Thread by @RWApodcast

In this thread, I'll be summarizing an interview with Vladimir Trukhan, a Colonel who serves at the Central Office of the Ministry of Defense of Russia. Obviously, it's heavy on Russian propaganda, but I think it's still helpful to understand a few things & the RU perspective.

“There are no conscripts in the military operation. Only trained professionals. That's why Belarus doesn't participate, their army is all conscripts. So if someone is squealing about ‘corpses of Russian conscripts’, you can spit in his face.”

“The Ukrainian number of 3500 Russians KIA is ridiculous. Such a number of dead would mean several times the number of wounded, which means that all roads would be jammed with ambulances, plus mass deployment of field hospitals — it would be impossible to hide this.”

“The cases of solitary Russian POWs, which Banderite propaganda spins, are unlikely: an AWOL soldier who went to a neighboring village to buy moonshine could be captured, but he is not a fighter, he is a laggard. Single soldiers don't break away during fights.”

“Incidents of convoys being burned on the march are possible, it's war, things happen. Someone made a mistake, didn't keep track, had to abandon vehicles with empty tanks. We assume that the abandoned convoys are being burned by the AFU retroactively for staged videos.”

“The same with ‘supplies that'll last only 3-4 days’; a fairy tale of nonsense. Military operations of this level are prepared for at least several months, everything is calculated and stockpiled in advance with excessive redundancy for all cases.”

“The main idea of the Russian Army is ‘we are not Americans’. They are the ones who, when they see something or someone in their way, first throw a grenade and then ask questions. Nobody is going to produce mountains of corpses, if a person does not offer resistance, why shoot?”

“Handing out weapons to the unprepared population, as well as all sorts of ‘Molotov cocktails’ against professionals, is ridiculous idiocy. Three or four stun grenades is enough to make them shit themselves on the spot, drop their weapons and run away.”

“The Kadyrovtsy, specifically trained to deal with terrorists in urban environments, will mop up the Nazis.”

“Russian forces participating in the operation do not use mortars. All mortar shelling in residential areas, especially in senseless places, where there is no military or energy infrastructure, are provocations by the AFU & terrorists in order to influence the local population.”

“To summarize, there are no non-professionals in the operation. The operation was prepared well in advance in all respects and the plan has a lot of ramifications for all kinds of events.”