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/ Constant Ukrainian drone strikes in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region have driven the Russians to a desperate measure: they're unbanning Telegram because their mobile air defence teams can't manage without it. ⬇️
2/ The Russian-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky has announced the temporary unbanning of Telegram in the region (see the video above):
3/ "Today, we are experiencing certain difficulties with the alert system. Unfortunately, the Max messenger functionality currently does not allow for consistent delivery of push notifications about threats to the public.
1/ RT war correspondent Alexander Karchenko calls for a change of tactics in the face of relentless Ukrainian drone attacks. Instead of dispersing troops, he calls for Russian soldiers to group together to fight off the drones. ⬇️
2/ Writing on the 'Witness of Bayratkar' Telegram channel, Karchenko comments:
"The tactic of maximally dispersing troops has stopped working. An entire division now watches as a single soldier attempts to march one kilometer across an open field."
3/ "A human being is the smallest unit. It's impossible to divide him into parts without causing harm. And once we've reached the limit of dispersal, the vector simply must reverse. This is already happening at the front.
1/ Russian commanders often send men on suicidal 'flag-sticking' missions to raise the Russian flag over objectives, so that they can claim to have captured them and obtain personal rewards. As a Russian warblogger comments, this frequently leads to heavy Russian casualties. ⬇️
2/ Commanders' routine lies about military successes have often been commented on by Russian warbloggers. They have strong incentives to fake successes, such as the prospect of cash awards, medals, and promotions.
1/ Russia's statistical agency Rosstat has recently highlighted Russia's dire demographic situation, which has become far worse due to its war losses. Komsomolskaya Pravda war correspondent Grigory Kubatyan suggests nuking Ukraine as a solution. ⬇️
2/ The slumping birth rate has recently been the subject of Rosstat data and has produced alarmed commentary from Russian commentators (see thread below). The war's human losses have also become so huge that they can no longer be ignored.
3/ While Russia has declined to release casualty figures, Western and Ukrainian sources have consistently estimated between 1-1.2 million Russian casualties (with estimates of around 500,000-600,000 Ukrainian casualties). Russian warbloggers seem increasingly to accept this.
1/ Russian soldiers in Ukraine face a "catastrophic" shortage of drones and personnel at the front, according to two Russian warbloggers. The Russian offensive is coming to a standstill with Ukrainian forces said to be outnumbering the Russians two or three to one in places. ⬇️
2/ Anatoly Radov compains that the massive Russian missile strikes against Kyiv over the weekend were a case of exerting the wrong kind of force in the wrong place:
3/ "The real problem with these expensive retaliatory strikes is that there's a catastrophic shortage of Mavics and FPVs on the front.
1/ Continuing with Russian warbloggers' reactions to the overnight Oreshnik ballistic missile attacks against Ukraine, there's a great deal of criticism and bitterness about the Russian government's tactics. One asks: why not attack London instead? ⬇️