Russia is scrambling to replenish its ranks and has begun training newly mobilised reservists across Russia who have feeble fighting equipment and appear older than your average soldier.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilisation amid huge losses in the war and fears Russia may lose the battle to Ukraine.
In Krasnoslobodsk, Volgograd region, a 63-year-old man with diabetes and risk of strokes was drafted as part of the mobilisation.
Before his retirement, he was deputy commander of a military unit in charge of logistics, he was drafted into the war with the promise that he would solely be “assisting the military enlistment office."
But then the man was later told by a doctor that he was “fit to go to the front” despite his ailments.
Pictures from Nakhimov Square, Sevastopol, in the Republic of Crimea show a ceremony of sending mobilised citizens to the frontlines.
While some are armed not all are, but they are sent off with a sprinkling of holy water to wish them good luck.
Footage from Wednesday shows a commander admitting there is not enough equipment and urging recruits to bring sleeping bags as well as medical equipment.
While Kremlin officials promised that only those with military experience would be called up, there is a loophole in the decree that means they can ignore that norm and essentially call up whoever they want.
Many have said they will only have two weeks of training before being "thrown into the meat grinder."
For comparison, Americans who volunteer to join the Army have 10 weeks of basic training and then go to a different location for further training in an assigned speciality.
To avoid their death, tonnes of Russias fled the country as soon as there were whisperings of mobilisation.
Kazakhstan, according to the country’s Interior Ministry, said nearly 100,000 Russians had entered the country since Putin announced the call-up and at least 10,000 have crossed into Georgia each day.
Satellite images showed a traffic jam at Russia’s border with Georgia that stretched for nearly 10 miles.
Mark Hertling, who commanded the US Army Europe, said on Twitter that he has personally witnessed how the Russian army is "poorly led and poorly trained."
He continued: "Mobilising 300k 'reservists' (after failing with depleted conventional forces, rag-tag militias.. recruiting prisoners & using paramilitaries like the Wagner group) will be extremely difficult."
