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/ Former Roscosmos CEO and current Russian Senator Dmitry Rogizin has a novel suggestion for deterring Western countries from seizing 'shadow fleet' tankers. He advocates turning them into giant bombs by rigging them to explode if they're captured. ⬇️
2/ Commenting on the British seizure of the Russian shadow fleet tanker SMYRTOS at the weekend, Rogizin – like many other Russian commentators – likens it to an act of piracy. He suggests:
3/ "I believe we should mine the tankers we use. Initiation should occur when appropriate commands are received or when a tanker deviates from its route and is forced to enter a foreign port.
1/ Russian warbloggers have rushed to disclaim blame for the attack on the historic Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. They claim the Ukrainians did it themselves, argue that the church isn't sacred to the Ukrainians, and say Ukraine just wants Russia to look bad. ⬇️
2/ Damage, what damage?, asks Andrey Medvedev, claiming that the whole thing was faked for the cameras:
"There's no need to restore anything in general. There's no damage. It's just a vivid night picture. Which suggests a deliberate arson for the sake of a photo."
3/ Lev Vershinin says the church was a legitimate military target:
"My busy schedule prevented me from commenting on the strikes on Kyiv this morning, and thank God for that, because I might have said something stupid in the heat of the moment."
1/ Iran has reportedly assessed that Donald Trump is "mentally incompetent" and has incorporated psychologists into its negotiating team to adapt the wording of the proposed agreement "as if the recipient were a [mental] patient ... whose capacity is limited." ⬇️
2/ The Russian 'Political Report' says that "Iranian authorities have included leading psychologists in the negotiating team to review drafts of all messages before sending them to Trump."
3/ "This is not a supplementary measure, but a direct consequence of an internal assessment that the American president is mentally incompetent, whose reactions cannot be predicted by conventional diplomatic methods.
1/ Russian commanders routinely make false claims to have captured territory, in order to win awards and personal bonuses. However, the army is reportedly stepping up efforts to uncover instances of "painting over" the map of the front line in Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ Russian warblogger Vladimir Romanov highlights how the practice is causing mass casualties among Russian soldiers, with some commanders maintaining two parallel maps – one of the true line of contact, and a more flattering 'painted over' version to show to their superiors.
3/ "Returning to the paint-overs, the higher-ups periodically conduct compliance checks on the personnel data.
In some places (like in the Kupyansk sector), this is purely formal.
1/ An increasingly severe shortage of fuel is gripping wide areas of western Russia as well as occupied regions of Ukraine. Russian warbloggers report that there is no fuel at all in some regions, with fuel rationing affecting the army as well as civilians. ⬇️
2/ Following repeated Ukrainian attacks against Russian oil refineries, fuel shortages are spreading across western Russia. The Tatarstan-based Tatneft group appears to be particularly badly affected.
3/ Restrictions on fuel sales have been introduced in St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Moscow region, Samara, Nizhegorod, Udmurtia, Kazan, Cheboksary, Ulyanovsk, and other Russian cities, and in the occupied east and south of Ukraine, most notably in Crimea.
1/ A Russian soldier reports that he and four of his comrades were whipped, chained around the necks, tortured, and imprisoned in a sewer, while his officers stole his possessions and emptied his bank account. He says the men experienced "punishments like in Ancient Rome." ⬇️
2/ Dmitry Strelets is a soldier in the 4th Assault Company of the 68th Tank Regiment (military unit 91714). He says that he has endured torture and slave-like conditions at his Avdiivka-based unit.
3/ According to Strelets, these abuses were perpetrated by a sergeant major with the call sign "Foma," a political officer named "Dobry," his deputy "Bzhik," and their accomplice "Putnik."