Exclusive footage granted to us by one of our contacts on the ground showcases the surprising lack of modern equipment being carried by Russian Soldiers in Ukraine.

The situation on the ground in Kherson is fairly dire. Our contact there has been off the radar entirely for 24 hours now. Last we heard, he was with his family hiding in a basement with all possible civilian escape corridors having been closed off. Regardless, our good friend did his part to ensure we had a large cache of video and images to share with the world. This is one of the videos taken from a security camera system that he has access to. We've scrubbed the meta data off of this video for his protection, and he's nowhere near the location of this camera.

This video, while it's only a short clip, gives us something we haven't seen all that well since this invasion started. It gives us a direct look at the average Russian infantryman's load as he moves through the invasion of Ukraine. It's important to remember that the men seen in this video are just that, men. They're like the rest of us, and I doubt a majority of them chose this conflict. Please keep the comments as civil as possible down below, because we know there's a lot of people that absolutely hate the Russians right now, when they should instead be directing that ire towards the Russian Oligarchs and Government.

What's interesting with this perspective however is the total lack of modern military equipment present on any of these Russians. Their rifles are bare, they have no optics whatsoever. Their helmets even lack basic night vision mounting brackets, something that the Russians have been displaying in full on all of their Soldiers that were present throughout the Syrian conflict. Even all the way down to their packs and friend/foe marking, the Russian infantryman as we see them in Kherson are entirely underequipped for an operation at the scale they are trying to conduct.

In the United States, we've been spending billions of dollars preparing to engage with the hot new buzz word around the Pentagon. Near Peer Foes are what we've been calling the Russians and Chinese for the past six to eight years. This video however displays a Russian infantryman wearing equipment akin to the gear Marines and Soldiers rode into Iraq with back in 1991 during Operation Desert Shield/Storm.

Either there is something going on, and we're waiting for the other boot to drop with Russia committing their non-reserve troops to this fight, or we've entirely over-estimated the Russian's abilities to conduct warfare on a large scale. The troops in this video would be eaten alive by a smaller U.S. Army patrol, not only by outranging them with their rifles, but by simply waiting until dark fell and they could no longer see.

Now, I know some of you have an obsession with Russian Military Equipment. If one of you with a bit more experience could list off all of the equipment you're seeing, I'll gladly pin you up as the top comment for this post.