Russia's Litter Legacy : Trash, Discipline and the Hidden Clues it Reveals about the Russian Army
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2023
- The uncensored story is at: RyanMcBeth.Substack.com along with all of the links to sources.
In this case, I believe that the propensity for the Russian Army to leave trash near their fighting positions is a reflection of:
#1. Their level of discipline
#2. The motivation of their first line leaders
#3. The lack of littler discipline risk understanding among officers.
#4. The lack of Russian field grade officers visiting the front on a regular basis.
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The uncensored story is at: RyanMcBeth.Substack.com along with all of the links to sources.
In this case, I believe that the propensity for the Russian Army to leave trash near their fighting positions is a reflection of:
#1. Their level of discipline
#2. The motivation of their first line leaders
#3. The lack of littler discipline risk understanding among officers.
#4. The lack of Russian field grade officers visiting the front on a regular basis.
For uncensored video, check out my substack at:
ryanmcbeth.substack.com
Like my shirts? Get your own at:
www.bunkerbranding.com/pages/ryan-mcbeth
Want a personalized greeting:
www.cameo.com/ryanmcbeth
Watch all of my long form videos:
ruclips.net/p/PLt670_P7pOGmLWZG78JlM-rG2ZrpPziOy
Twitter:
@ryanmcbeth
Instagram:
@therealryanmcbeth
Reddit:
/r/ryanmcbeth
Join the conversation:
discord.gg/pKuGDHZHrz
Want to send me something?
Ryan McBeth Productions LLC
8705 Colesville Rd.
Suite 249
Silver Spring, MD 20910
USA
Ryan, the video resolution on your substack is rather low.
That's a good list. To your four, I would add a fifth. Many of these conscripts come from impoverished villages where there's no system to get rid of garbage. Radio Free Europe discusses that here: ruclips.net/video/x1NX9shKJt4/видео.html
I have met Russian forces in the field: Kosovo... We weren't impressed with what we saw. Their material was in a way worse condition then we could imagine. Uniforms didn't match and the were to big or to short for the person wearing them. There was total lack of initiative, the commands came from the older officers whom themselves were rather shaggy beside a few exceptions. And that were the officers that could speak English due to exchange programs and such. You can simplify it to internal or external discipline. Somehow they can't motivate their men to activate themselves to take responsibility for their own actions, they simply don't know how are care at all....
What did You expext from mordorian orks?
There was nowhere near as much trash as I've seen in many other videos, especially from last year in both Kharkiv & Kherson oblasts.
Either they're learning or the trash spreaders have paid for their filthy habits.
First thing we were told when I did my military service in Sweden was to keep everything clean (hygiene, uniform, weapons, surroundings). Very important, especially for moral.
Did you ever get stuck in a trench for two months?
Until quite recently, disease was the #1 enemy of soldiers.
@@mitchyoung93 probably make cleaning more important
@@travcollier Yep. Bacterial Meningitis. Two words that make it run cold down the back of a camp commander.
This is a danger wherever many people work together in close company for a longer period of time.
It even hits the youths celebrating the end of their education here in Norway. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russefeiring
There's usually at least one outbreak among them every year.
@@mitchyoung93you obviously didn’t watch the video lol
In 2004 I was deployed to the Iraqi oil terminals on USS CUSHING (DD 985). We were the only 7th Fleet ship in the AO. One day the captain came on the 1MC and reamed us all a new one because another ship had picked up a Georgia Coffee can. It seems trivial, but that could have told our enemies something they didn’t know. There’s no reason to give away information if you don’t have to.
what is a georgia coffee can?
I was in the Australian army in the early 80s and our senior NCOs and most of our officers were Vietnam vets. They were sticklers for cleanliness for all the reasons given and they gave the example of poor American boys from the sticks, conscripts, who would throw rubbish with not much of a care and the dangers that would bring. For one thing, soda cans were thrown when empty and the VC would use that fact to make an IED underneath one. The poor grunts had become so used to seeing them that they’d unthinkingly kick a bit of trash, only to lose a leg. Now, I know that was a low point of the US military and even in the 80s these guys had built up more respect for our American allies after you guys had ended conscription and made an effort to professionalise everyone left, not just the elite units as sometimes happened in Vietnam but they did say it as a cautionary tale about lack of discipline etc.
@@nattly6340 Georgia just a brand of coffee. Canned coffee is super popular in Japan. I don't see Georgia Coffee in my part of the US tho
@@MaaveMaave nope, only available in Japan. At least in 2004, so it was a dead giveaway that a Japan based or even a JMSDF ship was in the area.
@@nattly6340 The navy floats on coffee.
The amount of trash is really good indicator of discipline and morale.
Jeremy Bowen was the first really respected journalist to go on record that Assad's forces were NOT collapsing, but rather had withdrawn to an area that they could effectively hold.
He did a report from a Syrain Army trench system and pointed out how clean it was. No trash equals organization and functioning discipline.
He said that he'd seen many armies collapse, and one of the first tell tale signs was trash and clutter.
There's loads of trash in ruSSki trenches.
And litter as well.
Assad forces where getting wiped. Assad was days away from having to die in syria or flee. Thats why he begged the Russians to come in and start war crimes central.
They accidentally invaded a homeless encampment
@@hasAcar Lol, seriously that's what it looks like. Reminds me of a homeless camp you'd see on the edge of town.
A journalist isn't going to know sh*t about military TTP's!
Having trash in a trench system that has been subjected to arty fire proves absolutely nothing in regards the training / capabilities / moral of an enemy force.
If the arty is falling, the enemy knows you are there, so what is the point in concealing trash?
As an archaeologist (and veteran), trash is the stuff of dreams. You can tell so much about a culture or a people by the trash left behind. We don't often find valuables and things people cared about. We find what they discard and didn't care about and what stays buried in the soil. In the military sense, what they discard gives us a window into how long they were there, how well supplied they were, and also how hastily they left.
Turds do that, also.
Looks like these particular invaders never left.
Went on a few digs back in school. Indeed, one can tell by what was left behind in the midden heap, even the wealth or lack thereof of the people using that midden and get a fair approximation of timeline from common goods, such as clay ware.
And on one dig, found a collection and possible bag fragments full of lead balls. Given other findings, looked to be a military encampment that was from the pre-Minie ball era. Later, a button was found and given the totality, looked to be from the French and Indian War.
That's a pretty interesting CV you have there with those two disciplines.
@@johnduffy8532 well, one takes courses in school and in general, I've never declined free training opportunities in multiple fields.
So, I'm a certified electronics technician, IT systems administrator, EMT-P, explosive ordinance reconnaissance agent and NBC reconnaissance, not to mention an information security security officer over the course of over six decades of life.
I've also been known to part the seas with a toothpick and loads of profanity and walk on water when it's been really, really cold outside for a while.
As a former infantryman in the Canadian military, my NCO's would have us doing push-ups until we passed out if they found our positions looking like the russian trenches...
Again, I doubt you were stuck ina trench for two months under artillery fire.
@@mitchyoung93all the more reason to not litter. Getting shelled sucks
even more of a reason to keep the place clean if your stuck there for that long@@mitchyoung93
Why would a canadian trench look like a russian one lol
@@mitchyoung93 it's not about how long you're there, you don't leave garbage all over. Enemy recce teams that up, that's what we avoided. Training for battle is not much different than taking part in battle. That's part of the training, trash-discipline is another part of the training.
Years later, it still serves me well, when I go camping, I leave nothing behind. I account for every scrap of trash I created, and come back with it for proper disposal.
One thing you learn as a NATO soldier - police your area and don't give intel to the enemy, as a former SgtMaj - THIS would drive be crazy, that's why we had garbage trucks as part of our DP cycles. Ryan - going to tell you once again - Field strip that cigarette butt, your going to give our position away. Cheers
Its vapes now.
cover the light @@JohnWick-stardawg
Indeed and it's something that seasoned soldiers automatically do and more junior folks need the leadership to dig into them to do and keep up with. Packing out trash is one part of minimizing your 'signature.' When discovering that someone else has been in an area, everyone in the military is like an amateur detective. What they used, what brands, what was lost or left behind, etc. The military who leaves no signature--no matter what their job is--are the true professionals. Yes, even picking up your trash is a professional thing to do! ;-)
@@jamesdolph437 a bit of heavy duct tape would sort that. Or if your handy enough, dig into the vape and disconnect the light. Its only the cheap disposable ones that light up when you're inhaling. The expensive ones dont.
@@JohnWick-stardawgfor cigarette smokers, you would have an empty can and stick the cherry of the cigarette into the can.
20 plus years on tanks and I've ran over every conceivable object out there and left destruction on a massive scale behind me and my platoon. However, I was also field stripping my cigarette butts and putting them in my pocket so the enemy couldn't locate my trash even though, it looked like a herd of elephants just rumbled through the area. Every evening when the 1SG would show up with hot chow, we would turn in a garbage bag of trash, from each tank. Every unit, every base.
Sure bud
“You might expect soldiers to trash an area _if it's not their country.”_ Exactly. But I have that feeling that they would do almost the same in Russia proper. They are a disenfranchised bunch. May this whole mess end soon! All in all, excellent video! I think you are spot on with your analysis, you have untrained soldiers, untrained NCOs, an alienated leadership,… it's a mess.
I have seen a few videos of communities in Russia and they are slovenly. Not all communities. Some of the ethnic communities are much better. But the Russian communities... I don't know how they can live like that. They manage to keep some of the big cities looking better since foreigners can see those. I guess they don't want their "dirty" secret to get out.
@@susanfarley1332exactly this. Russian working class neighborhoods are frequently full of litter, as garbage collection services are unreliable if they exist at all in these areas.
One thing I think that was left out of this video was there can also possibly be some intelligent information that could be gathered from trash. Maybe it was so obvious that it wasn't even mention.
@@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis when I visited my grandparents farm out in the country and they didn't have garbage pick up, I saw how they handled it. What the chickens could eat went to them, what could burn was burned, and what didn't burn and no animal would eat was buried . They had had that farm since way before I was born and it was a neat and tidy place.
The Russian army doesn't even have NCOs in the way we understand them.
It is a cultural thing for Russians and even Ukrainians. It reminds me of the US before the "Don't be a Litterbug" campaign. Younger Ukrainians have been working to change that but we used to joke about "Ukrainian grass" which was actually broken glass. I have also seen pictures of Russians vacationing in the countryside and they are surrounded by litter. Part of the problem might have to do with how things were in the former soviet times. Everyone had a job so there were armies of people paid to clean up trash, so no one bothered to bin their trash. When in a village in Ukraine my wife was trying to encourage some children to pick up after themselves to which they responded "That is the job of the "bad people".
I agree. It's not just discipline, but attitude. When I went for a walk in a small forest near Moscow there were trash piles everywhere. I wonder if it's also a symptom of having so much land that they don't respect it.
When you compare footage from Russian and Ukrainian trenches, you will notice that in general Russian trenches are more trashy. The same about rural villages, recall footage from Voronezh. And there are always exceptions on either side.
@@jamesdi7261 russian littering problem in general
100%, very much a cultural thing. I recall in one of Artur Rehi's videos that he makes mention of this issue being a well known problem where he lives (Estonia) and I believe also in Lithuiana and Latvia. Anywhere there is a large number of Russians living together these places are often trashed and have rubbish dumped all over the place like they just don't care.
@@stefankruger3634 Aye, there's at least 279,000 pieces of Russian trash littering the Ukrainian countryside...
In WWII, my uncle was court-martialed for leaving a machine gun case behind (when he found it was easier to carry it in his backpack). Some other US unit found it and it was considered serious because Germans could track their movements by trash. However, the court-martial was the best thing that happened to him. He was demoted from front-line service to being the lowly scout and "gofer" boy to a General. This was not only a much safer position, but he got great accommodations, better food etc.
"Nevermind the 20 Germans he just deleted since he wasn't treating the weapon case properly.. and that cuff fold was off slightly off after the last firefight..."
Tales from How We Went Woke in 1900: Democrats selling out the US to the Brit Degen Empire
I wonder if that sort of initiative was considered useful for a gofer?
@@Trueholycrapfishthey expect the General to discipline the gofer
Some people just fail upwards in life 😂
@@Trueholycrapfish not really initiative. Cases keep the gun clean and better protected during transport which cuts down on jamming and equipment breakdowns. Some WW1 and WW2 machine guns like the Chauchat were much more likely to jam from dirt than some modern guns, so keeping them in cases and as clean as possible was vital. He was cutting corners to make his job easier, not figuring out some more efficient way of doing his job.
As a person with no military background it feels so important to see these videos of the individual struggles of war. It helps ground my life and reminds me how good I have it, even on a ‘bad day’. Thank you to all that serve and shame on the leaders for not finding peace for the common man.
I remember as a private being specifically told the importance of trash clean up. At first I thought it was about keeping the training area clean, but my nco explained how it leaves a footprint. Ideally you don’t want your enemy to know you were there at all, let alone how big your force or where you were going
I was in a discussion on another video about policing up my medical waste when possible when in field conditions. The naysayers jumped up to ridicule me over than. They obviously never served in the field. Thank you for indirectly supporting me. Great explanation.
You could tell a lot about unit casualties by what medical debris was left behind. And the general health of the supply chain.
Medical waste is pure intelligence and propaganda. Additionally, that trash is future improvised treatments
Another possible issue is that the NCOs who are actually there, not only weren't trained, but they lack the observation and thinking skills to realize that trash is a dead giveaway for them. If they look at the next position over, they should be able to see the mess, and "if I can see you, the Ukrainians can too!"
That suggests a lack of personal initiative,for the NCOs as well as the line troops.
Lack of personal initiative is how orcs train their troops, that’s by design, they don’t want them to have personal initiatives!
doesnt Russia generally have a very limited NCO corp? most of their units consisting of an officer and then a bunch of enlisted that without much in the way of a unit "chain" of leadership.
The Russian Military doesn’t have an NCO Corp in the same fashion as Western Armies.
@@The_Black_Falchion That's right. In Germany we have got NCO's up to NATO-rank OF 2 (probably in US-army even higher). There's nothing comparable in Russian army.
@@The_Lone_Aesir It's very limited. NCO's in the Russian army exist, but they're almost as rare as unicorns. The Russians have been trying (and failing) to build an NCO corp for a while, it appears having NCO's is an issue when people don't re-enlist.
This caused by the lack of displine and training. Former USA Army officer here. Everything you leave is clues for the enemy. They also do not expect to be alive there for a long period of time so they do not care.
It also makes fighting harder in confined and tight spaces. If you drop something or need to find something quickly, it becomes a needle in a haystack real quick. And then cover, concealment, and maneuverability becomes harder. If you’re taking cover and accidentally bump a piece of bright colored debris, you could get spotted. Or trying to quickly get to cover and your path has unnecessary obstacles possibly causing sprains or worse… The issue just compounds on itself like navigating a hoarders house, it’s just difficult and never ends well
As a Dutch Corporal First Class in 1988, serving in a Ypr-Pri in a mechanized armored infantry group as the deputy group commander, I can tell you that ensuring everything is spick and span, cleaned up, and tidy caused me the most headaches and discussions. With the esteemed gentlemen, each one a warrior aged 18 to 21, I myself had a culinary background, so I knew that hygiene was important, but the training also emphasized the camouflage aspect. As the weeks went by, I noticed how dirty the Russian positions were. I always had respect for the Russians. In 1988, the Cold War was still ongoing, and I was concerned about how that conflict would unfold. I trusted in our vehicle (now seen in Ukraine without the 25mm rapid-fire cannon for Americans, the M113), and the men of the battalion. After seeing those garbage dumps, I am convinced they will never win. Greetings from the Hague, Netherlands
Well, I heard that Putin is quite a "wanted" celebrity where you're from nowadays 🤣
and the Hague local district court would like a word with Igor Girkin too...
Is that a fair comparison, though? Living in a shitty trench for months while getting bombarded is a different reality than operating a vehicle and living in camps with full support staff and command structure.
@@maxstrthe threat from disease is so much higher, so is the need for cleanliness. The Russians can't report themselves to the medical centre - they'll just have to sh*t themselves to death....
@@maxstr You know the difference between a survivor and a corpse in the trenches?
Apart from luck that it.
Disciplin and making that trench not shitty.
If it rains, dig drainage. Cover your waste, make fresh latrines on regular basis. Keep yourself and your surroundings as clean as possible. Just don't polish those brass buttons, that could get you spotted.
We bear in mind the lessons of Monty and The Desert Fox, in North Africa: Montgomery insisted on trash discipline and, most importantly, sewage discipline, with covered "toilets" to prevent the spread of disease, as a result, Dysentery, the great killer of previous wars was fairly rare. Meanwhile, Rommel was still using slit trenches and suffered a large amount of Dysentery, Including Rommel himself , who had to be evacuated back to Germany for recovery. Every military school on Earth teaches this, but, in war, shit happens.
Even the Romans did it.
The british army in that era was generally quite conservative but one thing they did really push forward was military cleanliness due to the sort of countries the empire brought them to and the wide areay of disease which could kill you there. There were famously huge reforms after the crimean war which killed a larger amount of men by ratio (not total number) than the first world war-the majority of them dead from disease like cholera and dysentery. Simple things like having engineers construct proper latrines far away and ncos supervise washing made a massive difference. They wernt as naive about disease and infection control in that era as we are often told. They knew filth caused disease to spread.
Rimshot. Lol
@@Ukraineaissance2014 Having worked with a few British units over the years, I was amazed how often I would see Ruperts inspect the feet of their soldiers, but an ounce of prevention!
I'll also never forget a Sky News report of impudent British troopers in Bosnia. They were living in an abandoned house, and had set a raised bathtub up in the yard. They filled the tub with water and lit a fire under it to warm the water. In the video segment, a trooper is in the bath, naked except for his helmet, and his squad mates are surrounding him, facing away with their weapons at the ready. The reporter asks "What are you doing" and the young man replies "I'm taking a bath, while following protective protocols. We have been ordered to wear our helmets whenever we are outside. Although I feel safe, it makes it difficult to wash my hair." 😂
Yes of course they may loose their military doctors and the medicines
i remember while in air force special ops and attending a mission briefing by a team we were going to insert to a denied area, they had briefed about collecting AND carrying their own body waste so as to leave no traces for anyone to find. I remember being very impressed by that.
Great video! I've been waiting for someone to cover this topic.
when we saw how Russians were trashing all over the place we joked that Russia was just terraforming Ukraine in it's own image, I think that Estonians or Latvians can relate because I heard that was the case there as well
A great joke, mate 😄
I was in the US Navy back in the mid 80s, and I remember how pissed your ship-mates would get with you if you left your trash all around. They had enough discipline that they didn't need officers or NCOs chasing after you. They'd 'discipline' you all on their own. Ships are tight quarters and no one likes living next to a slob.
@@seaworth3382have an actual think about that.............what happened to them after 1945...........
@seaworth3382 Tallin and Riga seemed pretty clean to me. Swedish cities are much worse nowadays
@@seaworth3382 They are better
Trashing up your trench or fighting position is very bad out of several reasons.
As you mentioned, the trash clearly shows scouts or drones which trenches are manned and exactly where the shelters/living areas are. Usefull to know in the days of precision artillery.
Second reason is, that trash contains plastics. When that artillery comes, and it will come, you will have additional plastic fragments flying around. Being hit by a piece of shrapnell is bad enough. Its worse than a bullet. What would suck more is having a plastic fragment strike you and get embeded. That plastic bottlecap can move at incredible speeds if accelerated by 4kg of TNT going off besides it. If you have plastic fragments those dont show up on X-ray like rocks, dirt and metal fragments. You need an MRI scan to find those plastic fragments, or you know, wait up until the doctor notices those wounds being perpetually inflamed because he missed a fragment he couldnt see and cutting you open again to get it out. Also, its bad enough to inhale the smoke generated by munitions detonating and by burning shrubbery. Inhaling burning trash and plastics? You can ask the "burning pits" crews how well that went.
Next one was also mentioned, rodents and disease. Up to mid 20th century disease has killed more soldiers in war than any weapon, even artillery. If you pile up trash you attract rodents. Rodents will spread disease. Rampant disease will have the bottom drop out on the morale question, require a ton of medical supplies to fix and if not fixed will drop your guys dead without the enemy expending one round of ammunition.
Big pharma has a shot for that. Carry on.
It also makes for a hazardous area to maneuver in. Imagine being under attack and needing to run through a wooded area only to trip over a mountain of trash. Or trying to dive into a trench while being shot at, only to trip over some garbage and faceplant. What a way to die.
Speaking of diseases. The main cause of casualties for Russia in Afghanistan was poor sanitation.
I was shocked to learn that a supposed superpower couldn't figure out that sanitation prevents losses.
@@gobblox38 to be completely fair it took the US till Vietnam to completely figure out camp sanitation aswell. In WW2 the mobility of warfare and availability of civilian housing on the western front prevented most of it and camp sanitation wasnt a priority if you could just lodge in a frenchmans home and be welcomed with warm food, blankets and a solid roof over your head.
Anyways. Ukraine is one cholera carrying rat away from building a monument for rodents as heroes of Ukraine the way the russian soldiers keep their trenches clean.
@@schullerandreas556 Okay hear me out. The Geneva conventions aren't specifically mentioning that dropping rats on top of trenches is biological warfare, but it probably is. That being said, it's only considered biological warfare if we drop the rats on top of the trenches, or drop vials of cholera on top of the trenches. Dropping pieces of food near and around the trenches to attract the rats and provide a helping hand to a process that would already happen naturally isn't illegal as far as I can read.
I must admit that I'd never considered litter to be such an important issue in the field as a way to reveal your position, but after thinking about it when it was mentioned it seems pretty clear.
I work in environmental management, and one field in which I've been working is in incorporating remote sensing (satellites & drones, basically) to environmental monitoring of litter, mostly at sea but also in coastlines. When drones were mentioned as a way to detect soldier-produced litter it was not a bulb what went on in my head but a full blown neon sign.
Did it say “Eat(en) At Joes!”?
Thanks for the video. The trash piles in and around the russian trenches actually do jump at one's eye almost instantly when looking a combat footage. I appreciate your putting that in context with the basics of US military training.
One remark to the beginning of the video you comment: As for the worn uniform pieces hung in the trees and bushes: It could be true that they were hung there for drying and got damaged by shell fragments, but my thought was that they were exchanged for combat wear in better shaped and the "rags" were used to camouflage the position. Just a thought, as apparently the renewal rhythm of Russian gear is not that frequent...
Keep up your good work!
I’m not a military oriented viewer, but huge kudos for your honest assessments of what’s going on. I didn’t notice the usual garbage pit of trash surrounding Russian soldiers as much as in many other Ukrainian soldier videos. I think this is a great topic! Thanks again.
This guy is anything but honest.
@@mitchyoung93says the Kremlin troll 🙄
@@mitchyoung93 This isn't Russia, my guy. Here we actually know the truth exists, and we follow a set of rules to sus it out and an additional set of rules to present it.
Check out that pinned comment for his sources and uncensored content that RUclips doesn't allow. Its all there, unless you're a Russian who doesn't think objective reality is a thing. If that's the case just keep walkin'.
As someone who spent 25 years doing surveillance I was not beyond "dumpster diving", I broke several cases over the years, based solely by examining trash. It's amazing on what you can learn. Given enough advance notice, I always did a pre-run on any 3 day assignment. That usually included a neighborhood canvas, and a dumpster dive,and an undercover contact. That way my investigators had a ID photo/video, or more. P. A. C. E "Pace" phone, activity, car, employment. I wonder what a decent dumpster dive of those 9:54
@@mitchyoung93 I’ve been watching this channel for a long time, although not all the videos in a row and I didn’t notice that the author was lying somewhere, although I admit that he may deliberately not voice some details, but it happens that he speaks very confidently about things he doesn’t understand, a good example was a video in which he exposed the moment of the launch of a Russian hypersonic air defense missile from a silo and compared it with cargo missiles.
I get the impression that this channel is similar in type to your Anatoly Shariy.
And in Viet Nam there was “Oder discipline”. In the jungle a large group of men may not be visible but you could smell their waste, their cooking fires, and the large about of nuk-mam (fish sauce). And when I was in Germany you could smell the French soldiers before you could see them.
hell in Vietnam you couldn't even leave a cigarette butt lying around, it was like breadcrumbs to the Vietnamese, and that's a place where there was always cover from the flora, it's amazing also how good your sense of smell becomes, but yeah these troops will be easy to spot, sick, slow, frostbitten come winter
it's interesting how differently a Vietnam war would have to be fought today than a war in Ukraine due to the terrain, a lot of what's effective in Ukraine wouldn't work in Vietnam although both situations are equally fk'd
Odor. Oder is a river in Germany =)
Just saw this bit of information, This is where Mr. McBeth really shines, personal knowledge, critical analysis, and frankly just a common sense clear eyed look and the variables. Thank you for this information that myself and the rest of the viewers that never thought of the ramifications on the causes.
Badass episode my man! Great point and you taught me Dunnage, Thank You!
I saw a video from one of the Baltic states--Estonia, I think--of their national cleanup day. Already things looked pretty neat, but they still managed to pick up a fair amount of stuff--even had skin divers going into canals etc. Then the videographer went to the Russian part of the city, and it was a mess. Lack of maintenance, peeling paint, trash scattered around. No cleanup in progress. It makes one think that there could be a cultural factor involved.
We are learning some unflattering things about the Russian people.
I was on student exchange in the ussr just before the fall of Gorbatsjov. In Kazan city the muslim parts of town had something of a cultural renaissance and were markedly cleaner than the more Russian parts. In Russian parts lots of alcoholism too.
That's exactely what I noticed during my stays in Russia. Everyone is smashing his garbage out of the window into the backyard. In this was in a city with 600K people.
@@sterno5119 This reminds me of Russians who were relocated to the stolen Finnish city of Viipuri (the Soviets never conquered it, but Finland had to give it away) after the Winter War. They were mostly people who had been relocated from Russian and Belarussian countryside and who had never seen water toilets. So they threw their feces and other thrash from windows to the city streets like it was the Middle Ages again. And when Finland captured Viipuri back, they put Russian POWs to clean up the city :D
So yeah, it's a cultural thing.
British royalty hid the toilet so they could be special is some prequel material to Russians getting psyop'd into communism with help from the globalist brit empire waging global wars for centuries...
Hard enough to fight a war. Fighting it buried in trash can’t be better.
Let's look at the options
1) Trash
2) Bodies
3) clean and empty for satellite imaging and artillery correction
Well done. I'm learning a lot from this channel.
Extremely great and informative video. Great job.
The first time I noticed the litter around Russian positions was from some drone footage. Outside an otherwise well-hidden bunker, the Russians had been disposing of their rubbish by walking to the entrance and hurling crap into the surrounds.
This made a big, multi-coloured triangle on the ground. And the pointy bit aimed directly into the bunker.
Can you guess where the drone dropped its explosives?
The drone isn't going to show you Ukrainian trenches, is it?
To be honest, those trenches looked downright immaculate compared to most of the Russian trenches shown this time last year.
I was thinking the same thing. Things got really messy for the RUAF after the 1st mobilization wave in 9/2022. I'm guessing a lot of those guys either died or learned their lesson.
If they aren't sending you food and ammo, there is no trash! Most of the early trash seemed to be MRE packing, ammo crates and similar packing.
@lazygardens
That is prob best comment on the topic.
@lazygardens good point 👍 but still probably not the best available video Ryan could have used to illustrate the subject, I'm pretty sure I've seen recent videos that showed the Russians trenches as absolute shit holes still.
I don't think they are living long enough to really horde up a good trash pile anymore... the Ukrainians are converting thousands of bad Russians into good Russians quicker with better equipment and more experience...👍
AH ... Very good. Your words and reasoning and research prove you know what you are talking about and your presentation is convincing. Best wishes. Peter
Fantastic analysis. Really enjoy your insights. Thanks!
Can confirm. Grew up till 12-13 ish before moving to US from Moscow. Trash was everywhere. Local ponds we swam in? The dookie swimming by, or sludge from the engine oil after some kid tossed the bottle in and threw rocks at it? - That was the norm. Going to the beach at some lake or sea? Don't be surprised to find random dookie by the path or trash all over, No one picking up after themselves. Came to US and threw candy wrapper as the kid outside of middle school on the sidewalk. - Cop pulled up and wrote the warning. Was extremely surprised. Cops in Russia wouldn't care and throw half drunken cans of beer and food out of their own cars like the norm it is. Came back multiple times, to visit family in Moscow. - Nothing changed. The very same mentality "Why do I need to pick up my Sh!t when no one does?"
No organized collection of dangerous toxic trash.
@islandwills2778 understandable, but in Russia and most of its inherited former USSR blocks, this type of behavior isn't just a major population hub problem. It is outright everywhere. One thing homeless in the city having almost no way of disposal and another population that laughably celebrities the opening of the new trash cans by the public areas, who still nonchalantly toss their shit on the sidewalk, akin to rich teenager stealing shoplifting piece of candy because they are too lazy to pull out their wallet.
@@islandwills2778 Not all over LA. Every city has its problem areas. Bigger cities = bigger areas of this issue. Go to the rich districts of LA and you'll see the difference. Go to the middle class areas and you'll see the difference as well.
@islandwills2778 I grew up in Moscow and Podmiskovie area, plus Kazakhstan until moving to US and coming to visit on numerous occasions. My nonpictures and nonvideos are from over decades of experience with the culture of ussr and uts byproducts.
I was living in Moscow from 2011 for 10 years and I can tell that you are mistaken (my initial thought would say "full of shit" but that is too rude).
Traveled in US and a good deal many cities in Europe I can say Moscow has not more trash than Berlin or NY for instance.
So I would say you are just preaching to a choir here.
Although coming from province city in Russia I remember trash problem being a lot worse till 2010. Since 2010 my province city and Moscow improved a lot.
Trash problem in russian cities is more noticeable in ghetto parts. But again, check youtube videos of LA ghetto streets nowadays and tell me the difference.
This is all just look like a cover up fallacy for some other point you trying to make but don't want to say it straight.
Ryan that is one of the cleaner russian bunkers I’ve watched in the last six months! Usually they look like the worst homeless dump with unimaginable crud thrown for miles around. Why they would want to advertise their whereabouts in a war zone is beyond me. Says much about the breakdown of discipline and morale, but you knew that. Example of the depravity and brutality of russian military existence.
Most Western cities look much worse than Russian trenches.
I have to agree. I've seen a few videos where Ukrainians are wandering around empty Russian positions, & they honestly look like rat's nests: garbage everywhere, trenches/fox hole dug haphazardly, as if the men had no pride in where they lived. (I was a Boy Scout as a kid, we had no NCOs to tell us to enforce discipline, but even out campsites were much cleaner & more orderly than the Russian defensive positions. These messy living conditions must be a result of culture.)
07:45 Interesting story I heard about the high level British generals in WW1 is that they were actively dissuaded from going to the Front Line. The idea behind it was that they'd been so impacted by what they'd seen when they had gone that it had started affecting the decisions that they were having to make. This isn't to say that lower ranking officers weren't on the front lines (your chances of surviving the war were a lot lower as an officer than as a regular soldier) but high command were deliberately kept back.
This is a great one, thank you.
I remember a really good briefing we had when I was a young soldier. We had a security briefing buy a capt who was equal parts Col Flagg & James Bond and held your attention. Part of his presentation was on what litter & trash left behind could tell an experienced MI guy about those who had occupied an area. He used practical examples from our field problems where we thought we left no trash behind. Showed us pictures and made an analysis of the state of the unit.
Litter isn't limited to the physical. Digital litter can be just as bad. Online discussion, leaks, war thunder servers, discord channels and more have all been sources of huge data and security breaches.
If the trees are exploding all around you, trash is the least of your concerns....
@@oggaBugga but the trash is how they find you. You don’t want to leave a trail they can follow
@@chrissmith7669 Maybe 10 -15 years ago. But not now when cheap drones are equipped with thermals and every soldier has a smart phone and cheap Chinese radio
@@oggaBugga finding a well concealed target isn’t that easy. Even with thermal optics a well used trail or debris will Tell the drone operators where to look
The answer was succintly put by a retired general commenting on a video. "They don't have sergeants." The disgust in his voice when he said it was priceless.
They kind of deal. I should explain that in a video.
Like your videos Ryan, have been watching for a while, great info
Love your stuff Ryan.Keep being amazing!
Another cause could be bad logistics. If the russians are already bad at bringing vital supplies in, imagine the priority of bringing trash back. So the stuff remains in the trenches and when artillery hits the stuff is thrown everywhere to a degree that no soldier will expose and draw fire on himself to collect it.
I also saw a short video on social media, doing the rounds when the whole russian mobilization kicked off, that recommended using trash as conceilment and to use trash as noise generators against sneak attacks. Pretty stupid in my book, since most trenches are in wooden spots where trash is more a track than anything and the underbrush is loud enough. Probably tells alot about russian woods.
1st world OCD(op sec) problems
Finding Waldo is easy on an otherwise blank page.. or well known trench network tracked by satellites.. by multiple nations. Being Waldo on a blank battlefield under artillery fire is bad.
Through the video I kept expecting logistics to be the next reason. An army that is not good at getting ammunition and food forward might not good at taking trash back
I served as an officer in the Australian Army in the 1980's and 90's and well know the importance of keeping the field positions clean and tidy. As Ryan says, and as many have already posted here, you want to limit giving the enemy information about the size and the time in place of your unit, but you also want to know clearly where everything is in case something happens.
However, there are limiting factors on keeping a position clean apart from the morale and discipline mentioned by Ryan, these are the pace of activity and the logistics being available to take waste away. The mess around Russian positions could also be the result of soldiers being too exhausted to bother and logistics being limited or unable to reach them. Also consider how exposed you are in Ukraine, mostly flat, little concealment other than tree lines or small patches of scrub. If you are isolated for a long period and have rubbish you would normally dig a pit, take it there, throw it in and cover it with some soil using a spade and return to your position. But that is a dangerous undertaking in an open landscape, in range of enemy artillery and under drone observation.
Having said that I have seen lots of images of mess around Russian rear echelon positions and in even in armored vehicles. Mess inside an armored vehicle would never be tolerated in the Australian Army, or any other- with the exception it seems the Russian Army. That really does suggest a morale and discipline issue.
positions and trenches are different. All experience which you are sharing is not relevant for trench warfare, if you are shelled 24/7 last thing you care is how clean and tidy your positions are
@@alexeygrinin8941 yeah this is less like a basic field positon and more like WW1. The shelling is fairly regular and from what I've heard men are often either stuck there for long periods of time or they're being pushed back to another layer of defenses in which case they're routinely either booby trapping trenches or they pull back and destroy them so the Ukrainians cant use them and in either case leaving garbage behind is rarely a problem. Morale and discipline are still major issues in the Russian army but in the Russian military part of the culture is you dont do any more than you absolutely have to and being forced to do anything extra, even training missions or maintenance is view more like a punishment than a duty. Got to remember that a large number of their issues in this war stem from problems relating to men not being trained and not doing their jobs, people point the finger at the officers doing the lying but the men didnt really complain either since they're mostly conscripts and poorly paid to boot that they dont see any reason to do anything they dont absolutely have to. Russia is one of the few places i can think of though where morale is a relatively low concern, even during wars like WW2 where morale was often very low they'll still fight pretty hard, they spent the interwar period as little more than slaves and being purged or sent to labor camps for even the slightest thing, and during the early war many people in the USSR actually though the Nazis might be nicer to them than Stalin, but despite all that they still fought pretty hard. One reason why alcoholism is such an issue though is in part because it's used to keep men "comfortably numb" so morale can be low but people will at least do some of the important stuff like shooting back at the enemy and reloading the howitzer.
Australian meanwhile is a country with voluntary service which goes a long way towards people being willing to do their duty, and the fact Australia is a high income nation helps too.
I suppose all those officers dying during command post meetings are having an effect.
@@alexeygrinin8941 Very true that I've not experienced trench warfare, but when occupying a position for any length of time a latrine ("shit pit" to Australian service members) was always dug. If you have time to dig a trench system, you should have time to build a simple pit latrine. Rubbish can then be thrown in with the human waste, out of sight. If a latrine pit is not being dug that suggests lack of supervision as much as poor morale.
@@forrestsory1893 It is frankly shocking how many officers they're losing, often for stupid reasons. Forget who and where but there was a case where a major officer and some recruits got taken out because the idiots posted identifying details of a building they were using so the Ukrainians fired a missile at them and took out the officer and a bunch of soldiers. Not to mention the idiots posting locations on social media or secure information over unsecure lines. Remember one case where some guys got picked up using commerically available walkie talkies and shared the location of an artillery position which is the kind of mistake you'd expect from an airsoft club sent to fight a war, not a former superpower using "real" soldiers. Even NGO groups like terrorists and rebels are more careful than many Russian officers.
Great information Ryan!
great research and glad to c ur biking
"I want to talk about the Russian army and trash"
That, Ryan, is a tautology. 😉
As a former Canadian infantryman, I would have been doing pushups till my arms fell off if we left a bivouac area that filthy. All that garbage is just a big flag saying "we are here", please bomb us.
Love the shirt! I know the TOW pretty well, prefer it over javlen in some niche situations. It was coming out of service when I got in, so there was a ton, probably several, of TOW missles that needed to be used up, so you know I volunteered! Was a real treat shooting em.
Very intereting theme. Thank You!
There is still a ring of food trash along the former Pusan Perimeter in South Korea. In the forests and hilltops the foxholes are still mostly untouched.
You made me think back to when I did my service, a long, long time ago.
NATO winter exercise with the cream of the crop. Our task was to take out an American position. It was a hellish winter with the lowest temperature measured at -47c.
We were ordered to retreat again and again and the Americans were ordered to move the position again and again without a reason, why?
The observers saw that we would take the position without resistance, why?
There was so much light and sound pollution from positions that we were never detected and could find the position blindly.
The light pollution was solved but not the sound, Why?
This was high up in the north with 24 hours of darkness and the American forces still had veterans from the Vietnam War.
These were hardened sergeants with severe PTSD, and we could hear the screams of their nightmares in their sleep from miles away!
Sad and scary!
That is depressing.
@@uncletiggermclaren7592 War is!
One of my first field exercises with my unit after granduating from the infantry school: When our Platoon packed up and left our patrol hide the ops WO inspected the site. He found a 6" bit of para cord, the tab of a chem light package, and a water bottle lid. That was bad enough that we had to set the patrol hide up again, then pack it up again properly.
Thanks for your experienced explanation, it offers a perspective few would've grasped.
I was a corporal in the Brazilian army. Our squad leader once made us sit and eat off the ground in our barracks because he found dirt footprints in there.
After that day, we had mops, brooms, dishrags, all sorts of cleaning products, righ by the door and we kept it crystal-clear clean and smelling good all day long.
I think in such a war, your sergeant would shit in your pockets without leaving the dugout.
How do you say message received or lesson learned in Portugues?
Bem feito?
@@jerseyshoredroneservices225
"Bem feito" is something like "Take that" or "You got it coming".
So... yeah :D
@@josecarlosamador
Thanks! Obrigado!
Eu vou lavar o piso!
Very necessary barracks are nothing like months and years in the trenches. Only seeing the death coming.
I recall seeing some Navy Seal training camp (you know the shows that did that back in the 90's) where a trainee is getting his ass chewed out for failing to eat and subsequently dropping a tiny (finger nail sized) scrap of lettuce from him MRE. With the drill instructor specifically laying out a senario where the scrap is found by the enemy and it reveals the pressence of the team and gets everyone killed. So this litter disipline thing is certainly real and looks to be taken to the most extremely levels in the units when are the most elite naturally most displined.
Lettuce in an MRE?
@@swright5690, no doubt MREs are full of fresh fruit and vegetables 😂😂.
The enemy must have 30/20 vision.
Very interesting. Good stuff
OH, now I get it, you are MR McBeth. I saw some thing about that but ended up not seeing it to my detriment. Very interesting, thought full show, thank you.
Yo, Ryan! If I had my way, every American taxpayer who hasn't been in the military would be required to view this video in order to better understand why the military is the way it is. Discipline is a whole-of-life way of living. It it is relevant to everything we do. It is a military lifestyle. Thanks for everything you do, bro.
Pretty much every subject needs communicators like Ryan now. Just to much we don’t understand that totally can hurt us.
Only if every tax payer watches a video about the lives and trillions of dollars the military wastes.. so the globalist agenda can be spread..
*hive five for pride in making our beds like like any 5 year old could*
Pete, some of us don't need that lesson. My first thought after the Ukrainians retook positions around Kyiv was "wow, those guys are total slobs. their discipline must be awful." You don't need to be a rocket scientist or have put on a uniform to figure out that leaving piles of garbage around your main positions in a warzone saying "look at me!" is a very bad thing. Most folks who are shown the videos can put that one together for themselves. It's not like civilians just pile trash around their workplace either. It's just that most people don't seek out video of former Russian positions to notice this issue of theirs. Long boring GoPro videos of the reality on the ground is not something that most major news networks want to touch or even most non-network media sources. You have to actively seek out such things. THAT is what is lacking here.
Can we talk about how that stand of trees was completely obliterated? Holy poop! They didn't dig trenches in the middle of the flat lands, those were hidden in significant foliage, which is now completely gone.
Ikr, i hate seeing aerial footage of the fields covered in artillery strikes too
Great content thank you
Great content
In the book “Run Silent Run Deep” the crew of the submarine gets called out by name by “Tokyo Rose” and they realize that their trash which they had been putting in canvas bags and dumping while on the surface were getting picked up and examined. After that point they made sure to sink the trash bag
It's also a culture. When we were in soviet union, it was normal thing to just throw the trash on the ground. All the corner spaces were filled with small packages, cigarette buts etc. We are still dealing with remnants of that culture, mainly in nature.
Thanks, Ryan.
When I was in the recon team, anytime we stopped movement, we’d always perform SLLS. Stop, Look, Listen Smell. After spending a week in the woods, you learn that everything SMELLS. Anything that doesn’t belong, looks sounds and smells different.
When trash is about, that that smells. And it’s a sign that someone has been there, and they could come back.
I have noticed this issue since the beginning of the war. I’m just amazed at how much trash is left laying around screaming to the Ukrainians “we are hiding here!”. I could imagine our Chief walking into our area and it was like that. I’ve only seen a Navy Chief pi$$ed off once or twice and I still have nightmares.
It wasn't our Sargent that we were frightened of, but our two Corporals. I just made myself feel sweaty remembering them.
They were alive to everything, and never slept, and were humourless, like clones made for the task.
Very astute assessment. While working in policing and UC work, garbage was deemed a "gift" of evidence - people leave incredibly valuable clues within their waste/garbage. Fascinating that this lesson is not learned and prevented.
"and how they die.." that was heavy. Great vid 👍
as a former 7, its great that you keep it real with mid level and lower leadership in Russian Landforces that is broken. This is basic CTT Level 1..
Complied with litter discipline
Take all litter (empty
food containers, empty ammunition
cans or boxes, old camouflage) to
established collection points.
Carry all litter with you
until you can dispose of it without
leaving any trace.
I would also like to add that trash also affects morale. No one likes living in squalor, trench life is hard enough as it is, without turning it into a dumpster. It can also affect combat readiness if trash and equipment are scattered all over the place. It can also be an indicator of the mental state of the troops if they lack the motivation to maintain basic standards.
Based on some of the comments above - seems like the Russians, are leaving the trash scattered around, so that it "feels" more like home & might be actually improving moral?
Damn interesting stuff Ryan… !
When I was a young Marine in the late 1960's we were definitly taught to police the area before leaving. THIS is DISGUSTING!
Ryan nailed it. The officers don't visit the front lines. We've seen many videos from Russian troops complaining of being dumped on the front lines lacking basic supplies. Also, look at all of the generals and colonels the Ukrainian forces have picked off. I wouldn't want to be on the front lines either.
Hang on, you can’t have it both ways…the RF forces either do have officers on the front lines (hence why they get blown up with regularity), or they don’t - which is it? You’ve managed to contradict yourself in just a few sentences, well done!
@@awlhunt It only appears contradictory because it's complicated. Allow me to explain. As far as I can tell, most of the Russian generals killed in this war were killed in the early days of the full-scale invasion. Recall how Russian forces were attempting to move quickly and so they were strung out in columns on roads. You didn't have the fortified trenches that characterize the war now, or at least you didn't have them around Kiev. Instead you had the infamous 10 mile traffic jam of a Russian convoy.
So, when columns bogged down senior officers had to move to the head of the column to try to get things moving again. But then the Ukrainians would pick them off.
So, in the present phase of the war, Russian officers have the ability to stay back from the front lines, and they must realize that the Ukrainians have a keen interest in picking them off.
As for officers killed since things have stagnated, well the last such incident that I heard of was the cruise missile strike that destroyed By Black Sea Fleet HQ in Sevastopol. I would not consider Sevastopol to be the front lines, yet officers still got blown up there.
Russian officers must know that they are in the crosshairs wherever they are, but they must also realize that at the front they're in range of all Ukrainian weapons, whereas if they stay a few Kilometers back, far fewer enemy weapons can reach them.
So, yes, I think they don't visit the trenches like they should.
@@awlhunt They did at first - because they had no one else to do it- but as that made easy picking. Nowadays they usually are way back so they don't become an easy target. Not really hard to understand if you've been following the war.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but part of this may be due to despair. Sometimes glorified as "fatalism."
I've zero military experience, but I can imagine being beaten down so far by fate, circumstances, and your fellow soldiers that you no longer give a damn.
It's just their way of life...not despair
You're true I think. I read that russia isn't any more rotating the troops, taking out units from the front line to rest, visit home. This they to avoid spreading news about catastrophic conditions on the front within russian population.
I hope russia will loose this war.
First, never interrupt your enemy while they are making a mistake.
I remember when the Russian soldiers first invaded Ukraine. They talked about how Nice and Clean everything was before trashing and destroying it. Land, buildings ect.
To me this says it's the people of Russia that don't care about trash being everywhere (at least a lot of them). Of course we have some of that here in America too.
I'm an old man now, but back in the 1970s I remember seeing on something called a TV, in Japan they had Trash Trucks that looked like they just rolled off the showroom floor. Some of those garbage trucks were up to 11 years old. This tells me it's a combination of the people and leadership.
.
Excellent!
this reminds me of the coffee cup test, someone came to evaluate why an air line was losing money, they walked on to one of their aeroplane's, sat in a passenger seat and un-stowed the seat tray, on it there was a coffee/tea cup stain, this he said was a bad sign, as if you cant be bothered to do simple things like clean a tray, who knows the care and attention the engines are getting on this thing.. its the little things that make the difference between a budget operation and a family run operation, both tight margins but one cares.
In the Bundeswehr we cleaned everything. Shells at the shootingrange? Pic em up and count them. In the forrest? The area was cleaner then before.
When i go to a festival, my camp is clean. No empty bottles or any other kind of garbage. Wake up 5 minute cleanup.
In Singapore the old camouflage uniforms were also sometimes soaked in starch paste to make them more shiny I remember, & if you did so long enough the uniform could became hard enough to stand up on their own without anyone wearing them
Interesting as I was wondering myself 😊
In the first year of the war there were several different RUclips postings about various drone attacks and other actions from a variety of sources. Not so much anymore. In those videos that is the first thing that struck me was all the trash in and around Russian positions and how foolish it was to expose your position like that.
There is discipline. There is also protection of self-worth. There is so much desensitization going on for these "soldiers" (I am not sure what word to use for these units) and living in a rat nest does not help. Then there is control over personal equipment (whatever they are given). I remember a very fun 24 hours after a week in the field basically on red alert levels for the entire week (meaning rest and sleep were in theory a thing). Coming back as zombies one in the platoon was missing a QR plug for his HK G3 (used to be released and assembled without tools for field care of the weapon). The message was clear - nobody was resting until this tiny pin was recovered.
Because it is a life-or-death issue in principle.
Another issue: You want to be in a position without being detected. But a lot of the time you may want to leave the place without anyone knowing that you have been there. (This is of course difficult with trenches). And if in rotation on a developed defensive position you want to leave the place in better conditions than you found it in - because you will likely rotate back yourself. We called it "home improvement". It was hammered into us.
I do understand the Russians, more often from east of Ural than not. Sent to fight a war against some Europeans in the West for some unknown reason and "guarantees" that the family will be rewarded with a war pension if and when you die. The motivation may not be peaking.
But imagine coming to one of these trenches after a few weeks of training, thinking "So this is where I am sent to die".
Finally - a reflection on long-term issues. This is a very deadly war. It is also a very head-trauma-rich war, as artillery does. In other words a heaven for PTSD and related long-term effects. Self-worth/pride/comradery has been shown to inoculate (somewhat) against long-term psychological illness under combat stress.
I am not saying the West has done perfectly on the veteran side, not at all. But I predict an effing post trauma epidemic in Russia for the next couple of decades. I see videos from Ukrainian strong-holds and notice how often they have a puppy or a cat on site. It is tidy with attempts to make it "cosy" and "comfortable" (these are relative terms). They also seem to apply the "band of brothers" ideas. Small and solid units woven tightly together with a clearly defined goal. Good strategies.
Good points all. Might I add on the 'hiding trenches part: there are more trenches than Russians. The parts with the litter are occupied, the others are clean for now, so it still goves away where they gather.
Lindybeige did a interview with a British Foreign Volunteer that said something similar. Basically you capture a Russian supply post and what you notice is that, they are well equipped with things the Ukrainians wish they had like armor percing rounds. But the second thing you'll notice is that there is trash everywhere there latrine's inside the tent's it's just a total mess.. That to me corelates with a lot of other things I've been hearing which seem to suggest that the main reason Russia is unable to go on the offensive is because there has been a complete breakdown in command within the army.
Thanks!
I think you are spot on. There is also a cultural component to this. I write in generalizations. I have been to former Soviet countries and was married 14 years to a Russian woman. Women do most of the household cleaning. Children rarely clean. Boys are just not taught to pick up after themselves. During Soviet times and through to today, there are people paid to cleanup the city streets. So you have males who are used to someone else picking up after themselves. The other aspect is most of these people aren't from modern cities. A lot come from small villages and towns. A lot really don't have plumbing in their houses. They have wonderful vegetable gardens with stuff piled up in their yards. Those that live in apartments are living in Soviet style apartments. Think of HUD housing. Gopniks who leave bottles and bags of sunflower seeds laying around.
I'm not saying that US males pick up after themselves. I'm sure there are a lot of US NCO's that have blown a fuse! ;)
Interesting insight. US soldiers do keep a clean are of operations. We did police calls for trash and brass(shell casings). We also made sure that any oil/fluid spills from vehicles were cleaned up using a powder that we just called kitty litter.
One aspect you left out, is the amount of time the soldiers are expected to live in the trenches. If you are only in a trench was a temporary battlement on the way to another line, what you leave behind you is of no importance. If you know you're going to be settled in a defensive trenchline and for weeks on end, to the extent as you've seen with Ukraine's trenches, of building a proper construction with arches, wooden beams, and various rooms and compartments, instead of a temporal foxhole to be abandoned at the first news of forward movement by the army intended not to be immobile but to capture a defensive fighting force, then the defensive trenches might just prepare to clean up a little better as they will want to have trenches with long-term ''comfort''. A similar problem occurred during the Great War when many British Tommies mentioned in envy the higher standard of German trench construction for allowing underground protection from shells, due to the British doctrine that to make the trenches too comfy would imply the British and French would rather than stay and hold than proceed into no-man's-land.
Former surveillance investigator for 25+ years. I would be super interested in "Dumpster Diving" abandoned/overrun Soviet positions. At the onset of pretty much every case I worked I learned when the local trash service picked up and did a neighborhood canvas the evening before, and some "garbology". I consistently learned decent information about my subjects from their castoffs. There were.are a few commercial cleaning outfits that conduct corporate espionage and some of the trash makes it to a sorting facility that attempt to glean inside information from their competitors. Many (or most) of the high rollers are aware and make every effort to shred and or burn their used data. Back in the good old days there was lots of RF "sniffing" as well. People thought that because their alpha-numeric pagers were password protected that they were safe. Now with back doors designed/programmed into electronics, I'm thinking back to Control's "Cone of silence" might be worth a try. /sarcasm
You missed it by that much...
Surveillance investigator? I would like to know more
Yeah, gotta surveil those Soviets…oh wait…
The British mission to E Germany and US did this constantly. I can get you a link to a story aboutt how they dug through old soviet field latrines, and got a new manual for the T80, and other stuff
Great stuff Ryan. 🙌
Thanks Ryan
Such a good video...I don't know anything about war or solders but Im always impressed by how they can dig trenches. Look at all the roots they have to chop through! Am I missing something? What kinds of tools do they have besides a regular shovel for making trenches....is it just muscle? 💪💪❤.
This is how those Russia troops lived back in Russia, old habits you know. Just ordered me a Department of the Boat People T-Shirt and a window sticker.
Archeologists seek out trash heaps when they find an ancient settlement. The trash tells the archeologists who was there, how many were there, where they came from, how long they were there, who they traded with, something about their health, goals, and state of mind. All of these clues would be valuable to know about your adversary.
Word of the day… “Dunnage”. I have never heard of this word until I saw this presentation. Thanks, Ryan!
Hi Ryan, In support of your comments regarding trash. this is from the Oxford Academic website... regarding the Crimean War in the 1850's
14,15 Of those troops, 2,755 were killed in action and 2,019 died of wounds. Officially, the British government recorded a total of 21,097 deaths in the Crimean theater, thus 16,323 died of diseases. A sobering thought that diseases in the 1850s was the biggest killer in the British army. Not sure if Florence Nightingale means anything in America but an interesting woman who was an early pioneer of many break throughs in medical treatment of patients.
Old guy here Florence was covered as the inspiration for Clara Barton and others during the very unCivil War
What is typically carefully not mentioned is the utter disregard of the British officers for the well being of their common soldiers. Thing like not providing them with proper food, barely any blankets or tents and theater-appropriate clothing & gear. That only changed in modern times for the better, but was a big contributor to avoidable casualties for a very long time.
That was normal even up through WWI, US Civil war 2/3 of the 620k ish deaths were disease. WWI there were loads of deaths due to disease in the trenches and ofc the Spanish Flu, a large allied force was camped in Greece not even doing any fighting and had i think 100's of thousands of casualties from Malaria. Even in WWII US had major problem with disease and illness, I think at least 80k cases of trenchfoot in Europe after D-Day alone, loads of Malaria in Pacific.
It's one of the first things I noticed when I got interested in the war.
And for Russian standards, this is a fairly clean trench.
Answering the hard questions I'd forgotten I had. :P
The Bakhmut area reminds me of the Mt St Helens area when i visited back in the 90’s. Like a moonscape with life trying to poke it’s head through.