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/ MEMOIRS OF A MOBIK, PART 2: Three years after he was mobilised, a Russian medical orderly with the callsign 'Ukol' talks with a fellow 'mobik' about his experiences. He describes the chaos and carnage he found when he was sent to fight in Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ For the first part, in which Ukol describes how he was mobilised and transported to Ukraine in a train filled with wildly drunken men and officers who were preparing to die, see below:
3/ Having arrived in the occupied Luhansk region in October 2022, "We were indeed brought and initially settled in settlements a couple of dozen kilometers from the immediate rear. The brigade's reinforcements were concentrated."
1/ Three years ago, in September 2022, Russia began mobilising 300,000 men to fight in Ukraine. Most are now dead or disabled, but two survivors have been discussing their experiences of mobilisation, enduring Ukrainian attacks, surviving "meat waves," and murdering POWs. ⬇️
2/ The author of the 'Vault No. 8' Telegram channel is a serving frontline Russian soldier and one of the original September 2022 'mobiks'. He says that he is the only one of his cohort to have lasted this long without being killed or taken out of the war through disablement.
3/ He has been interviewing another surviving September 2022 mobik, a man with the callsign 'Ukol' who is serving as a medical instructor in what he calls the 'Separate Rifle Death Brigade', which he says is "a complete asshole. A bloody asshole."
1/ A prominent Russian political scientist has proposed sending Russian veterans of the war in Ukraine to Siberia, as a way of securing a new Asian destiny for Russia. This has received a frosty response from Russian warbloggers. ⬇️
2/ The proposal was made by Sergey Karaganov, the scientific director of the Faculty of World Economy and World Politics at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, and Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy.
3/ In an article titled "Logistics for Greater Eurasia", Karaganov argues that Russia should turn its back on an ungrateful Europe and focus instead on an Asian destiny.
1/ Russia's mass drone incursion in Poland is only the latest episode in a long-running series of incursions in nine other European countries, as far away as Croatia, since 2022. There have been at least 56 instances of Russian drones and missiles landing outside Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ The Russian independent news outlet Verstka reports that Russian drone and missile debris was found in countries other than Ukraine seven times in 2022, 16 times in 2023, 17 times in 2024 and 16 times in 2025 prior to 10 September.
3/ Romania has been the worst affected, with 20 such incidents since 2022 – one in 2022, 7 in 2023 and 2024, and 5 in 2025. This is closely correlated with Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports on the Danube river, which marks the Ukraine/Romania border.
1/ The assassination of Charlie Kirk has prompted some to make comparisons with the death in 1934 of Sergei Kirov – a pivotal event in Soviet history. Who was Kirov, and what lessons can be drawn from his demise? ⬇️
2/ Kirov was a veteran revolutionary – an 'Old Bolshevik' – who, at the time of his death, was the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad and a member of the Politburo. He was assassinated on 1 December 1934 by Leonid Nikolaev, an expelled party member with a grudge.
3/ There is still a lot of uncertainty around Kirov's death. While Nikolaev was certainly the assassin, later Soviet politicians and historians suggested that Stalin might have had a hand in it. Kirov was a popular Party figure with his own power base, independent of Stalin.
1/ Russia is lagging far behind Ukraine in the production and use of drones, according to a commander of the Chechen Akhmat unit. He provides a lengthy critique of Russian efforts and an explanation of how Ukrainian drone tactics are impacting Russia's attempts to advance. ⬇️
2/ The man, who uses the callsign 'Hades', says that it's a huge mistake to underestimate Ukraine, and cites his experiences of the faltering Russian campaign in the Sumy region on the border of north-eastern Ukraine.
3/ "Here the enemy began to use the same tactics of using UAVs. Yes, we have an advantage in missiles, and they also have an advantage in missiles. But while we hit precisely somewhere, they rain down anywhere they want.