1/ Russia has lost huge amounts of materiel – weapons, body armour, radios, personal vehicles – in the war in Ukraine. Its process for replacing them depends on masses of paperwork done by a single overworked officer in each battalion, as a commentary explains. ⬇️ 
2/ The 'Vault No. 8' Telegram channel highlights the little-discussed but vital role played by a battalion deputy chief of staff in the Russian army. This officer is responsible for managing the battalion's stocks of equipment and initiating the replacement of losses.
3/ As the author comments, "The main law of the circulation of any military property corresponds to the law of conservation of energy:
- No property disappears into thin air without a trace or without reason.
- No property disappears into thin air without a trace or without reason.
4/ - The entire path of any property must be tracked on paper .❗️And it is the completeness of the paper cycle that makes it possible to issue a new item to replace the lost one."
5/ For example, if an assault fails, much of the equipment that went with it is expended or lost. The unit's starshina (equivalent to sergeant major) looks up the record of what was issued and reports the losses to the deputy chief of staff at battalion headquarters.
6/ "It is this officer who develops (with his own hands) all the main documents of the battalion - combat orders, maintaining a vacation schedule, tracking the recovery of the wounded, filing for compensation, etc. And collecting documents on lost property, too."
7/ The losses of equipment are recorded in the war diaries of the battalion and regiment, and are certified by the regiment's chief of staff, who confirms that the losses were legitimate (i.e. in a recorded combat episode). Logistic services are notified and provide replacements.
8/ However, as the author notes, the process has two big vulnerabilities – the quality and conscientiousness of the deputy chief of staff (ZNSh in Russian), and the enormously bureaucratic nature of a process that still relies entirely on hand-written paper records.
9/ "Can you imagine how much everything in the battalion depends on the personality of 1 (one) single person - the officer in the position of ZNSh?
10/ "If it is occupied by a careless person, an alcoholic, an inattentive bum, then the circulation of property stops instantly and for a long time – because a legal justification for the loss arises [i.e. a replacement cannot be authorised]."
11/ In contrast, "a deeply decent ZNSh who organised regular work is that golden man, thanks to whom his battalion always has a legal basis for receiving from the warehouses what is there. And now there is enough property to receive."
12/ Complicating matters, not all equipment is treated the same way. Painkillers in first aid kits are subject to special controls, presumably because they are counted as controlled drugs. This makes replacing expended first aid kits especially troublesome.
13/ "Imagine: a battalion is issued 200 new first aid kits. They are starting to be lost and used. All of this must be written off in combat episodes - in assaults, during shelling, when equipment is destroyed, etc.
14/ "And it's one thing when you write off gear wholesale in a multi-page statement, where you list all the cases of use/loss of gear - this will be 1 document for 1 signature in all sorts of accounting journals...
15/ "And it's quite another thing - piece-by-piece, f*ck, accounting, where there is 1 document for 1 spent/lost first aid kit.
❗️200 first aid kits — 200 documents, about 200 signatures.
Do you understand the scale of the paperwork?
❗️200 first aid kits — 200 documents, about 200 signatures.
Do you understand the scale of the paperwork?
16/ "Because the accounting is done manually — all entries are made in black pen.
With all this workload, I repeat, several people in different services cope in key nodes, the main one of which is the poor ZNSh of the battalion...
With all this workload, I repeat, several people in different services cope in key nodes, the main one of which is the poor ZNSh of the battalion...
17/ "[He] needs to enter 200 episodes of first aid kit use in the war diary, roll out 200 extracts, register them and give them (go through the acceptance process) to the medical service [for replacement kits]."
18/ This excessive bureaucracy is likely a factor in the widely reported shortages of first aid kits among Russian front line troops. It may also lead to commanders having a false idea of how much equipment their units actually have.
https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1837204136783175784
19/ "❗️Because one of the most insurmountable obstacles in military bureaucracy is a paper report that the battalion has everything.
20/ "And this is not always a false report – perhaps it has not been updated for a long time, and the full cycle of document flow has not been carried out.
When the fighters do not receive what is in the warehouses, this does not always mean that the warehouses are empty.
When the fighters do not receive what is in the warehouses, this does not always mean that the warehouses are empty.
21/ Perhaps your ZNSh is buried once again under a pile of paper. And he does not have time. Perhaps he is on a bender. Perhaps he is an asshole. Perhaps he is in the battalion organised crime group of thieves of state property. Or he went on vacation."
22/ Donated or personally owned equipment presents a different issue, because it is "not taken into account in any way and is not replenished by the military bureaucracy". This means that its loss does not have to be reported, as the army bears no financial responsibility.
23/ "For some commanders, this is convenient because the loss of material property in battle is significant.
For others, it is simply avoiding red tape.
Well, and for the army mafia, this [allows for] the embezzlement and sale of unaccounted property." /end
For others, it is simply avoiding red tape.
Well, and for the army mafia, this [allows for] the embezzlement and sale of unaccounted property." /end
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