1/ When COVID meets mobilisation: newly mobilised Russian soldiers attached to the 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division have contracted COVID-19 en masse and are now locked in a train for quarantine, without medical care or ventilation. Translation follows: ⬇️
2/ "We are mobilised military personnel of the Taman Division [the 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division], called up on 26 September 2022. Receiving our papers on the following morning, we were deprived of the opportunity to properly equip ourselves, even at our own expense.
3/ Directly on joining the Taman Division we received old uniforms and things like bags. On the 29th we joined the unit in which we are still. After boarding [our train], our unit was sent to the south of Russia, where it stayed for a few days without a definite objective.
4/ At the moment, we are moving back to the north. From the first days, a difficult situation with acute respiratory diseases arose in our unit.
5/ Since we were forced to sleep on the floor and wait for our departure at the station for more than 10 hours, at the moment there are far more sick personnel than healthy ones. I would say that absolutely everyone is sick.
6/ Personally I lost my [sense of] taste and smell. The same symptoms can be detected in others, which allows us to assume a coronavirus infection. There is no medical care in the unit. No one is going to treat us.
7/ Among us are people with chronic diseases, whom the military commands have mobilised without any [medical] examination. In part, we have witnessed cases of heart attacks. From our own sources, it is known that our unit has decided to isolate for a two-week quarantine.
8/ The quarantine is in the same train, where the temperature of the air in the carriage is so high that sweat is pouring from us. Although there is some ventilation at the gangway connectors [between the carriages].
9/ In a week of being on this train, we have never seen either the bosses nor the doctors. We do not want to suffer any serious injury, we are not going to sit in this infected carriage.
10/ If our commanders attack us, we will give our problems to the public without disclosure of any confidential information."
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1/ Russia simply isn't capable of doing in Ukraine what the US and Israeli air forces are doing in Iran, a prominent Russian warblogger admits. He blames the Russian air force's "organisational backwardness, underdeveloped intelligence, and lack of specialised aviation." ⬇️
2/ Ukraine's aviation situation is starkly different to that of Iran's, despite facing a theoretically more powerful opponent. The Ukrainian Air Force is not only still flying in substantial numbers but has expanded its capabilities with the addition of Western aircraft.
3/ 'Military Informant' discusses why the Russian Aerospace Forces are still unable to achieve air superiority over Ukraine after over four years of full-scale war:
1/ News that the Iranian regime is proving more resilient than expected highlights its unusual governing structure as a 'polydictatorship'. In many ways, it was designed from the ground up to resist regime change. ⬇️
2/ The regime comprises a multi-layered set of elected and unelected institutions that shares power across religious bodies bodies, the armed forces (particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), and economic entities. Each provides a separate and distinct power centre.
3/ They each have their own institutional bases, resources, coercive capacity, and claims to legitimacy — none of which fully controls the others, but which collectively make the regime more resilient to internal and external shocks.
1/ The shutdown of Starlink is reported to be causing a sharp rise in casualties among Russian signalmen and linemen, who are being systematically targeted by Ukrainian drones as they attempt to install alternative communications systems. ⬇️
2/ Pro-Kremlin journalist Andrey Medvedev reports that "in those units where Starlink was operational and then shut down, there was an increase in the number of killed and wounded signalmen and linemen. Why do you think this is?"
3/ "The guys are trying to extend fibre optics to their positions everywhere, while the Ukrainians are herding our signalmen and hitting them with drones. Here's an officer's comment. Not everyone will understand, but...
1/ Ukrainian drone attacks deep in the Russian rear have prompted alarm among Russian warbloggers. They warn that the 'kill zone' behind the front line has expanded far into the rear of the Russian-occupied Donbas region. ⬇️
1/ Vladimir Putin is said to be concerned about a possible coup by the Russian military following the arrest of former First Deputy Defence Minister Ruslan Tsalikov. Mobile Internet in the centre of Moscow has been turned off for the past week, with no official explanation. ⬇️
2/ Tsalikov's arrest last week was the culmination of a long-running corruption investigation (see thread below). Investigators have reportedly found that the former minister and his family had amassed property worth over 4 billion rubles.
3/ Tsalikov is a close friend and ally of former Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was sacked in 2024 after numerous allegations of corruption and mishandling of the war in Ukraine. Shoigu has a long history as a close ally of Putin, but has since fallen out of favour.
1/ Iran is using a unique type of loitering, self-targeting surface to air missile to shoot down US MQ-9 Reaper drones. 11 Reapers costing over $330 million have so far been reported destroyed in the war with Iran. ⬇️
2/ The "358" missile, also known by NATO as the SA-67 and in Yemen as the Saqr-1, is a unique type of surface-to-air missile that is launched with a rocket booster and then loiters in a target area using a turbojet engine, scanning with an infrared sensor for airborne targets.
3/ It appears to be capable of several modes, including the ability to attack ground targets as well. The missile is reported to be 2.75 meters long and is armed with a 10 kg proximity warhead, with a total weight of up to 50 kg when fully fueled, and a reported 100 km range.