Shocking Russian Military Corruption Exposed

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something that is much more staggering than the actually 15-30% taken off the top is the fact that a LOT of Russian equipment is aging and requires the scheduled maintenance. If funds are redirected that need to go towards fixing up a 40 year old tank then that tank essentially becomes a piece of garbage... so now it's not 50k USD that is stolen, it also amounts to a 5 million dollar tank being rendered useless due to it's redirection of required maintenance funds.

Perun did an awesome (as usual) presentation on this. What I love about his video is the way that he explains how a 20% skim is so much more than a 20% impact. Selling $500 worth of fuel could leave a $5M piece of equipment stranded in a field in Ukraine, waiting to be pulled away by a farmer with a tractor. That goes for fuel, cheap Chinese tires, you name it. It goes from General Kleptokrovich to Private Konscriptovich

A former Russian military soldier once told me back in 2012 that "Everything in Russia a bribe!"

I think the best explanation for why this corruption was allowed to carry on right up until the eve of war is simple enough - the vast majority of Russian forces didn’t know the war was going to happen until the very last second. Corruption carried on because it’s business as usual, and by the time the chiefs of staff realised that Putin was actually serious about trying to conquer all of Ukraine - it was already too late.

Corruption is a long standing "tradition" in Russia. It was a well documented pattern in the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire before that. The Soviet pilot that flew the Mig-25 to Japan assumed that you could pay "traffic fines" here in the US just by paying the officer that stopped you. He was bailed out of trouble by his handler who was trying to get him acculturated to US ways.

My uncle served as an ifv gunner in 2014-2020, he was paid a good salary, but he spent about half on keeping the combat vehicle in proper condition (yes, it will turn out to be crazy that a soldier pays for his equipment). Also, the entire personnel paid the officers to falsify the standards and the soldiers were paid bonuses (for physical training, additional courses for paratroopers, sappers, etc.). The scheme was something like this: You pay 2,000 rubles to an officer, and 3,000 rubles are added to your salary. The worst case that he told me happened to his fellow soldiers during the exercises. At night, one sentry is always left to guard the property. So, officers from a neighboring unit bribed one such guy and removed the batteries from the armored personnel carrier, and in the morning they came and said that they had been stolen through the fault of the platoon. They demanded about 50k and the guys had to chip in for it, then they brought the stolen batteries and put them in their place. I hope Google translated what I wrote clearly enough

It was my first impression when in the first days of invasion the 40 km queues of tanks were stucked in the streets over days that the amount of the needed fuel was not existing in the stores. The army was just not ready to march and the personnel was overwhelmed by this decision.

1 million subs are around the corner for this channel and that's just the beginning. Unbelievably great content. This is information so well gathered and explained. Awesome work!

"Steal anything not nailed down, Anything I can pry up is not nailed down" - Russian military proverb

Another shocker was literally thousands of reserve tanks having the electronics stripped out for the gold and copper. It led to a commander committing suicide after losing all his armour in Ukraine.

This was a great breakdown of just how deep the corruption ran and destroyed the military from the inside. Thank you!

mad respect man, i notice that u are very specific when u believed something incorrect, saying "yeah i was wrong this was right" in like a totally matter-of-fact way, that sort of attitude will get you far man. Taking responsibility, not just fessing up to mistakes, but openly aknowledging them, it's a good way to live

The funny thing is that here in Latin America, we have so many so-called "youtube channels" of "truth", pricing, and idolizing Putin. Still, when confronted with information like this, they just go insane over anyone exposing the Russian corruption. Keep up the good work pal. Cheers from Latin America.

Old story. I had a buddy who opened wholesale drug business for a Fortune 500 firm after the USSR fell on it's ass. They persisted for several years but finally pulled out as the Russian Organized crime system was the most efficient means of distributing stuff, and they charged less payoff than the government crooks did to get stuff done. The company was not willing to explicitly deal with the criminal organization, and the govt people were too expensive to buy off. They folded up and left the country.

I talked to several former Russian soldiers who now live over here and work as technicians. The things that they told me of changing test results for tanks and vehicles ( trucks ) was unbelieveable. The Army actually purchased several models of U.S. and British commercial trucks through a third party and tore them down to test and then copy in order to make a decent vehicle. They were issued flashlights without batteries and then have to buy them with their money. Clothing when damaged in battle is not replaced, parts, fuel, food, and sometimes amo such as grenades, explosives, etc....not available. They were told that until new stuff arrived don't cause a battle. These are things that any infantryman should have. He fought in the Afgan War and it looks as if things are not better. New truck tires are swapped out for bad ones on a dump and then locked away as new. The new ones are sold off to a commercial buyer.His commander was selling off fuel, blankets or clothing he ordered for the 48 new ghost solders he never had. The Russians used to call us capitalist pigs for our profit making ways...I guess they don't consider stealing and selling off the stuff for money being a capitalist.

This was really good, mate. Very well done!

This isn't a problem faced just by Russia, it is a culture remnant of the USSR, and a rampant issue in most post-Soviet countries.

Hi mate, fantastic to see you cover this topic. Corruption in militaries isn't the most discussed topic - but the impact on capability and readiness is significant. If you ever decide to come back to the topic or anything like it, feel free to get in touch - I have a decent stock of documents and stories that I gathered when preparing my look at the topic that I couldn't cover, even in a 60 minute time. Ditto if you ever want to look at at another nation or get a procurement/industry centric view on the issue.

Remember a few years back when a bunch of USMC marked KAC 600m rear sights showed up on eBay for $35? Literally everyone I know was like "I don't know about this, man, seems sketchy.". This is really indicative of the kind of baseline aversion to corruption that exists in "the west". BTW that was the best $35 that I ever spent on eBay, lol.