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/ Starving Russian soldiers in Ukraine have been eating their comrades and Ukrainians, according to intercepted Russian communications. Audio and photographic evidence indicates that several incidents of cannibalism likely occured in 2025. ⬇️
2/ The UK's Sunday Times newspaper has published evidence of what Ukrainian intelligence sources say were at least five instances where Russian soldiers were said by their fellow soldiers and commanders to have engaged in cannibalism.
3/ The evidence reportedly came to light from intercepted messages on Telegram, which has universally been used by the Russians for battlefield communications until it was recently blocked by the Russian government.
1/ Russia's attempts at import substitution have "completely failed" and the corrupt state procurement system is effectively killing off domestic factories, warns a Russian factory head. He says the system makes some rich, but will lead to a domestic economic collapse. ⬇️
2/ Kubanzheldormash JSC is a large engineering company in Southern Russia. It is one of the few domestic manufacturers of mechanised track tools for railway construction and maintenance, as well as agricultural machinery and hydraulic equipment.
3/ The company marks its 93rd anniversary this August, but it may be its last, warns company head Vyacheslav Yakovlev in a YouTube video.
1/ The Russian Ministry of Defence has announced that it will not allow drone operators to be sent to assault units without their consent, in a bid to prevent them being sent to their deaths as a punishment. However, a Russian warblogger warns this will be hard to enforce. ⬇️
2/ 'Rybar' reports:
"On the front lines, some commanders sometimes mismanaged the personnel entrusted to them, sending drone operators, engineers, and medics to assault units for the slightest infraction."
3/ "The impact this has had on the recruitment of volunteers for the emerging unmanned systems forces is self-evident.
1/ The arrival of Ukrainian drones over the Urals for the first time has left Russian scrambling to explain why Russia's air defences seem to be unable to cope. Russian conspiracy theorists claim the drones are actually being flown from Kazakhstan. ⬇️
2/ Writing on his 'Ramsay' Telegram channel, Russian journalist Vladislav Shurygin says:
"I'll answer all the questions about how Ukrainian drones reached Chelyabinsk, 1,800 km from the Ukrainian border, very briefly, and probably for the hundredth time."
3/ "Their range is a consequence of the constant modernisation of enemy air attack capabilities. Over the past three years, Ukrainian drones have increased their range from 700 to 1,800 km, and potentially to 2,500 km. These technologies are now available to NATO countries.
1/ Lithuania is to open a €100m military training ground in the strategic Suwałki Gap between Belarus and Russia's Kaliningrad enclave. In response, the prominent Russian 'Two Majors' Telegram channel calls for all three Baltic states to be eradicated. ⬇️
2/ The Lithuanian MOD has announced that a new training ground will be built near the village of Kapčiamiestis in southern Lithuania's Lazdijai district. With an area of approximately 146 km², it will be located only about 11 km from the border with Belarus.
3/ The facility will be designed for brigade-level exercises, to accommodate up to 3,500-4,000 military personnel at a time. Its main purpose will be training the Lithuanian Land Forces and the German Bundeswehr's tank brigade deployed in Lithuania.
1/ Today's British newspaper headlines show a unified wall of outrage against Donald Trump, across the political spectrum. It's a sign of how a reported plan to punish the UK by 'reassessing the status of the Falkland Islands' has crossed a line that's redder than red. ⬇️
2/ Reuters reported yesterday that an internal Pentagon memo, said to have been written by Under Secretary of War [sic] for Policy Elbridge Colby, suggests reviewing US support for Britain's claim to the Falkland Islands.
3/ The Falkland Islands were invaded in 1982 by Argentina, which claims the islands for itself, and recovered by the UK in a ten-week war which cost about 900 lives. The islanders are a British Overseas Territory whose inhabitants have voted overwhelmingly to stay with the UK.