Russian soldier leads bicycle attack, becomes laughingstock among allies
With at least 11,000 armored vehicles destroyed since the start of the war, the Russian army has been forced to turn to civilian vehicles. Problem: Putin's soldiers have a bad habit of drinking and driving, or driving after drinking.
In 2024, nearly 21 Russian soldiers who were driving non-army vehicles lost their lives. Alcohol had come to "do its work". Drastic measures were then taken by some regional commanders to combat this scourge, including the ban on using civilian cars, under penalty of death.
As a result, and as Two Majors, a Russian military blog, revealed, "everyone is on bikes. Some deliver ammunition, others move to positions, and others go to a meeting."
The American business magazine Forbes also reports: “The strange sight of a Russian soldier on a bicycle leading an armoured vehicle weighing at least 15 tonnes across a field located only a mile [one and a half kilometres, editor’s note] from the front line, apparently somewhere in Russian-occupied Ukraine, is probably not an isolated incident.” The observation was made from a video, itself shared by @WarTranslated, an Estonian military blogger.
As the media Korii indicates, the video was taken by Russian drone operators who were particularly struck by the scene, then filmed themselves watching it and making fun of the famous “assault cyclist”, before publishing it all on the networks. One of them says, visibly very amused: “a guy on a bicycle is guiding and leading the attack on the [armoured vehicle] BMP!”. A second adds: “it’s can't be possible that he’s traveling on a bicycle…”. “That’s stupid. Imagine what the “hohols” [Ukrainians] are thinking right now,” sighs one of the last commenters.
(MH with Manon Pierre - Source: Korii - Illustration: Unsplash)