C.J. Chivers

Facebook posts suggest evidence of large-scale efforts to buy and sell weapons as large as guided missiles in the Middle East and North Africa.

Past Russian military actions have often showcased an army suffering from a poor state of discipline and supply, its ranks filled mostly with the conscripts who had not managed to buy deferments or otherwise evade military service. Public drunkenness was common, as were tactical indecisiveness and soldiers who often looked as if they could not run a mile, much less swiftly. Not so in Crimea.