🧵 Here's a video of a Russian soldier who was mobilized recently. He was sent to the "1st tank regiment" (probably 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division) and says they will be sent to Kherson in 2 days without any basic training. I found his VK and reached out to him.
Here's full translation of his address. 1/2: "Hi everyone, the first tank regiment is here. We were officially told that there would be no training before we will be sent to the war zone. The regiment’s commanders confirmed this. On September 29 we’re will be sent to Kherson".
Translation, 2/2: "Think for yourself, decide for yourself what to do with it in the future. There was no shooting training, no theoretical training, nothing".
I found Vkontakte account of this man. Yesterday he posted a photo of himself in the barracks.
Answering a comment which said "how unexpectedly!" he describes how he ended up there: "Yes, I didn't expect it too. Was sleeping after the night shift. They woke me up and gave me a subpoena [to show up in the Military reg. office]
The guy was living and working in Moscow. He doesn't seem to be anti-Western or "patriotic". He even reposted this meme which says "Patriotism is a good explainer why should we live worse than others".
I asked him if he can elaborate on his complaints. He answered "Can't talk now, things have changed drastically, hopefully for the better".
I'm pretty sure the video was indeed filmed in Kalininets, Moscow region, which hosts 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division (big boards design, buildings coloring) 55.547195, 36.967826 +/- 80 m
This division struggled a heavy defeat in Izum during UA counter offensive. It's soldiers asked their commanders to let them quit fighting even before Russia retreated from the area.
My geolocation matches the public info: it's a parade ground of the unit 23626, the 1st tank regiment. Back in may @agents_media reported conscripts were sent to Ukraine from there and upon return they didn't get their combat payments. agents.media/obmanuli/
Barracks photo from his VK matches the photo of barracks of this unit posted earlier on VK. (By yet another newly mobilized Muscovite, 39 years old)
"It's our turn now to recall our youth", the man who also posts from there says. He even publishes a photo of his subpoena whish asked him to shop up On Sep. 29th. This enthusiast did it even earlier.
("Which asked him to show up", sorry for the typos)
Ukrainian TG channels publish a video with Russian POW, who says he's from the same unit, 23626 (t.me/Tsaplienko/167…). There's one more video with him. He says he was mobilized on Sep. 21st. Unfortunately, I was not yet able to confirm his identity/authenticity of the video.
More photos of mobilized men, taken at the same location in Kalininets, where the 2nd Guards Taman Motor Rifle Division is hosted. "We sleep on the floor for the 3rd day in a row. No training, nothing. We were told that we depart to Donetsk in 3 days" (yaplakal.com/forum2/topic25…)
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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.