1/ Citizens of the puppet 'Donetsk People's Republic' (DNR) are complaining en masse that they are not being paid their promised compensation for deaths and injuries caused to local residents by the war. The DNR itself admits that it owes more than 38 billion rubles ($467m). ⬇️
2/ Relatives and soldiers of the DNR's armed forces – which have been decimated due to being used as so-called 'meat waves' against Ukrainian positions – have been posting numerous videos complaining about the lack of compensation payments and appealing to Putin for help.
3/ In one video, a wife says: "Starting from September 2022, funding for lump-sum compensation for wounded and killed DNR servicemen for 2022 was terminated. We submitted documents to the commission of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy of the DNR.
4/ "There are a lot of us. We applied to all authorities. From the presidential administration to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation.
5/ "All our appeals are forwarded to the government of the DNR, which redirects them to the Ministry of Labour, and the answers come from there that there is no funding. We write to the deputies and there are no results."
6/ According to the wife of one wounded soldier, his unit "collected all the necessary documents promptly, the medical examiner issued a conclusion of a severe injury.
7/ "In November we submitted all the documents for payment, and for seven months there have been no payments, the allowance during treatment is 30,000 rubles ($371). The answer is the same, there is no funding."
8/ People seeking compensation have complained to the DNR state prosecutor's office, which admitted that an audit had "established the fact of lack of funding for this type of payment, which requires an amount of more than 38 billion rubles."
9/ It's very unlikely that the DNR will be able to pay the sums it owes, as its finances are precarious, its economy is a mess and it's kept afloat only by Russian government funding.
10/ The Russian government has shown little concern previously for the welfare of DNR soldiers and their families, so there seems to be little likelihood that the relatives' video appeals will achieve much. /end
1/ Over four years into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian commanders have still not beaten their deadliest enemy – the cumbersome centralised bureaucracy of the Russian military. 'Two Majors' gives a flavour of how badly Russian commanders are swamped with paperwork. ⬇️
2/ In an essay titled "On the Need for a Radical Overhaul of the Management System for Security Forces Involved in the Special Military Operation. Thoughts on the Topic, with Some Profanity", one of the contributors to the prominent 'Two Majors' Telegram channel writes:
3/ "▪️ The principle of multitasking and prioritisation. Even before the war, we once asked a young officer from a garrison unit subordinate to ours: why aren’t you working on such-and-such a task, since it’s objectively important?
1/ The steadily increasing number of Ukrainian drones being flown into Russia is a major cause for concern among Russian warbloggers reflecting on the weekend's attack on Moscow. 'Older than Edda' sees Russia's air defences being progressively worn down and overwhelmed. ⬇️
2/ "When assessing the prospects of a "drone war," it's important to understand that massive attacks using a couple thousand or more UAVs per night are just around the corner.
3/ "This means that in selected areas, the enemy will attempt to simply breach air defences by exhausting the missile launchers' ammunition—which, even with timely delivery on launchers, doesn't appear automatically; reloading takes time.
1/ Could Yevgeny Prigozhin have become Russia's equivalent of Ukraine's Robert 'Madyar' Brovdi if he had been allowed to live? A provocative Russian commentary suggests that Wagner's 'civilian-controlled military' operating model could have been applied more widely by Russia. ⬇️
2/ 'Russian Engineer' writes:
"The answers to the questions are about what changes allowed the enemy to halt the downward trend in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which was clearly evident throughout 2025."
3/ "And now they're striking along the Novorossiya highway, and simultaneously in Moscow and Sevastopol.
1/ Ukraine's massive penetration of Moscow's air defences is sparking a great deal of gloomy and angry commentary from Russian warbloggers. The military-technical Telegram channel 'Atomic Cherry' warns of an escalating trend of Ukrainian capabilities. ⬇️
2/ "As an interim observation, I will note that the Armed Forces of Ukraine, for the first time in years of the conflict, have succeeded in destroying a number of targets in the Moscow region:
There are a number of statements and testimonies about hits on other targets as well, but listing them all makes no sense. The trend is clear without this.
1/ The Russian government is warning that the Ukrainians are trying to buy Russian Telegram channels that are now unprofitable after the government's blocking of the app. Russian commentators say it's an inevitable result of the government's restrictive policies. ⬇️
2/ Russia has been severely restricting Telegram since the start of April, as well as making it retrospectively illegal to use Telegram for advertising. This has been a disaster for Russian businesses, for which Telegram was an essential marketing tool.
3/ Individual Telegram bloggers have also faced a collapse in their income from Telegram, both because of the advertising ban and due to the blocking reducing their user bases (though many Russians continue to access it through VPNs). Some are now trying to sell their channels.
1/ Russia's anti-drone defences are said to be severely hampered by bureaucracy, such as bans on interceptor drones with explosive warheads, and legal liability, which makes mobile fire teams liable for damage caused by shot-down enemy drones. ⬇️
2/ Russian drone developer Alexey Chadayev looks for answers to the eternal question of "where air defence?". He highlights legal and bureaucratic obstacles that he says are major obstacles to the effective protection of facilities that are being targeted by Ukrainian drones:
3/ "A few thoughts on counter-drone defence of rear-area facilities.
1. The very fact that we have legally limited the ability to use explosives to combat drones in the rear leads to an increase, not a decrease, in collateral losses.