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/ Powerful interests in Russia are milking the war in Ukraine for profit and power, complains a Russian drone developer and blogger. He argues that the interests are indifferent to the loss of Russian lives and are ripping off the state defence procurement system. ⬇️
2/ 'UAV Developer' writes on Telegram: "You see, they couldn't care less about our victory."
3/ "They—a collective group of people in power, one of the towers [factions]—understand that the name of the Lord Special Military Operation can still be used to cover up any nonsense, and to call opponents foreign agents and enemies of the people.
1/ Russia is suffering huge casualties in the battle for Kostiantynivka, says a Russian soldier who is fighting there. He says that 75% of his unit of poorly-trained middle-aged men was killed in a single assault, with dogs eating the skeletonised bodies of the dead nearby. ⬇️
2/ A man named Tamerlan – likely from the North Caucasus, judging by the name – has recorded a video describing his experiences. He says:
"Today, 27 men went into the assault, and only six survived ... "
3/ "They're just fucking new guys, they've just arrived, they haven't even been serving for a month, damn it. We were herding them in there... It was a complete mess."
1/ The Russian government is blocking Telegram to destroy the Russian people's social connections, says former high-level government advisor German Klimenko. The frank admission has caused outrage among Russian commentators. ⬇️
2/ In an interview with 'Parliamentary Gazette', Klimenko says: "The primary function of any messenger is to create social connections. Therefore, to stop people from using a messenger, these connections must be destroyed."
3/ "In 2018, when Telegram first clashed with [communications regular] Roskomnadzor, the latter managed to knock out about 10 percent of social connections: let's say, I have a thousand contacts in the messenger, 100 stopped working, and 900 remained.
1/ Russia's block on Telegram, crackdown on VPNs and mobile Internet shutdowns are threatening to destroy the 'People's Military-Industrial Complex' – a vast ecosystem of volunteer and start-up efforts that manufactures and supplies the army with drones and other equipment. ⬇️
2/ The 'People's VPK', as it's known in Russia, has grown from garage workshops to well-organised industrial chains linking enthuasists, serving and ex-military personnel, and start-up companies to produce a wide variety of essential equipment for the Russian army.
3/ They supply many things that the Russian MOD and the slow and expensive state-directed military industrial complex does not: drones, signal repeaters, masts, armour plates, charging stations, sighting devices, electronic warfare equipment, and so on.
1/ The blocking of Telegram by the Russian government is a disaster for huge numbers of Russian businesses and citizens, who have now lost a key means of advertising and income. The Russian government's preferred app, MAX, lacks the features that made Telegram so essential. ⬇️
2/ Russian commentators are warning that two recent developments – Telegram's blocking by the state and the decision by two regulatory bodies that all advertising on it is retrospectively illegal – threaten to cause devastating economic harm.
3/ Telegram, which was developed by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, is almost universally used by Russians. It has become an essential business tool, with virtually every company in Russia advertising on it and many running their own channels for customers.
1/ The Russian army is recruiting incontinent, brain-damaged men who are incapable of fighting and are literally having to be carried around. A Russian warblogger protests the waste of resources that this represents. ⬇️
2/ Anastasia Kashevarova, a journalist and warblogger who has campaigned for the rights of Russian troops, highlights the ongoing problem of so-called "black recruiters" who recruit sick people into the army to meet arbitrary quotas and steal their recruitment bonuses.
3/ This is a widespread issue on which she has written before. Thousands of medically unfit men, many with infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis, have been recruited. Some have been discharged, but many have ended up on the front lines.