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/ As the Russian government's strangulation of the Internet deepens, Russian businesses are waking up to the long-feared reality of the so-called 'Cheburnet' – a walled-off national intranet for only selected companies and services. Economic disaster is forecast. ⬇️
2/ 'Cheburnet' (a portmenteau of 'Internet' and the iconic Soviet/Russian children's character Cheburashka) is the standard, sardonic Russian term for the government's long-held ambition to create a North Korea-style 'sovereign Internet', walled off from the outside world.
3/ Unlike North Korea or China, which never had uncensored access to the global Internet and have built their online economies and infrastructure accordingly, Russia is suddenly being wrenched onto the path of a closed national intranet.
1/ India is ripping off Russia to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars over oil shipments, according to an angry Russian commentary. India will not pay for Russian oil in anything other than Indian rupees and Indian-made goods, which Russian companies don't want. ⬇️
2/ 'Political Report' writes:
"For several years, Russian officials proudly declared that Europe, by rejecting Russian oil, was only harming itself, while Russia continued to quietly sell its oil to other buyers and enrich itself."
3/ "It was claimed that India was happily buying up barrels at favourable prices. Public figures were aired about the colossal profits the country was supposedly receiving from redirecting supplies to the Asian market. The reality turned out to be far from these rosy reports.
1/ Russian sources say that Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, under the command of Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, have made "significant strides in UAV production and deployment technology". Russian soldiers are facing "slaughter [like] cattle" as a result. ⬇️
2/ Andrey Medvedev writes:
"We've been reporting since the fall that the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Ukrainian drone manufacturers have made significant strides in UAV production and deployment technology.
3/ "Footage of a single Russian soldier being killed by ten to twenty drones has, unfortunately, been appearing regularly on the Ukrainian segment of Telegram.
1/ Another Russian helicopter has been lost over Ukraine – the second in two days, after yesterday's shootdown of a Ka-52 by an FPV drone (seen here). The Russian warblogger 'Fighterbomber' is angry at the lack of EW protection on helicopters. ⬇️
It's clear that everyone is now preoccupied with urgently installing anti-FPV drone electronic warfare systems on attack helicopters."
3/ "Why attack helicopters, specifically? Because Mi-8 crews are already carrying homemade electronic warfare systems at their own risk, supported by sponsors, volunteers, or even purchased at their own expense.
1/ Has Iran managed to reinvent the Sound Dues – the tolls that Denmark imposed for over 400 years on ships entering the Baltic Sea? Recent ship movements suggest that rather than completely blocking the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is monetising it instead. ⬇️
2/ Between 1429 and 1857, Denmark levied a toll on ships passing through the Øresund, the body of water separating Denmark from Sweden. At the time, Denmark controlled both sides of the strait with the castles at Helsingør (Hamlet's Elsinore) and Helsingborg.
3/ The tolls were enforced by the cannon batteries in both castles, which could open fire on a ship trying to pass without authorisation and sink it. They were calculated on the basis of a ship passage fees plus 1–2%, sometimes up to 5%, of the declared cargo value.
1/ Russian soldiers are now divided into two 'castes', says a front-line soldier: "short-livers", who die almost immediately after being sent to the front in Ukraine, often as a punishment, and "long-livers", the privileged ones in the officer cadre and rear areas. ⬇️
2/ A Russian soldier in Ukraine writes to the 'Ramsay' Telegram channel:
"Everyone today understands the brutal nature of today's war, where two "castes" of participants have effectively emerged—as in [Ivan] Efremov's novel "The Hour of the Bull"—the "KZhI" and the "DZhI."
3/ [Note – This refers to a 1968 science-fiction novel in which a dystopian society is rigidly divided into two castes: 'short-livers' (the working underclass doomed to hard labour and ritual death around age 25–27), and 'long-livers' (the intellectual elite who live long, privileged lives) – compare the Morlocks and Eloi in H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine'.]