Russia Sends Soldiers Into Ukraine Jacked Up On Speed, Nothing New In War But Still Immoral

Is Russia getting desperate or has the war machine gone totally off the rails…or both? Russia is sending ill-trained fighters and former convicts to Ukraine jacked up on amphetamines so they’ll fight like hell regardless of the odds or the outcome.

Business Insider reported that a UK defense think tank, the Royal United Service Institute, examined how Russia's military tactics have evolved in the second year of conflict. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2021. The report cited Ukrainian military personnel who said the Russian soldiers they encountered often appear to be "under the influence of amphetamines or other narcotic substances." 

The report referred to these soldiers as Russia's "disposable infantry," who consist of conscripts from the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics, prisoners drafted by the Wagner Group, as well as draft inductees. They’re sent in small groups to "skirmish" with Ukraine's soldiers until they’re killed. Material recovered from the battlefield suggests they’ve consumed substances in liquid form, the report noted.

Nothing New But Still Immoral

Since World War II, as far as we know, the use of amphetamines has been part of war around the world. The U.S. military heavily prescribed speed, or pep pills, to the troops in Vietnam who were leaving for long-range reconnaissance missions and ambushes. From heroin to amphetamines to marijuana, drugs were so commonplace among the troops that, in 1970, per History, Egil Krogh, liaison to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (now the DEA), told President Nixon at the time, “you don’t have a drug problem in Vietnam; you have a condition. Problems are things we can get right on and solve.”

Thousands of US soldiers came back from Vietnam addicted to heroin.

Photo: Center for Strategic and International Studies