Law, Power, and Justice

Reached by phone inside Russian hospitals, wounded soldiers described being sent to war with little food, training, bullets or equipment — and watching about two-thirds of their platoon get killed.

Materials recovered from battlefields point to the military’s lack of preparation: a map from the 1960s, a Wikipedia printout on how to operate a sniper rifle, a wildly optimistic timetable for Russia’s invasion. In interviews, one soldier recalled asking how to use his rifle just before heading off to battle, while another described how his supervisor revealed they were going to war: “Tomorrow you are going to Ukraine to fuck up some shit.”

One NATO member is warning allies that Mr. Putin might accept the death or injury of as many as 300,000 Russian troops — roughly three times his estimated losses so far.