🧵/ link in the last thread. I spoke with yet another soldier from 64th Motor Rifle Brigade. Petr Danilov is suspected by Ukraine of committing atrocities in Bucha. He claims he was not there and describes the scale of catastrophe the Russian army experienced near Kyiv.
Here’s the guy. He sent me his military ID and other docs proving he was dismissed from the army back in 2018 and never signed the contract again (he was fired for abuse of power and even prosecuted and got probation).
Here are his dismissal documents dated 2018 and his ID with matching entries about dismissal.
SBU and GUR (UA military intel) utilizing old personnel lists in nothing new, so let’s jump to the interesting part: his description of what happened with 64th brigade near Kyiv, based on his talks with his former colleagues (historical illustrative photo dated 2012)
Danilov still is in permanent contact with the people from the 64th brigade and he agreed to tell me their [grim] thoughts about this war.
Earlier we published an article about the combat losses of the 64th brigade. Danilov confirms that those losses are huge. He also says that the 64th brigade was even more understaffed than I was told by my previous interlocutor.
"Go, scare the people, everyone will scatter, then you’ll come back”, commanders told them. In fact, everything turned out differently. Ukraine showed character, the Armed Forces of Ukraine resisted and these expectations failed", – says Danilov.
"They expected the Crimea-2014 scenario. No assault tasks, just a quick march to Kyiv. It was wrong. Ukraine resisted and showed the will to fight back".
"I know my brigade and the people out there, they had no desire to "liberate someone from the Nazis", they didn’t know anything at all about the fact that they would have to "liberate" someone”, – says Petr Danilov.
He also says the remaining soldiers of his brigade are scared of 2 things: US MRLS systems and drones. "When Shoigu says that we don’t move quickly because we want to minimize collateral damage, it’s bullshit. Soldiers are exhausted and have no will for another offensive".
At the same time, Danilov is skeptical about the Ukrainian counter-offensive too. "We are still far ahead in artillery and ammo, and we know all Ukrainian positions and possible vectors of their counter-attacks well".
There’s more inside, so don’t hesitate to click and Google translate from Russian. "This war should be ended as soon as possible", says the guy. You may like or not what he says, but one should be very brave in Russia to speak openly on the matter. svoboda.org/a/tupo-net-sil…
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1/5 An important P.S. to my Valdai thread. This clearly demonstrates that any piece agreements with Putin’s Russia don’t cost the paper they're written on. One day he will simply fabricate a pretext to breach any agreement without hesitation, regardless how absurd it will look.
2/5 The '91 drones targeting Putin’s residence' stunt was a way to pressure Ukraine (I really hope – and want to believe – this was not coordinated between the U.S. and Russia). Not a big deal by itself, but a reminder that Russian false-flag ops or psyops like this are common.
3/5 With a peace agreement, you can buy a year or less of breathing space. In 1938–1939, it was barely several months for Czechoslovakia – time that Britain bought through Chamberlain's policy of appeasement.
A @Planet satellite image of Novorossiysk taken today shows the aftermath of the Ukrainian underwater drone attack on a Russian Kilo-class submarine. Still hard to conduct a precise BDA, but at least we can see that the explosion occurred approximately 20 m from the vessel.
A still, high-resolution @Planet satellite image of the port of Novorossiysk showing damage from a Ukrainian submersible drone, taken today, Dec. 16, at 8:18 a.m. local time.
@planet Interestingly, back in 2021, Russia used this exact pier to place specially trained dolphins, which were later moved to Sevastopol. Good for them! (Although these dolphins are trained specifically to prevent attacks like the ones carried out by Ukraine.)
⚛️🇹🇷🧵Next year, Turkey’s 1st nuclear power plant, Akkuyu – built by Russia’s state-owned Rosatom – is finally set to go live after years of delays and scandals. Among its staff, we found a former GRU psyops officer. Our new investigation with @pustota exposes the full story 🔽
Meet Maxim Balabanov, who served for nearly 10 years, until 2017, in military unit 03126 in Leningrad Oblast – a SUPsO (psyops) unit of the Leningrad Military District.
He also listed as one of his addresses the location of another GRU unit, 20697 (St. Petersburg). As was discovered back in 2023, unit 20697 is another GRU psyops unit, whose officers pretended to act as politologysts and experts in their 'civic' life. ms.detector.media/internet/post/…
1/3 Finally, our investigation, together with @pustota, revealing several participants of the recent far-right and fascist organizations forum in St. Petersburg who did not want to be identified – including Hamburg Bürgerschaft MP Robert Risch from the AfD svoboda.org/a/rossiyskaya-…
2/3 Special thanks to @MackjackMaier for quickly revealing Risch’s identity, and kudos to the Belgian nationalists of 'Nation,' who accidentally shared his unblurred photo.
🧵/ link in the last post. Have you ever wanted to know where the infamous Russian 'Rubicon' drone center is based – and who commands it? Thanks to my colleagues @pustota, @legal0ve, and open sources (including Russian Tsar-Propagandist Vladimir Solovyov), we now know.
First of all, 'Rubicon' is not technically a military unit; it isn’t associated with any, has no publicly known registered entity, and its head’s name has never been disclosed.
Luckily, I found two letters of gratitude that 'Rubicon' sent to the Bratskoye Serdtse ('Brotherly Heart') charity, which is run by former members of the FSB and SVR. In them, you can see the surname and initials of Rubicon’s commander – S.V. Budnikov. фонд-братское-сердце.рф/upload/iblock/…
1/5 One of the Geran-2/Shahed-136 drones downed in Kyiv today had a catapult mount supplied by Chinese company less than 2 months ago, on 23rd of May. 46 days earlier, on April 9-11, the company, Suzhou Ecod Precision Manufacturing, took part in the St. Petersburg Technical fair.
3/5 Suzhou Ecod Precision Manufacturing was one of only two Chinese companies that took part in the St. Petersburg fair. The other one, Suzhou Hongyishan, specializes on 'standard and non-standard industrial parts, pneumatic and hydraulic components'. Neither of the 2 sanctioned.