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/ Russia is entering a full-scale debt crisis, according to newly published official figures. Non-payments have reached an all-time high equivalent to nearly 4% of GDP or a fifth of the entire federal budget. It's a fresh sign of a deepening economic crisis worsened by war. ⬇️
2/ Russian media is reporting today that data from Rosstat, the official statistics agency, says that as of the end of January 2026 unpaid business debt has reached a record 8.2 trillion rubles ($109.3 billion). Non-payments have nearly tripled since 2022.
3/ This is equivalent to about 20% of the annual federal budget, 150% of Moscow's budget, and 1500% of the budget of large and wealthy regions such as the Sverdlovsk Region and the Krasnodar Krai.
1/ Russia's Ministry of Defence has hailed its first "airborne religious procession" – a fly-by of an icon of the Archangel Michael in a Mi-8 transport helicopter over Russian units in eastern Ukraine. However, it has received a sour response from those on the ground. ⬇️
2/ According to the Russian MOD, "an Mi-8 helicopter carrying an icon of the Archangel Michael flew along the operational zone of the 27th Motorised Rifle Brigade and the 68th Motorised Rifle Division of the "West" group of forces.
A Ka-52 helicopter provided escort."
3/ One of those on the ground, the warblogger 'Vault No. 8' – a serving Russian soldier – points out that the 27th Motorised Rifle Brigade (military unit 61899) has a dire reputation for sending its men to their deaths en masse and otherwise abusing its soldiers.
1/ Russia's continuing difficulties in the war in Ukraine is leading to multiple warbloggers admitting that the war effort is failing. The latest entry in the genre comes from Alexander Karchenko, who says that ordinary Russians are more concerned about the "price of a latte". ⬇️
2/ Writing on his Telegram channel 'Witnesses of Bayraktar', Karchenko admits:
"Yes, we’re struggling. We’re all in this together. Me, you, and everyone reading this. For four years, we’ve been living in limbo."
3/ "The army is fighting, but the rest of us might not have been affected. The regrouping in the Kharkiv direction gave a push for change, but it fizzled out.
1/ Ukraine's increasing dominance in drones is reportedly leading to individual Russian soldiers being attacked by 20 or 30 drones at once. Russian warbloggers say that Ukrainian drones are operating with impunity while their side faces a shortage. ⬇️
2/ A report by Russian news outlet RT says that as many as 20 to 30 drones are being used to attack individual Russian soldiers. 'Belarusian Silovik' responds: "Unfortunately, that’s exactly how it is."
3/ "What’s even worse is that in some areas, our side is conserving drones due to a shortage, while the Ukrainian Armed Forces can deploy 20–30 UAVs in a single sortie over a short period of time.
Right now, the average ratio of UAV deployment is probably 3 to 1."
1/ Ukraine's success this year in stalling Russia's offensive, and driving Russian forces back in some places, has prompted increasingly bleak assessments from Russian warbloggers. In a lengthy series of posts, Yuri Kotenok warns that Russia's war effort is faltering badly. ⬇️
2/ In a six-part series of posts on his 'Voenkor Kotenok' Telegram channel, he writes:
3/ "I. If, at the very beginning of the conflict, as soon as the story broke about the Rzeszow airfield in Poland, where weapons for the Kyiv regime were being massively deployed, we had acted decisively, like Iran did against Israel and the United States in the spring of 2026,…
1/ Russian soldiers are being sent to their deaths by the military police for infractions as trivial as not wearing a seatbelt. Many avoid doing so in order to jump out quickly if their vehicle is attacked by a drone, but they are finding that they face death either way. ⬇️
2/ The Military Police (VPs) are the target of widespread hatred from ordinary Russian soldiers for their corruption and zealous enforcement of arbitrary rules. They are also helping to meet the army replenish depleted assault units by sending arrested individuals to them.
3/ Russian warblogger Alexander Zhuchkovsky writes:
"In colloquial speech among soldiers, enemies are often referred to as "faggots" or "roosters." This is a simpler and more common derogatory term among soldiers than "khokhols."