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/ Russian warblogger Lev Vershinin wonders how Russia has managed to revert to 18th century standards of brutal military discipline, as seen in this video. How did it "become so savage in just one generation?", he asks. ⬇️
2/ The video shows a commander (almost certainly Russian, despite Vershinin's disingenuous uncertainty in the post below) savagely beating several men. They have apparently retreated ("rolled back") without authorisation from a mission or frontline position.
3/ “I came across some front-line footage. Not AI. But I don’t know which side it was filmed on. Neither the Russian language nor the swearing mean anything, because the war is essentially a civil one. So, it could be both.
1/ A Russian soldier says that he and his comrades were told by their commander that "a single shell is worth more than all your lives". The men were sent on suicidal missions without artillery support, without supplies, and had to scavenge for weapons on the battlefield. ⬇️
2/ In a video explaining his decision to desert from the Russian army's 144th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade (military unit 11739), 36-year-old Anton Aleksandrovich Shirshin describes his commanders as brutal and corrupt.
3/ He was forced to join the army after being blamed for a traffic accident. The police offered him a choice between imprisonment followed by being conscripted to join the army, or joining the army voluntarily. He chose the latter option.
1/ Continuing his review of how Ukraine is employing Palantir Technologies' platforms in its war with Russia, Belarusian-Russian journalist Alex Zimovsky breaks down in detail Palantir's capabilities and usages, according to public statements and reports. ⬇️
2/ (For a briefer summary see the linked thread below.)
3/ "Palantir's platforms (primarily Gotham for data fusion and targeting, MetaConstellation for multisensor orchestration, and their derivatives, integrated through the Brave1 Dataroom) serve as the primary "operating system of war."
1/ Russian warbloggers are increasingly admitting that Russia is suffering steady attrition from endless swarms of Ukrainian drones. '13 Tactical' posts a lament about Russia's strategic dilemma as it faces escalating costs in its war in Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ The Russian military volunteer Dmitry Tinkov, writing on the '13 Tactical' Telegram channel, reviews the current situation and is very unhappy at what he sees, but takes refuge in half-hearted bravado as the only solution that he sees:
3/ "I think there are three underlying factors at the root of all our problems:
1. Those at the top genuinely believed they could reach an agreement on our terms.
2. They don't know what to do next with Ukraine (= what the outcome should be).
1/ The powerful AI-driven Palantir platform is becoming Ukraine's 'operating system' for the war with Russia. Belarusian-Russian journalist journalist Alex Zimovsky warns that it's "heading towards the point where Palantir will soon become a scary name for children in Russia." ⬇️
2/ Zimovsky has been assessing how Ukraine uses Palantir. He writes:
"As of May 2026, the American company Palantir Technologies has become a key element of Ukraine's AI- and big data-based war management architecture."
3/ "The system is based on the Gotham and MetaConstellation platforms, which integrate into a single combat environment:
→ UAV video feeds
→ satellite reconnaissance
→ SIGINT / electronic intelligence
→ radar data
→ OSINT and open sources
1/ After mobilised Russian troops were threatened with being sent to their deaths if they didn't sign contracts making them permanent soldiers, they were promised a big cash bonus if they did so. There's just one problem: they've now been scammed out of the payments. ⬇️
2/ 'Vault No. 8,' a serving Russian soldier, writes that the mobilised residents of the Moscow region who are serving in his unit are now complaining bitterly that they have been scammed:
3/ "As some may recall, last fall was marked by the slogan, "Mobilised men! Sign a contract or run to attack!"