Desertion in the Russian Military Gets Completely Out of Hand.- The Russian Dude

[TexasTowelie]

Russian soldiers are deserting in record numbers while total Russian losses keep climbing to absurd levels, and this text argues that the Kremlin’s image of a stable, self-sustaining war machine is becoming harder and harder to defend.

According to the material here, Ukraine has struck one of Russia’s key oil lifelines at Primorsk on the Baltic Sea, a major Transneft export hub more than 1,000 kilometers from Ukraine, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian forces hit a Karakurt guided missile corvette, a patrol boat, and tankers tied to Russia’s shadow oil fleet near both Primorsk and Novorossiysk. That matters because Russia’s oil system is not just an economic sector but the financial engine that helps fund the war, and when ports, tankers, refineries, and naval platforms become physically vulnerable, sanctions pressure starts combining with direct battlefield pressure.

The text also links those strikes to worsening economic signs, with Reuters reporting that the government-linked TsMAKP think tank cut Russia’s 2026 GDP growth forecast to just 0.5% to 0.7% and that Russia’s economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter, its first quarterly contraction since early 2023.

But the biggest story here is manpower. Ukrainian sources say Russia has now lost more personnel than it recruits for the fifth straight month, from December 2025 through April 2026, with 148,400 recruited and mobilized during that period against 156,735 confirmed personnel losses from drone strikes alone, while Ukraine’s General Staff put total Russian losses since February 24, 2022 at 1,335,150.

On top of that comes a desertion crisis that the text says is exploding, with Mediazona previously reporting nearly 21,000 Russian servicemen convicted for refusing service, a UN special rapporteur saying at least 50,000 Russian soldiers may have deserted since 2022, and anti-mobilization networks like Idite Lesom helping thousands escape military service. The description argues that this reveals a much darker recruitment system inside Russia, where the Kremlin increasingly relies on pressure, deception, universities, migrants, employers, legal traps, and misleading drone-force contracts to keep manpower flowing, while North Korean troops and other foreign fighters show that Russia’s war effort is no longer fueled only by willing Russian recruits but by a broader network of dependency, coercion, and political desperation.

Taken together, the text paints a picture of a Russian war machine under pressure from every angle at once: oil revenue vulnerability, lower growth forecasts, worsening recruitment math, rising AWOL numbers, coerced manpower, foreign troop reliance, and a battlefield increasingly shaped by Ukrainian drone warfare and long-range strikes.

[ChicagoTeamster]

1. They should desert, It's not their war, it's no longer even Russia's war, it's Putin's war just like the military action

in Iran is Trump and BiBi's war