So Filatiev writes that because of his father, he spent almost his entire childhood in the unit until the age of 15. “Now, 17 years later, the Air Force no longer has anything in common with the people of the past. The people have changed, the luster is gone, only the name remains.”

Filatiev’s description of the contrasts between contract soldiers and ordinary soldiers is particularly impressive. “A 21-year-old who joins the army from the military academy as a lieutenant has to go through 100 hellish circles of bureaucracy, chaos and humiliation to lead a company,” Filatiev says. “To lead a battalion all over again and so on. So most officers leave at some point.”

Once you’ve made it to the top, don’t risk your hard-earned position by criticizing the system. “Under these circumstances, you cannot build a strong, well-knit squad,” writes Filatiev. So able-bodied people would prefer to go to the Wagner mercenary group.

Military historian Chris Owen has studied Filatiev’s report closely and attributed the abuses he described to delayed reforms. Between 2007 and 2012, then-Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov pushed for far-reaching reforms, most notably the switch from an army to an army of contract troops.

In 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the Minister of Defense. He was succeeded by the still incumbent Sergei Shoigu. “Under Shoigu, corruption in the military just got worse,” Owen wrote on Twitter.

Pavel Filatiev described the consequences of the failed reforms in this way: “The system of military schools and officer chiefs has become obsolete. Officers are still learning to command from the army, and not from professional soldiers, who are often much more than themselves. grow up.” He affirmed the army’s “horrific corruption, anarchy, moral turpitude and technological backwardness”.