Troops are likely engaging in hand-to-hand combat in Ukraine, Britain's defence ministry says.
Putin is apparently now sending his troops to Ukraine armed only with firearms with limited ammo and small shovels which were designed the year before Vladimir Lenin was born. By “firearms” it’s probably meant to indicate personal weapons which can be carried by one individual. These Russians are facing Ukrainians who are much more heavily armed.
Russian reservists are likely using "shovels" for "hand-to-hand" combat in Ukraine due to a shortage of ammunition, the UK's Ministry of Defence says.
In late February, reservists described being ordered to assault a Ukrainian position "armed with only 'firearms and shovels'", the ministry said in its latest intelligence update.
It mentioned a shovel known as MPL-50.
The tool was designed in 1869 and had changed little, the ministry said.
"The lethality of the standard-issue MPL-50 entrenching tool is particularly mythologised in Russia," the ministry said.
The continued use of the shovel "as a weapon highlights the brutal and low-tech fighting which has come to characterise much of the war", it said.
One of the reservists described being "neither physically nor psychologically" prepared for the action, the update added.
So when the Russians run out of ammo they are presumably expected to hit Ukrainians with shovels – if they even manage to get that close.
Even when Russia has heavier weapons, many of them date back to the Khrushchev era. Except for the promised but still unseen T-14 tanks, these armored vehicles were designed or built before The Beatles became famous.
Putin, once called a “savvy genius” by Donald Trump, is neither savvy nor ingenious. His “strategy” is to send massive waves of poorly armed and poorly trained troops into battle while bombing Ukrainian civilians with cruise missiles and Iranian drones.
