1/ Russia's space agency Roskosmos is reportedly evaluating options for using space rockets to drop aerial bombs on Ukraine from orbit. The proposal is likely to face serious technical difficulties, not least the risk of bombs burning up from the heat of atmospheric reentry. ⬇️
2/ The Russian BRIEF Telegram channel reports that former Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin (left) has been discussing the proposal with Dmitry Baranov (right), director general of the Progress Rocket Space Centre, before taking it to Vladimir Putin last week.
3/ Rogozin reportedly envisages using Russia's Vostochny and Plesetsk cosmodromes to launch bomb-carrying rockets into space to drop "heavy FABs" (presumably the FAB-500 500-kilogram (1,100 lb) general purpose air-dropped bomb) on "NATO equipment" in Ukraine.
4/ Baranov, understandably, has questions. According to BRIEF, he objected that the bombs would overheat on the way down. "It's travelling at over 6 kilometres per second. That's practically space speed. It's like the Soyuz TMA [spacecraft] coming back. It's the same shit."
5/ According to Baranov, rockets launched from Vostochny can carry 7.5 tons of cargo, while launches from Plesetsk can carry 10 tons, minus a ton in each case for "insurance".
6/ He is said to envisage a 6-9 month timeframe for adapting the rockets into bombers, though he seems to be uncertain about how this can be done. Rogozin reportedly envisages adapting "the toys of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering" to shield the FABs from reentry heat.
7/ BRIEF reports that Rogozin planned to send a paper to Anton Vaino, Putin's chief of staff, who is said to be interested and intending to "report to the chief on this matter". It's not known what Putin himself thinks of the idea. /end
1/ The second successful Ukrainian attack on the Kerch Bridge to Crimea in less than a year is reportedly leading to "harsh" recriminations among the Russian security forces, who failed to prevent both attacks and responded chaotically to the latest one. ⬇️
2/ According to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, the Russian Ministry of Defence, FSB, Rosgvardia and the local authorities are all pointing fingers at each other over who was to blame. The dispute echoes the arguments following last year's attack with a "harsh showdown" imminent.
3/ The bridge is meant to be protected by multiple layers of air, land and sea defences and security checkpoints at each end. The FSB's T (counter-terrorism) Directorate plays a key role in securing the bridge against attacks.
1/ Another account has emerged of Russian convicts becoming "ghost soldiers", serving in secret without pay, documentation, or dog tags to identify bodies. They are reportedly forcibly being removed from prisons and given contracts as they are being flown to Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ "We Can Explain" (MO) reports on the case of 22 year old Ilya Khanbekov, who was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for a drug offence. His mother Svetlana says he was taken from his prison and sent to fight in Ukraine with a Storm Z unit. He has since disappeared.
3/ Storm Z is effectively a revival of the Stalin-era shtrafbat (penal battalion) – a company-sized unit of convicts and possibly some mobilised soldiers being punished for being 'refuseniks'. Storm Z units are used for high-risk, high-casualty assaults.
1/ Relatives of convicts serving with a Storm Z penal company of convicts say that their men become 'ghosts' on being recruited and aren't being paid. They don't have proper fire support, uniforms or equipment, don't have medicines and aren't being evacuated when wounded. ⬇️
2/ A group of relatives of men serving with the 488th Motorised Rifle Regiment, 144th Motorised Rifle Division, 20th District Guards Army in Ukraine have recorded an 'appeal to the Tsar' asking for Putin's help with their men's desperate situation.
3/ The 488th has been fighting in eastern Ukraine since last year and has endured heavy losses in that time, notably in futile battles around the village of Dovhen'ke. Since then they appear to have been operating in the Kreminna–Svatove area, where there has been much fighting.
1/ Russian soldiers are dealing with the stresses of trench warfare by hiring sex workers to entertain them in their dugouts. Meanwhile, Russian brothels are offering soldiers on leave the opportunity to fulfil their fantasy of "punishing bad Ukrainian [women]". ⬇️
2/ A report by The Insider highlights how the war in Ukraine has changed the nature of sex work in Russia. The country's sex workers are facing many challenges, from the loss of established clients, to increased competition from soldiers' wives and girlfriends taking up sex work.
3/ The Insider reports on the various impacts of the war on Russia's sex workers. Many of their clients fled abroad at the start of the war to escape mobilisation, while hundreds of thousands more were mobilised and in many cases killed in the fighting in Ukraine.
1/ Asking for leave is now enough to land a Russian soldier in an illegal basement-prison, according to a new report. Mobilised soldier Aleksandr Ignatov says he was detained and then attached to a regiment for "undesirables" after he asked for long-overdue leave. ⬇️
2/ The ASTRA Telegram channel has published an account and part of an interview with Ignatov, who says he was imprisoned in a partly destroyed former Ukrainian prison at Perevalsk "for asking for leave from the commander of the 291st [Guards Motorised Rifle] Regiment."
The regiment is currently fighting in the Zaporizhzhia region. The prison facility is much further east, in the occupied Luhansk region. There were several reports last year of Russian soldiers being detained there. ASTRA reports that it's still in use.
1/ Are Russian frontline troops suffering from a critical shortage of small arms ammunition and weapons? Recent videos and accounts from soldiers and their relatives suggest they are. Let's review the recent evidence.
2/ The video below, showing men from Russia's 72nd Brigade near Bakhmut, contains some remarkable testimony. The men say that they have literally only a handful (or pocketful) of ammunition and "2 rifles remaining for 22 people."
3/ Previous videos have spoken of breakdowns in Russian logistics, where the frontline men have not received food, water or ammunition. This one includes the remarkable statement that men were not allowed to go and get ammunition and were turned back from collecting it.