'Not war, alcohol abuse is killing Russian soldiers, making them ineffective in war'

London: British intelligence sources explored reasons behind Russia's huge death toll and found that a "significant minority" of the total 200,000 dead troops were not caused by fighting but excess alcohol consumption along with a number of other issues. UK Ministry of Defence, which provides regular updates on the conflict in Ukraine, made the observation about bad habits among Putin's forces.According to the MoD, there are "extremely high" numbers of incidents, crimes, and fatalities among deployed soldiers that are associated with alcohol. This claim was supported by a message from a Russian news channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.The message said, "With heavy drinking pervasive across much of Russian society, it has long been seen as a tacitly accepted part of military life, even on combat operations," implying that this was largely expected due to views in Russian society at large.The report listed "poor weapon handling drills, traffic accidents, and climatic injuries like hypothermia" as other non-combat causes of death.[caption id="attachment_12403832" align="alignnone" width="300"]

Representational Image. Source: Twitter [/caption]However, there seemed to be one issue that was more prevalent than the others, as Russian commanders "likely identify pervasive alcohol abuse as particularly detrimental to combat effectiveness."

Only a few days prior, Vladimir Putin summoned 147,000 more young males for mandatory military service.The military now has between 1 April and 15 July—two and a half months—to enlist the 18 to 27-year-olds.The President is now requesting 22.5 percent more volunteers than last fall as part of a two-stage annual recruitment of novices for a year-long military service.General Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the defence committee of the Russian Parliament, has denied that the 147,000 would be sent to battle in Ukraine and declared that no conscripts would be drawn from the occupied and annexed regions of that country.Since last September, according to estimates, Putin has called up 500,000 reservists, mostly men and women in their 30s and 40s.Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.