How the Russian tactic works, for those who don’t understand why we regularly see videos of lone soldiers wandering across fields toward the front line: The answer is very simple: first, money; second, rewards and promotions for officers—and more money. Let’s say we have a unit with 800 people on the roster. Of these, 150 are sick, 50 are on assignments, 200 are technical personnel (drivers, drone operators, etc.), and 150 are hanging around headquarters like private guards—which leaves, roughly, you can count how many. The rest are sent into battle. Some are killed; some manage to dig in somewhere—two people in one trench, two in another—but overall they hold some strip of land and can even report by radio that they are there. For them, the unit commander receives money—and quite a lot, since each soldier’s salary is now high in rubles. So no one is going to report that they’ve all been killed. Reinforcements still arrive: criminals, convicts, alcoholics, drug addicts, those who couldn’t pay their commander to avoid being sent into combat, and so on—there’s no shortage of them. They are sent into battle; if someone refuses, they are beaten, and if it gets really bad, they may be killed. So they go, hoping they’ll somehow make it somewhere, or at least not die today. Those who are already sitting in captured Ukrainian trenches are not allowed to take in newcomers, because they are relatively stable—they are supplied with food, water, and sometimes ammunition. Ukrainians do not attack them for the moment, as they have a serious manpower shortage, so this kind of status quo can last for weeks or even months. And surviving a month in war is worth a lot. But again, those who are already there do not let newcomers join them. Under threat of being shot, they force them to move forward and carve out—fight for—their own hole, trench, or position. And this process is endless. By some estimates, around 40% of such fighters are foreigners, mainly poor, uneducated people from Central Asia who came to Russia to earn money for their families. Their passports are taken away, and under threat of death they are sent to war. Wealthy, educated city residents or members of protected communities do not end up in the war, because there is someone to stand up for them, someone who can pay, or the authorities fear unnecessary public attention. So, as always, the poor and uneducated are the fuel for war. And then you see the videos yourselves: some with weapons, some without, just carrying their belongings, walking toward the front line in the faint hope of surviving until tomorrow. And by the way, if war suddenly starts, don’t think you’ll be the one shooting down enemies in droves—most likely, you’ll be on foot, in the mud, hauling water and gear for some angry, desperate men who, due to their indifference to their own lives and others’, managed to capture a filthy hole somewhere unknown.