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/ Russian "werewolves in uniform", profiteering businessmen, and grifters on Telegram are keeping the war in Ukraine going for their own personal benefit, according to another vitrolic commentary from the popular Russian warblogger 'Fighterbomber'. ⬇️
2/ Once again referring to Russia euphemistically as "Laos", the author writes:
"Well, I'll say a little more about Laos. Everything in a heap, so as not to get up twice."
3/ "Here at one meeting on the eve of the negotiations in Alaska between our leader and the American one, the toastmaster of the meeting said something like the following to his servants.
1/ The Russian army is reportedly planning to create special HIV and hepatitis regiments, in an effort to stem an epidemic of infectious diseases. Copying a Wagner Group practice, the infected men will wear armbands to indicate their disease status. ⬇️
2/ The Russian army is currently experiencing a massive epidemic of HIV, hepatitis and other infectious diseases, due to a breakdown of basic medical hygiene and a lack of screening of men joining the army, many of whom have come from prisons.
3/ Anastasia Kashevarova reports that the Russian army "is adopting the experience of the Wagner private military company, where sick soldiers served in a separate project/unit called Umbrella."
1/ Russian aviation specialists are being expended as assault troops, likely to make up for huge army losses. A prominent Russian warblogger has responded with a furious denunciation of 'meat assault' tactics and the routine lies of commanders about their successes. ⬇️
2/ This is not the first time that the Russian army has made use of air force personnel as assault troops. It generally seems to be a way to plug gaps after heavy losses among the infantry.
3/ The author of the 'Fighterbomber' Telegram channel, who appears to be an ex-Russian air force member, is angry that the "Laotian" armed forces (a euphemism for Russia) are sending scarce aviation specialists ("Space Marines") into deadly assaults:
1/ A Russian commander denounces the Russian way of war as "rot, greed, and hypocrisy", typified by rampant theft, corruption and greed among those providing goods and services to the soldiers, and among the soldiers themselves. ⬇️
2/ The 'Vyaly' Telegram channel recounts the comments of "a Combat Commander who is currently working in the immediate vicinity":
3/ "Our way of war: rot, greed and hypocrisy
Here, on our section of the front, the real enemies sometimes sit not behind the grey line, but right next to us. With automatic rifles, the same uniforms, the same flag on their chevrons. Only with zero honour in their souls.
1/ Russia's infamously corrupt military police (VP) are continuing to make friends and influence people in occupied areas of Ukraine. Russian soldiers are infuriated to be receiving fines for, among other things, smoking in vehicles (on the grounds that 'smoking kills'). ⬇️
2/ The VPs have a deserved reputation for corruption and abuse, and are universally loathed by soldiers: "the bane of the Russian army" and a "garden of corrupt scum", as one warblogger puts it.
3/ Their propensity for issuing on-the-spot fines (which they likely pocket themselves) for trivial infractions is discussed by two Russian warbloggers. Andrey Filatov writes:
"You can think whatever you want about the military police, but they are certainly not lazy."
1/ Russian warbloggers continue to be furious that, as one puts it, "our oil refineries continue to leave the chat". They are turning their anger on "oil barons" who, they suspect, are happy to see refineries exploding if it boosts their profits. ⬇️
2/ As the Russian government appears powerless to stop an intensive Ukrainian campaign against the country's refineries, warbloggers are now shifting to blaming the country's oil producers for failing to protect their own facilities.
"The enemy continues to systematically attack Russia's oil and gas infrastructure. According to experts, about 21% of all oil and gas refineries and stations have already been damaged or destroyed.