1/ People across Russia are freezing in their homes in temperatures as low as -38°C because essential utility workers have been mobilised – even after the supposed end of mobilisation – and sent to Ukraine, hindering repair and maintenance work at home. ⬇️
2/ The "We can explain" Telegram channel reports that several regions and cities in Russia, including Astrakhan, Krasnodar and Rostov, are suffering problems with their communal heating systems because the engineers responsible for maintaining them have been mobilised.
3/ A source in Astrakhan's municipal services says: "We have appealed to the military registration and enlistment offices and officials, explaining that the heating season is coming soon and we need people, but we never received a clear answer."
4/ Despite being engineers, most of the mobilised workers were used as infantry. They were "told to hold a difficult section of the front, although there were no professional soldiers among our men, some had just finished their military studies, others were already in their 40s."
5/ Some of the men, who were fighting near the village of Mirolyubivka, were forgotten about by their commanders during the retreat from Kherson. They were left behind, resulting in them being captured by the Ukrainians.
6/ Two of the municipal workers were sent to serve with engineering forces near Kherson, then subsequently sent for training in Belarus before they are due to return to Crimea to build defences there.
7/ The source notes that the men were given draft notices even after the partial mobilisation was claimed to have ended. Essential workers are supposed to be exempt from mobilisation, but military officials have widely ignored such exemptions.
8/ Problems with heating have been reported across Russia, exacerbated by a lack of engineering personnel. Residents of Novosibirsk were left without heating in mid-November in temperatures of -30°C due to a damaged pipeline.
9/ 270 apartment blocks housing 70,000 people in Abakan faced a similar problem around the same time. At Artemovsky, a heating breakdown lasted for several days in temperatures of -38°C. /end
1/ A Russian soldier recruited under duress from a penal colony says that his unit has suffered 97% casualties in recent assaults, with a constant supply of new cannon fodder arriving and dying immediately. "They fucking keep replenishing, replenishing, replenishing," he says. ⬇️
2/ The man, who identifies himself as Ramzan, says that he was serving a sentence in a penal colony when he was brutally forced to sign a military contract by a "camp boss" – another prisoner who was working for the prison management.
3/ "They told me, 'You fucking cunt.' I said, 'Okay, we'll see.' ... He fucking wanted to shove me into the toilet. That's why I went to the Special Military Operation."
When he arrived in Ukraine, he found himself being thrown into bloody assaults in an unspecified region.
1/ The Kyiv Independent is reporting that Trump envoy Steve Witkoff is "running a shadow operation inside the White House in an effort to sideline pro-Ukraine officials", cutting out Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an effort supported by Vice President J.D. Vance. ⬇️
2/ According to sources quoted by the Kyiv Independent, Witkoff is "running a broader operation with [Russian envoy Kirill] Dmitriev, trying to sideline the pro-Ukraine voices in the Trump administration."
3/ An unnamed White House communications official "is seen as "one of Witkoff's people," feeding media talking points favorable to Witkoff and his Russia-friendly approach."
1/ Russian lawyers say that gamers could face up to six years in prison or charges of treason if they stream S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 or wear a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. T-shirt, following the Russian government's designation of its Ukrainian developers as an 'undesirable organisation'. ⬇️
2/ The Russian Prosecutor General's Office added Kyiv-based GSC Game World to its list of 'undesirable organisations' on 18 November. The developer relocated many of its staff to Prague after the full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022.
3/ Since then, GSC has raised $800,000 for the Ukrainian military via a charity sale of its games and has also encouraged its fans to make donations to Ukrainian military causes. This has been cited by the Prosecutor General's Office in its decision.
1/ Vladimir Putin is reported to be unhappy with the proposed Witkoff-Dimitriev peace plan for Ukraine. "Trump is in a hurry, and Vladimir Vladimirovich is not so much," says a Russian source. ⬇️
2/ The independent Russian news outlet Verstka reports that Russian diplomatic sources and sources close to the Kremlin consider the draft agreement to be "vague, in need of revision, and not fully implementable." They see it as merely a basis for a future agreement.
3/ According to a Russian Foreign Ministry source, the peace plan "is not ready ... in the form in which it is currently being discussed." He says that work still needs to be done on the wording and details.
When an American billionaire offers money to people from relatively poor countries (Serbian average monthly salary $1,329) for riling up and radicalising Americans, it's not surprising that they'll take up the offer
1/ In 2024, Vladimir Putin created a new programme called 'Time of Heroes' to train Russian soldiers and war veterans to be part of a "new elite" to lead Russia in the future. However, soldiers are finding that they are being declared to be deserters if they enroll in it. ⬇️
2/ The 'Time of Heroes' programme was launched on 1 March 2024 after a speech by Putin in which he declared that participants in the Russian invasion of Ukraine should be given training to occupy leadership positions in the Russian government and state institutions.
3/ The 'heroes' are explicitly supposed to replace the officials who took office during the 1990s, before Putin took power. Commentators have observed that the programme is part of a general militarisation of Russian society and increasing Putin's own control over the state.