Desperate Putin prepares to send Russian troops into battle on horseback

Russian military instructors have begun training soldiers to conduct assaults on horseback in a likely indication of equipment shortages. And the move has been mocked as “absurd” by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Footage circulating online offers a stark admission of the Kremlin’s mounting logistical strains

The exercises, filmed at a base near Rostov-on-Don, show conscripts galloping across muddy fields while handling Kalashnikov rifles and grenade launchers. Russian sources claim the mounted units are designed for “active assault operations”. Each horse can carry two soldiers—one to ride and fight, and the other to lead the animal under fire.

The tactic aims to evade Ukraine’s proliferating drones, which have decimated mechanised columns since the invasion stalled in summer 2025.

Defence analysts described the move as a desperate throwback to 19th-century warfare.

Michael Kofman, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment: “Horses are quieter and harder for drones to spot than engines, but they’re no match for modern artillery or anti-tank missiles.”

Western intelligence estimates Russian vehicle losses at over 15,000 since February 2022. This includes 1,400 main battle tanks in 2024 alone.

The clip is not the first sign of equipment desperation, as first detailed in a report by The Telegraph.

In March 2025, Ukrainian spotters reported Russian troops using horses and donkeys to ferry ammunition and wounded through drone-infested zones near Avdiivka. Vehicles had become sitting targets.

A viral video from February showed a donkey laden with shells trudging along a supply route. Its handler was dodging FPV kamikaze drones.

One intercepted radio message reportedly stated: “The Defence Ministry sent us a donkey because we have no trucks left.”

Worse still, motorised substitutes have proved equally lethal. Since mid-2024, Russian assault teams have deployed off-road motorcycles fitted with RPG launchers for rapid incursions near Kharkiv and Donetsk. They suffered heavy losses from Ukrainian cluster munitions.

By August 2025, reports indicated troops were outfitting bikes with iron cages in a futile bid against drone strikes.

In Kherson’s Oleshky district last June, partisans claimed commanders ordered soldiers to purchase electric scooters from local markets – costing about £200 each – for probing attacks. This was amid a dearth of armoured personnel carriers.

A Ukrainian intelligence source told Espreso TV: “They buzz like angry wasps and get picked off in seconds.”

Even bicycles have entered the fray. An October 2022 intercept from Lyman revealed a brigade complaining of “no vehicles at all” and having to resort to cycles and scooters for patrols.

By April 2025, the tactic had evolved into “kamikaze” scooter squads, echoing failed motorcycle charges which cost hundreds of lives.

The improvisation feeds into the so-called “meatgrinder” tactic deployed on Ukraine’s eastern front, whereby Russian forces hurl waves of infantry into fortified positions for scant territorial gains, at enormous human cost.

Fighting has intensified in the Pokrovsk sector of Donetsk Oblast as autumn sets in. Moscow is redeploying units from Kherson and Sumy to press the assault.

On October 1 alone, Russian troops launched 19 attacks on Ukrainian positions near Shakhove, Volodymyrivka, Sukhetske and other villages, according to frontline reports.

Ukrainian defenders repelled most, but Russia claimed capture of two settlements, Kurakhove and another nearby, amid scorched-earth tactics that have displaced thousands of civilians.

DeepState monitoring showed Moscow’s daily advances halved in September to just 20 square kilometres.

Mr Zelensky mocked the cavalry revival on Telegram: “From T-90s to ponies – Putin’s empire in full gallop backwards.”