Ukraine war: Thousands of newly mobilised Russian soldiers armed with 'barely usable weapons'

Intelligence sources believe many of the freshly called up reservists have been issued with Soviet era weapons that were first developed in the 1950s. By Guy Birchall, news reporter Many of the newly mobilised soldiers Moscow has sent to the Ukraine frontline in recent weeks are armed with "barely usable" weapons, according to British defence analysts. The Kremlin declared a partial mobilisation of up to 300,000 reservists in September, but the Ministry of Defence believes they could be using weapons that date back to the 1950s. Russia's newly deployed reservists are thought "in many cases" to be "poorly equipped" as Moscow struggles with "strained logistics systems". Open source images suggest that the troops have been issued with rifles of a type which could be over 60 years old. The intelligence update, posted by the MoD on Twitter, said: "In September, Russian officers were concerned that some recently mobilised reservists were arriving in Ukraine without weapons. "Open source imag