The russian soldier’s message reads as a brutally candid, semi-anonymous field report or soldier’s rant about the systemic failures in Russia’s military electronic warfare (РЭБ – радиоэлектронная борьба, or EW) capabilities. Beneath the dry, matter-of-fact tone lies a deeply frustrated critique—one that hints at incompetence, resource misallocation, bureaucratic apathy, and possibly even sabotage.
What is he exposing
Operational Incompetence and Pattern Ignorance
The text shows repeated, almost ritualized losses of vehicles and personnel due to inadequate electronic warfare coverage—yet there’s no institutional learning. EW systems exist but cover only a subset of the necessary frequency bands. Losses repeat daily. And still, no systematic correction is applied. This isn’t mere oversight; it’s a breakdown in cognitive feedback loops at command level.
“Следующий день… Следующий день… И т.д.”
The repetition here is damning—it mimics the drone of a death march. This is the tone of a soldier who has watched preventable deaths stack up while leadership shrugs.
Economic Absurdity
A major theme is the absurdity of the cost barrier
- Soldiers are expected to “chip in” out of pocket to maintain critical systems—batteries, wheels, electronics.
- A complete fix (200–250k rubles per vehicle, roughly $2.2–2.8k USD) is “unaffordable” for a full regiment, yet they spend 80–100k on low-grade stopgaps that fail.
The money issue is inefficiency and willful negligence raising the unspoken question of -how can a state that brags about hypersonic missiles not scrape together the cost of a used Lada to protect its troops?
Sabotage or Structural Corruption?
The last line is the dagger!
“Это такой способ вредительства?”
“Is this a form of sabotage?”
His is no idle conspiracy—it’s a callout. He is accusing someone (or the system at large) of deliberately choosing ineffective solutions, either through corrupt contracting, sheer indifference, or quiet internal sabotage. The message suggests a choice is being made to not protect troops effectively.
Underlying Narrative
His complaint has been appearing more frequently in Russian military-adjacent channels and insider forums. It signals disillusionment at the tactical level. Importantly, this is not anti-war—it’s anti-incompetence, anti-corruption, and a plea for technological realism over jingoistic fantasy.
The soldier’s complaint is part of a larger Russian military cultural phenomenon–lower officers and tech-savvy operators (especially in EW, drone, and signal units) are often more pragmatic than the upper brass, and they know exactly how broken the system is.
Information Warfare Context
From a disinformation or information operations perspective, the text functions in many areas–
- Internal narrative fracture
- Undermining official claims of technological superiority.
- Implicit whistleblowing
- It bypasses official channels and leaks dysfunction directly into the public digital bloodstream.
- Soft morale erosion
- If this circulates widely, it chips at the illusion of control and operational competency.
His is more than a complaint. It’s a canary-in-the-coal-mine memo from someone close to the battlefield, exposing logistical rot, doctrinal paralysis, and a growing belief that either incompetence or betrayal—rather than the enemy—is killing Russian troops. It’s precisely the kind of raw, detail-rich leak that cracks the foundation of state-controlled narratives.
