"Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatyev spent more than a month fighting in Ukraine after his poorly equipped unit was ordered to march from its base in Crimea for what commanders called a routine exercise."
Over the next 5 weeks, deeply troubled by the devastation caused by ... Putin’s bloody invasion, he wrote down his recollections in hopes that telling his country the truth about the war could help stop it."
"His damning 141-page journal... describes an army in disarray: commanders clueless & terrified, equipment old & rusty, troops pillaging occupied areas in search of food because of a lack of provisions, morale plummeting as the campaign stalled."
"Our entire squadron, about 40 people, all lived in one tent... we had nowhere to wash up & the food was horrible. For those who arrived later than the rest, me & about 5 other people, there was neither a sleeping bag, nor camo, armor, or helmets left." washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/…
"Around February 20, an order came for everyone to urgently gather and move out, packing lightly. We were supposed to perform a forced march to some unknown location."
"By 1 p.m. we drove to a huge field where our trucks got bogged down in the mud. I got nervous. A huge column standing in the middle of an open field for half an hour is just an ideal target. If the enemy notices us and is nearby, we are f---ed."
"It was quite dark and we got word that we are staying here until dawn. We climbed into sleeping bags without taking off our shoes, laying on boxes with mines, embracing our rifles."
"Commanders tell us the news that Ukrainian GRAD rocket launchers were seen ahead, so everyone must prepare for shelling, urgently dig in as deep as possible, and also that our cars almost ran out of fuel and we have communication problems."
The majority in the army, they are dissatisfied with what is happening there, they are dissatisfied with the government and their command, they are dissatisfied with Putin & his policies"
"A majority of Republican nominees on the ballot this November for the House, Senate and key statewide offices — 299 in all — have denied or questioned the outcome of the last presidential election"
"most of the election deniers nominated are likely to win: Of the nearly 300 on the ballot, 173 are running for safely Republican seats. Another 52 will appear on the ballot in tightly contested races."
Here are the election deniers running in Texas 2022:
Greg Abbott for Governor
Dan Patrick for Lt Gov
and the twice-indicted Ken Paxton for Attorney General.
"Donald Trump on Friday issued what can only be described as a threat against Mitch McConnell, declaring that the Senate minority leader’s support for bipartisan bills amounts to a “DEATH WISH.”"
News orgs fail to ask GOP pols about this threat by Trump.
First, they cannot leave these exchanges for the end of an interview, when the guest can filibuster until the commercial break. Do it upfront, and don’t allow them to move on"
"In the absence of higher authority backing them up, personnel in the staff secretary’s office could not be expected to remove documents from the president’s possession...
“They would have gotten their heads cut off by the president if they tried to take things from him.”
"On Election Day 2016, nearly 63 million Americans voted for Trump, giving him more than 300 electoral votes and the White House.
The takeaway?
They, too, knew where he stood and voted for him anyway."
The idea that legislatures stand unbound by any limit from their own founding documents is a fringe debating point invented for Republican political advantage."
"In a nearly identical scenario to that of the DHS leaders’ texts, the Secret Service alerted Cuffari’s office seven months ago, in December 2021, that the agency had deleted thousands of agents’ and employees’ text messages."
"In the weeks before the attack on the Capitol, Trump had been pressuring both men to help him claim the 2020 election results were rigged and even to seize voting machines in key swing states to try to “re-run” the election."