I wanted to just say this is probably the best in sourced video of what we all know. I didn’t know the Russian Soldier Manual has explicitly said “Don’t Surrender they will torture you”. Also pinging u/False-God to let him know where his work is being in-directly sourced.
Below is transcript for anyone who has bad headphones/hearing, bad bandwidth or can’t access youtube directly.
> The Russian army has a problem their soldiers keep killing themselves.
> Seriously this is happening a lot for anybody who’s been following this war you’ve probably noticed that every couple days a new video comes out showing a Russian soldier deliberately ending their own life. I mean at this point we’ve already seen over 110 cases of this happening confirmed caught on camera since the beginning of the war think about that.
> That 110 [Redditor-Editorial: 116 with 2 on Sept 10th] on camera are just the one that are captured on video and that video is released publicly. It’s not counting the ones that happen off camera because you know the majority of the battlefield is not documented 24/7 or even the ones that are caught on video and then that’s not released. So your guess is as good as mine.
> Does that 110 make up you know 10% of total Russian soldier suicides 50% [or] 90% we have no way of knowing. Now there’s two reasons that this is happening so much in the Russian military hopelessness that they’re going to be left behind by their fellow soldiers and then propaganda that they’ll face torture and death in Ukrainian captivity and we’re going to dive into both of those in detail today. Now existing metrics aren’t great for comparison here we do have data of reported suicides in the US military dating back to 1843 but I’m not sure how we compare that with the ones that have been caught on camera today.
> Right so we’re talking about all reported suicides in the US military during certain periods of conflict compared to just the ones we can see and confirm on video that’s then released publicly. In turn I’m not confident that this will even be a helpful Benchmark but I will add some of those here just for reference. So World War II US troops in World War II saw around five suicides per every 100,000 soldiers that was actually higher than it was in World War I.
> Now during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that number hovered around 20 soldiers that killed themselves for every 100,000 troops but a lot of the data used in that number is… is… tied in with including veterans as well who had returned home after their time at War, so it does get a little bit tricky using that as a comparison. Now it’s hard to dial in exactly how many Russian troops they have in Ukraine but not long ago the Ukrainian defense minister stated it was around 500,000 so that comes out to using our 110 number roughly 22 suicides per every 100,000 Russian soldiers but again, those are only the ones that are caught on camera and released publicly so as you’ll hear in a minute there are countless times this happens throughout the war that we never learn about.
> Now the first reason that we’re seeing so many Russian suicides in this war is that Russian forces feel hopeless at times that their fellow soldiers may actually rescue them. The Russians regularly throughout their media talk about how they won’t abandon their own but at this point (based off of a lot of video and picture and first-person accounts throughout this war) it’s pretty clear they do. Now the Russians are still using to a degree what has kind of been called “meat-wave tactics” earlier in the war it’s not exactly like you would see in World War I, but groups of soldiers usually Dismount sometimes in lightly armored vehicles moving across an open area of terrain drawing fire and trying to identify where Ukrainian positions are anybody asked to do one of those (you know exposed assaults) it’s understandable how they might feel some sense of hopelessness.
> Now these videos that we see of Russian soldiers out on their own I think at times it’s kind of hard for us in Western militaries to understand because that’s just not how we tend to operate; like sending individuals or very small groups out on their own. We still regularly see videos and have first-person accounts (from both the Russians and the Ukrainians) that Russian troops are sent forward in fire team or Squad size elements; that’s roughly 4 to 10 Personnel at a time… they probe for Ukrainian defenses… they try to draw fire… and establish some sort of area to hold on to, so follow on units can kind of move forward and Leap Frog them from there.
> Now if those Russian fire teams are successful there could be reinforcements following, but if they’re not… all of a sudden that unit is out there completely on their own… and if they’re not killed… they’re very aware that no rescue is coming anytime soon. So in the US we do send out small teams like this; now I’m talking about conventional military forces (so you know remove from your mind you know covert operations Special Operations things like that), but these small teams operate in tandem with larger formations. So that fire team scouting forward will still have a platoon or a company in Over-Watch (maybe providing support by fire) at the very least has additional elements ready to roll forward to bail them out if they get stuck.
> Now that’s not how we’ve seen the Russians fight so anyone who survives one of these smaller assaults will quickly find themselves cut off alone sometimes wounded but definitely recognizing that nobody is coming to rescue them. They’re hopeless… and this is one of the reasons that we have so much footage of Russian soldiers in exactly that situation choosing to end their own life.
Very much to the point. Also it is ĺikely that these guys are not in the most rational state of mind to begin with, hungry, thirsty, exhausted in pain.
With the blessing of the Orthodox Church – it’s a feature not a bug.
Don’t think of it as a problem for the army. Think of it as a savings to Payroll.
Preston Stewart is a solid source. His assessments of current conflicts is very professional, and he upholds the high standards we would expect from US Army Officers.
Let me put it this way: me knowing this guy is on the good guys’ side makes me feel safe. I’m not even American!
Make sure you guys visit his Youtube channel to support his channel!
Honestly, if I were severely injured and bleeding out and had no hope of getting medical help, ending it quickly would probably ly seem like the logical choice. The chances of these guys getting medical attention is pretty slim.
As I have said a few times in this sub, these are not isolated cases, the number of registered cases shows that the real number of cases is much higher. This may be starting to affect the performance of the Russian army, especially because demoralization among units grows after each case.
They should have thought of their great leader before pulling the trigger.
I dont see it as a problem. I wish more of them would follow.
Thwy are killomg themselves becauze they know ukraine is winning
In my humble opinion it’s a mix of 3 things:
1. The injuries are brutal and they don’t want to live on after so many injuries (no legs, arms, half of face missing)
2. The injuries are brutal and if they survive, they know that they won’t get much, if any, help from the Glorious Mother Russian Government after the war.
3. They are afraid of Ukrainians taking them as POWS because propaganda in Russia has made them think that they will be tortured or killed. Russians always accuse the other side of what the Russians are actually doing. We have evidence of Russians torturing Ukrainian POWs
No, the russian army does not have a problem. They don’t give a shit. They will just send more cannon fodder. For them life has 0 value.
I wonder why
It’s pretty safe to say we are only seeing a tiny portion of the suicides, and we have no data on suicides on returning home Russians, I’d legit bet it’s 10-20 times the amount seen.
I doubt very much they care enough for that to be a problem.
In Russia, soldier that kills you is you.
One thing he forgot, is that the Russian military is known for its brutal hazing rituals that lead to high suicide rates before they even finish training. Train how you fight I guess…
I don’t t think it’s fear of torture and death at the hands of Ukraine… They know they’ll be tortured and killed by Russians for not meat waving into a well defended position.
18 comments
I wanted to just say this is probably the best in sourced video of what we all know. I didn’t know the Russian Soldier Manual has explicitly said “Don’t Surrender they will torture you”. Also pinging u/False-God to let him know where his work is being in-directly sourced.
[From Preston Stewart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRLvFMSJTyI)
Below is transcript for anyone who has bad headphones/hearing, bad bandwidth or can’t access youtube directly.
> The Russian army has a problem their soldiers keep killing themselves.
> Seriously this is happening a lot for anybody who’s been following this war you’ve probably noticed that every couple days a new video comes out showing a Russian soldier deliberately ending their own life. I mean at this point we’ve already seen over 110 cases of this happening confirmed caught on camera since the beginning of the war think about that.
> That 110 [Redditor-Editorial: 116 with 2 on Sept 10th] on camera are just the one that are captured on video and that video is released publicly. It’s not counting the ones that happen off camera because you know the majority of the battlefield is not documented 24/7 or even the ones that are caught on video and then that’s not released. So your guess is as good as mine.
> Does that 110 make up you know 10% of total Russian soldier suicides 50% [or] 90% we have no way of knowing. Now there’s two reasons that this is happening so much in the Russian military hopelessness that they’re going to be left behind by their fellow soldiers and then propaganda that they’ll face torture and death in Ukrainian captivity and we’re going to dive into both of those in detail today. Now existing metrics aren’t great for comparison here we do have data of reported suicides in the US military dating back to 1843 but I’m not sure how we compare that with the ones that have been caught on camera today.
> Right so we’re talking about all reported suicides in the US military during certain periods of conflict compared to just the ones we can see and confirm on video that’s then released publicly. In turn I’m not confident that this will even be a helpful Benchmark but I will add some of those here just for reference. So World War II US troops in World War II saw around five suicides per every 100,000 soldiers that was actually higher than it was in World War I.
> Now during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that number hovered around 20 soldiers that killed themselves for every 100,000 troops but a lot of the data used in that number is… is… tied in with including veterans as well who had returned home after their time at War, so it does get a little bit tricky using that as a comparison. Now it’s hard to dial in exactly how many Russian troops they have in Ukraine but not long ago the Ukrainian defense minister stated it was around 500,000 so that comes out to using our 110 number roughly 22 suicides per every 100,000 Russian soldiers but again, those are only the ones that are
caught on camera and released publicly so as you’ll hear in a minute there are countless times this happens throughout the war that we never learn about.
> Now the first reason that we’re seeing so many Russian suicides in this war is that Russian forces feel hopeless at times that their fellow soldiers may actually rescue them. The Russians regularly throughout their media talk about how they won’t abandon their own but at this point (based off of a lot of video and picture and first-person accounts throughout this war) it’s pretty clear they do. Now the Russians are still using to a degree what has kind of been called “meat-wave tactics” earlier in the war it’s not exactly like you would see in World War I, but groups of soldiers usually Dismount sometimes in lightly armored vehicles moving across an open area of terrain drawing fire and trying to identify where Ukrainian positions are anybody asked to do one of those (you know exposed assaults) it’s understandable how they might feel some sense of hopelessness.
> Now these videos that we see of Russian soldiers out on their own I think at times it’s kind of hard for us in Western militaries to understand because that’s just not how we tend to operate; like sending individuals or very small groups out on their own. We still regularly see videos and have first-person accounts (from both the Russians and the Ukrainians) that Russian troops are sent forward in fire team or Squad size elements; that’s roughly 4 to 10 Personnel at a time… they probe for Ukrainian defenses… they try to draw fire… and establish some sort of area to hold on to, so follow on units can kind of move forward and Leap Frog them from there.
> Now if those Russian fire teams are successful there could be reinforcements following, but if they’re not… all of a sudden that unit is out there completely on their own… and if they’re not killed… they’re very aware that no rescue is coming anytime soon. So in the US we do send out small teams like this; now I’m talking about conventional military forces (so you know remove from your mind you know covert operations Special Operations things like that), but these small teams operate in tandem with larger formations. So that fire team scouting forward will still have a platoon or a company in Over-Watch (maybe providing support by fire) at the very least has additional elements ready to roll forward to bail them out if they get stuck.
> Now that’s not how we’ve seen the Russians fight so anyone who survives one of these smaller assaults will quickly find themselves cut off alone sometimes wounded but definitely recognizing that nobody is coming to rescue them. They’re hopeless… and this is one of the reasons that we have so much footage of Russian soldiers in exactly that situation choosing to end their own life.
Very much to the point. Also it is ĺikely that these guys are not in the most rational state of mind to begin with, hungry, thirsty, exhausted in pain.
With the blessing of the Orthodox Church – it’s a feature not a bug.
Don’t think of it as a problem for the army. Think of it as a savings to Payroll.
Preston Stewart is a solid source. His assessments of current conflicts is very professional, and he upholds the high standards we would expect from US Army Officers.
Let me put it this way: me knowing this guy is on the good guys’ side makes me feel safe. I’m not even American!
Make sure you guys visit his Youtube channel to support his channel!
Honestly, if I were severely injured and bleeding out and had no hope of getting medical help, ending it quickly would probably ly seem like the logical choice. The chances of these guys getting medical attention is pretty slim.
As I have said a few times in this sub, these are not isolated cases, the number of registered cases shows that the real number of cases is much higher. This may be starting to affect the performance of the Russian army, especially because demoralization among units grows after each case.
They should have thought of their great leader before pulling the trigger.
I dont see it as a problem. I wish more of them would follow.
Thwy are killomg themselves becauze they know ukraine is winning
In my humble opinion it’s a mix of 3 things:
1. The injuries are brutal and they don’t want to live on after so many injuries (no legs, arms, half of face missing)
2. The injuries are brutal and if they survive, they know that they won’t get much, if any, help from the Glorious Mother Russian Government after the war.
3. They are afraid of Ukrainians taking them as POWS because propaganda in Russia has made them think that they will be tortured or killed. Russians always accuse the other side of what the Russians are actually doing. We have evidence of Russians torturing Ukrainian POWs
No, the russian army does not have a problem. They don’t give a shit. They will just send more cannon fodder. For them life has 0 value.
I wonder why
It’s pretty safe to say we are only seeing a tiny portion of the suicides, and we have no data on suicides on returning home Russians, I’d legit bet it’s 10-20 times the amount seen.
I doubt very much they care enough for that to be a problem.
In Russia, soldier that kills you is you.
One thing he forgot, is that the Russian military is known for its brutal hazing rituals that lead to high suicide rates before they even finish training. Train how you fight I guess…
I don’t t think it’s fear of torture and death at the hands of Ukraine… They know they’ll be tortured and killed by Russians for not meat waving into a well defended position.