flee from enemy fire. They don’t just embrace evil. They are the evil.

But the scale at which they are sending wounded soldiers back to the front is staggering. The U.K. Ministry of Defense reported on this today:

• It is highly likely injured Russian personnel are being returned to combat duties in Ukraine with unhealed wounds, often on crutches. Open source reporting suggests Russia’s 20th Combined Arms Army has formed assault groups made up of walking wounded and directed them into combat.

• There is a realistic possibility Russian commanders are directing this activity to retain personnel who would otherwise become lost in the overburdened medical system. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russia has sustained approximately 830,000 casualties since February 2022, of which it is likely over 400,000 have required treatment in medical facilities away from the frontline.

• The injured soldiers have likely been returned to their units after being discharged from forward medical facilities, prematurely, at the behest of their commanders. This reduces the pressure on the overburdened military medical system and increases the unit's ability to track and use wounded servicemen for operational tasks. The lack of proper medical attention in facilities away from the frontline necessitates the transfer of the administrative and medical burden back to troops’ units.

Joining the Russian army is a one-way road to death. I think the Kremlin is long past the days of convincing average Russians to enlist. Most of the recruitment must be happening through coercion.

How Does This Impact the Frontline?

I doubt the number of wounded soldiers fighting at any given time is large enough to trigger a breakthrough. They must be mixing them in. There are strategies the Russians can use to prevent their lines from collapsing, as long as the proportion of wounded soldiers remains relatively small.

Russians regularly send frontline troops on suicide missions. When they began recruiting prisoners for war, they barely trained them before rushing them onto the battlefield. These untrained troops were sent to the front to draw enemy fire, revealing Ukrainian infantry positions. They were deployed in waves—both to locate Ukrainian forces and to exhaust them. After some time, Russian artillery would rain down on these positions, hitting them as hard as possible. This cycle would continue until professional troops moved in to finish the job.

That’s how the term cannon fodder became a reality.

Now, instead of prisoners, Russian commanders can send wounded soldiers on these same suicide missions.

What can I say? You really can’t take the evil out of this army.

But I also don’t think the number of wounded at the front is high enough to trigger an immediate breakthrough. What it will do, however, is crush morale to its lowest point. When a breakthrough does happen, Ukraine will be able to punch straight through to the rear.

Ukraine isn’t there yet. They just need to keep holding the line—at some point, the opportunity to break through will come.