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 mobile air defence teams are stuck in queues outside gas stations and are being denied preferential access to scarce fuel, a Russian source says in a plea to a warblogger for help. The problem has arisen because the teams don't drive military-registered vehicles. ⬇️
2/ A relative of a member of a Russian mobile fire group (MOG) writes to ask the governor of the Belgorod region to intervene:
"Greetings. I'm writing to you on behalf of my father, who is currently shooting down drones with the Belgorod BARS [reserve forces] unit."
3/ "He's asking you to raise the issue of fuel supplies for mobile task forces. Considering that our new acting governor [Alexander Shuvaev] is a military man, I'm sure (or at least want to believe) that he or his aides are reading your posts and will be able to reach them…
1/ It's logistically impossible for Russia to protect all of its strategic sites with its limited number of missile-based air defence systems, warns a Russian warblogger. Huge sites and obscured visibility requires many such systems but reduces the effectiveness of each. ⬇️
2/ 'Military Informant' highlights the practical difficulties of using SAM systems to provide adequate protection:
"When discussing the protection of rear-line facilities from cruise missile attacks, one thing is often forgotten."
3/ "People often ask, "Where are the Pantsir/Tor missiles?" But the fact is that protecting every strategically important facility with its own "reliable, classic ground-based air defence" against low-altitude, relatively fast targets with complex trajectories has long been…
1/ In a stark illustration of the impact of Ukraine's drone strike campaign against Russian refineries, videos from occupied Mariupol show vehicles all but absent from the streets, with burned-out trucks visible along the roads. A Russian commentary highlights the crisis. ⬇️
2/ 'Novorossiya Militia Reports' writes:
"If anyone is monitoring the situation, they should know that Ukraine is delivering an average of two [destroyed] refineries to us per day."
3/ "The authorities' statements about the normalisation of the fuel situation in a "week" or "two" are surprising.
1/ The Russian government's aggressive suppression of news about Ukraine's oil refinery drone strikes appears to be backfiring. According to Russian sources, ordinary people don't think fuel shortages are real and are blaming the government instead. ⬇️
2/ News in Russia is tightly controlled, with most people getting their information from state TV and news outlets that are friendly towards the Kremlin. Negative news about the war in Ukraine, or even actual battlefield footage, is often absent from the state-controlled media.
3/ Oleg Tsarev points out the flaws in this approach:
"A friend was traveling to Yalta and shared his observations:
1/ Russia faces a car apocalypse in the next few months due to the government's decision to allow scarce gasoline to be adulterated, a Russian warblogger warns. The low-quality gasoline will inevitably cause mass failures of vehicles across the country. ⬇️
2/ Alexey Zhivov writes:
"In August and October, the country will be inundated with tens of thousands of video messages from car owners facing lengthy and expensive repairs. Some will be left without wheels."
3/ "This will happen just in time for the State Duma elections, and you can be sure the enemy Center for Social and Political Studies will exploit this topic to the fullest.
1/ A Ukrainian attack on a Russian fuel convoy heading to Crimea across the Sea of Azov has likely crippled effects to supply the fuel-starved peninsula by water. Russian warbloggers are dismayed and scornful about the Russian government's tactics. ⬇️