1/ Russian strippers say that mobilisation has had an unexpected benefit for them – Moscow's 'inadequate' men have been sent to war, leaving them with a smaller but better-behaved clientele. ⬇️
2/ I've previously highlighted a report on how the war has impacted strip clubs in Moscow. It's been suggested before that the financial perfomance of strip clubs can be a leading indicator of imminent economic problems – so-called 'strippernomics'.
3/ The independent Russian SOTA media collective reports that the situation with Moscow's strip clubs is more complicated than earlier reports suggested. Customer numbers fell after the start of the war in February 2022 and partial mobilisation from September.
4/ However, this isn't all bad news, as strippers at a prestigious central Moscow strip club say that it's got rid of many of their unwanted poorly behaved customers. SOTA quotes one stripper:
5/ "We divide men into adequate and not so much. And to be honest, it's mostly the latter who are missing. They're probably at war right now.
6/ At the end of September and in October guys often came to us and said, 'That's it, tomorrow we have to fight, come on, dance for us.' But on the whole, it has become calmer to work. The most unpleasant customers now have no time for striptease."
7/ While revenues have fallen, SOTA reports, strip clubs have been able to make up the difference though a surge of customers arriving for their traditional pre-New Year strip club visit. /end
1/ Ukraine's Hornet drones are continuing to attack Russian targets across the occupied territories, seemingly without hindrance. A Russian warblogger fighting in the region expresses deep frustration at Russia's inability to prevent the drone strikes. ⬇️
2/ Writing on the 'Donetsk infantry' Telegram channel, one of the contributors (a member of the "Club of Anonymous Commanders") is clearly exasperated by the situation. He calls for urgent action:
3/ "The road to Crimea, the Donetsk-Novoazovsk and Donetsk-Mariupol highways, the Donetsk outskirts, and so on—all roads in the DPR are now under daily mass attacks by Hornet UAVs, also known as Martian-2. These attacks are escalating daily.
1/ Vladimir Putin's reversion to 'February 2022 mode' is meeting with a stony response from Russian warbloggers. Many have refrained from commenting, but some are reacting with open and sharp criticism, calling him "completely divorced from reality". ⬇️
"The situation on the front for the Ukrainian Armed Forces is turning from difficult to catastrophic; neither Western aid nor forced mobilisation are helping them."
3/ "I call on the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers not to carry out the criminal orders of the Kyiv regime."
1/ With Russian logistics vehicles now regularly being blown up by Ukrainian drones far behind the front lines, Russian warbloggers are angrily demanding to know why the military leadership didn't anticipate this and put in place anti-drone protections. ⬇️
2/ As illustrated in this excellent post by @clement_molin, Ukraine is managing to extend its 'kill zone' into Russia and Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, severely hindering Russian logistics across the region.
1/ While the Russian army has had some success in adapting to the conditions of the Ukraine war, this has often relied on bypassing the existing military bureaucracy. A Russian commentary highlights how a "self-defensive bureaucratic carcass" is hindering Russia's war effort. ⬇️
2/ The Russian war effort is heavily dependent on soldiers' and volunteers' personal funding and individual adaptation, as often seen in the 'Mad Max' style vehicles used on the battlefield. Soldiers have often complained of a lack of support and provision from the bureaucracy.
3/ 'Voice from Below' writes:
"Problems with UAVs, communications, reconnaissance, and mechanisation have been discussed since the mid-2010s."
1/ The Ukraine war is deadlocked, writes the imprisoned Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin. He warns that Russia's current tactics are ineffective and Ukraine's intensifying drone strikes on the Russian rear may be leading up to a new counter-offensive. ⬇️
2/ Girkin, who has been a constant critic of the Russian military's strategy, observes:
"THERE'S A COMPLETE DEADLOCK ON THE FRONT. The summer campaign is beginning as incoherently as the winter-spring campaign ended."
3/ "Push-pull back and forth" isn't something that can lead us even to such a limited (and strategically senseless) goal as the complete liberation of the entire Donbas (DPR), much less the complete liberation of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions—…
1/ With the war in Ukraine locked in a stalemate and Russia casualties growing, Russian warbloggers are divided between advocating a full mobilisation or calling for the front lines to be frozen. Oleg Tsarev advocates ending the war and declaring victory to save Russian lives. ⬇️
2/ Tsarev, a fugitive Ukrainian-Russian politician now living in Russia, says that Russia has already achieved as much as it's likely to with the conquest of 'Novorossiya', and the war should be ended now with a declaration of victory so that no more Russians need to die:
3/ "It's bad when a person falls into a psychological trap they create for themselves. Psychologists call this a cognitive trap: when faced with a difficult situation, a person doesn't ask for help to avoid appearing weak.