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In reply to the discussion: Putin's on the brink [View all]MarineCombatEngineer
(12,378 posts)In the late 80's, early 90's, I "worked" with the "equivalent" of their combat engineers, and I put those 2 words in italics because working and equivalent were a fucking joke, the enlisted ranks would show up either high, drunk or just plain lazy if they showed up at all, their equipment, what they didn't sell for drugs or booze, was shit, maintenance was poor or nonexistent, the "NCO's" didn't take charge and the line officers didn't give a flying fuck as long as it didn't affect their chances of graft or promotion.
I can't tell you how many times we had to cancel training exercises because of them and from what we're seeing in Ukraine, it hasn't gotten any better, troop morale is in the toilet, their vaunted equipment is a distant second best to Western weapons systems, their Command and Control is anything but, in other words, they're less than a paper tiger compared to US or Western Militaries.