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Independent military history author and researcher. Coffee tips are appreciated! https://t.co/t1EjNrIZ2c Now also at https://t.co/4qGQ2ffHJJ

Jun 2, 16 tweets

1/ News that Russia's BMPT Terminator, famed for its wobbly autocannons, is to be renamed the Spirodon has attracted criticism from Russian warbloggers. Perhaps not coincidentally, Spirodon also was the first name of Vladimir Putin's paternal grandfather. ⬇️

2/ According to Uralvagonzavod's official channel, "The machine, which replaces an entire unit, no longer bears the nickname of the American destroyer robot. It is our shield and sword."

3/ The official announcement says that the change in name was made "at the request of Uralvagonzavod workers (part of Rostec) and combat vehicle crews ... in honour of courage, resilience, and strength of spirit."

"Why "Spiridon"? This is a rare but revered name in Russia."

4/ "It was borne by truly strong-willed people. Archbishop Spiridon of Novgorod and Pskov blessed Alexander Nevsky and he defeated the Swedes in 1240. Hero of the Soviet Union Spiridon Spitsyn, who was from the Urals, fell on the Dnipro bridgehead but did not retreat."

5/ The name is also associated with Saint Spiridon of Tremithus, who, according to his hagiography, at the First Ecumenical Council in 325 "squeezed a brick - from it came out fire, water, and clay remained, as proof of the unity of the Trinity."

6/ The change in name was also said to have been influenced by recent legislation in the Russian parliament on the protection of the Russian language from foreign borrowings (which has resulted in schoolchildren in some regions being forbidden to wear clothes with foreign words).

7/ Only a few days ago, however, TASS disclosed that a record for 1879 about the baptism of Vladimir Putin's paternal grandfather, Spiridon Ivanovich, was found in the parish records of the village of Dudino near Tver.

8/ According to an historian, Putin's ancestors were peasants, and details of their everyday life were usually not preserved in the archives.

Putin himself has said that Spiridon went on to become a cook in Gorki near Moscow, where he worked for Lenin and his family.

9/ After Lenin died, according to Putin "my grandfather was transferred to one of Stalin's dachas, where he worked for a long time."

'Military Informant' evidently doesn't believe the official explanation for the name change and pokes fun at the Soviet-style announcement:

10/ "As stated, everything was naturally done solely at the request o̶f̶ ̶f̶a̶r̶m̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶s̶ of the enterprise and the crews of combat vehicles."

'Fighterbomber' is savagely sarcastic:

11/ "Someone there decided that Terminator is an unspiritual film by the damned Americans. How long will this go on, I ask you.

12/ 'Terminator' is a sequence of DNA nucleotides, recognized by RNA polymerase as a signal to stop the synthesis of an RNA molecule and dissociate the transcriptional complex.

13/ "And also 'Terminator' is an energy absorber (usually a resistor) at the end of a long cable, whose resistance is equal to the wave resistance of the cable, and also "a line on the planet's disk, separating the illuminated hemisphere from the dark one".

14/ "I suspect they just don't know about the fact that "Spiridon" is a Greek male name, and the Greeks are in NATO, with which we are at war, they probably weren't told.

That is, this is clear propaganda of the damned NATO.

NATO is shocked again in its turn.

15/ "Where is the police looking?

Fuck, so our fighter jet ‘Checkmate’ [the prototype Su-75] is going to end up being called Evlampiy [an old-fashioned, comically uncool Russian male name]?" /end

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