Russia’s newly mobilised soldiers in Ukraine armed with ‘barely usable weapons’

Many of the newly mobilised Russian soldiers that have been sent to Ukraine in recent weeks are armed with “barely usable” weapons, UK’s defence ministry said.

Russian president Vladimir Putin declared a partial mobilisation of up to 300,000 reservists last month, but UK’s ministry of defence believes that they could be using weapons that date back to the 1950s.

“Open source images suggest that those rifles which have been issued to mobilised reservists are typically AKMs, a weapon first introduced in 1959. Many are likely in barely usable condition following poor storage,” UK defence ministry said.

The newly deployed reservists are thought “in many cases” to be “poorly equipped” because Moscow is struggling with “strained logistics systems”, the ministry further added.

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 31 October 2022

Open source images suggest that Russian troops have been using rifles of a type which could be over 60 years old.

“In September, Russian officers were concerned that some recently mobilised reservists were arriving in Ukraine without weapons. AKM fires 7.62mm ammunition while Russia’s regular combat units are mostly armed with 5.45mm AK-74M or AK-12 rifles,” UK’s defence ministry said.

“The integration of reservists with contract soldiers and combat veterans in Ukraine will mean Russian logisticians will have to push two types of small arms ammunition to frontline positions, rather than one. This will likely further complicate Russia’s already strained logistics systems,” it added.

This comes amid renewed Russian air assaults on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.