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/ This video of two Russian soldiers being abused by their commander highlights the violence and cruelty now endemic in the Russian army. The unit in question provides a microcosm of how this has now become routine after three and a half years of war.
2/ According to a soldier of the 30th Motorised Rifle Regiment who filmed one man being repeatedly shot with an air rifle and another being put naked into an open-air pit or zindan, "the company commander regularly uses such punishments against undesirable soldiers."
3/ "Moreover, on his orders, bank cards are collected from personnel, supposedly to withdraw funds for the regiment's needs, but the cards are ultimately not returned to the soldiers. After some time, all available funds are withdrawn from the accounts of deceased soldiers."
1/ Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin warns that Russia's recent tactical successes around Pokrovsk and elsewhere are likely to have little effect on the overall trajectory of the war in Ukraine, unless Russia is willing to commit fully to the total defeat and dismemberment of Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ Girkin has issued a fresh letter from a B̵i̵r̵m̵i̵n̵g̵h̵a̵m̵ Kirovo-Chepetsk jail and (somehow, probably by text messages) has given an interview to the Russian news outlet RTVI, giving his current assessment of the state of the war.
3/ In a letter to a friend, he acknowledges that he may have been "a bit "overzealous" in my expressions about Our National Leader and was "more than usually" critical in my assessment of his (and his impeccable team's) performance both during the Special Military Operation…
1/ Russian soldiers fighting near Pokrovsk say they are eating bark to avoid starvation, while they face systematic extortion, embezzlement, and violence from their commanders, who send numerous men to their deaths and routinely execute others who are deemed inconvenient. ⬇️
2/ Vladimir Valerievich Dulyaninov, serving in the 6th Guards Tank Regiment (military unit 93992), has recorded a series of videos which his aunt has released in an apparent effort to pressure the Russian authorities to take action against the regiment's commanders.
3/ Dulyaninov has given a detailed account of the abuses in his unit, which reflect many similar accounts across the Russian army. He says that he is the commander of an assault platoon, but "I've lost many soldiers due to the reckless commanders, the rush and all that."
1/ The occupied Donbas is a garbage-filled, dysfunctional, and corrupt region infested by packs of man-eating dogs, according to a Russian warblogger. In a remarkable display of cognitive dissonance, she blames Ukraine and says that Russia is only in nominal control. ⬇️
2/ Journalist and warblogger Anastasia Kashevarova, who has frequently campaigned to improve the situation of Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, has posted a long denunciation of the situation in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, partly under Russian control since 2014.
3/ She asks: "Has Russia entered Donbas?"
"Russia has been repeatedly accused of occupying Donbas and Crimea, but let's finally figure out whether Russia is actually in Donbas. I, like the people of Donbas, are still waiting for Russia to finally enter and rule.
1/ A Russian soldier with a mental disability says that he was imprisoned in an open-air pit for 54 days to force him to join a stormtrooper squad. His experience highlights the Russian army's increasing use of men with disabling mental conditions as frontline troops. ⬇️
2/ Oleg Gennadievich Kalmykov of the 15th Motorised Rifle Regiment (military unit 31134) has recorded a video recounting how he was imprisoned for nearly two months in a zindan, a pit in the ground sealed with iron bars but otherwise open to the elements.
3/ Kalmykov says that his previous and current regiments are trying to override a diagnosis by military psychologists that he should be employed only in the rear area with no access to weapons, because he has an emotionally unstable personality disorder:
1/ A wounded Russian soldier was buried up to his neck in a so-called "tight pit" to 'remotivate' him to go on an assault. In a video, the man names his commanders, whom he says are running an extortion racket, and appeals for help from the military authorities. ⬇️
2/ The man complains: "They buried me in a pit for refusing to go and die on a combat mission, for a simple, stupid task where I could have died, they put me in a pit."
His cap reads: "To be a soldier means to live forever."
3/ The man is reported to be from the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion of the 108th Guards Airborne Assault Regiment (military unit 42091). He says that he had to refuse to go on a combat mission because of fragmentation injuries to his back.