1/ An exchange of fire in the occupied Ukrainian village of Urzuf, in which several Russian soldiers and bystanders were reportedly killed, is said to have been started by drunken Chechen soldiers fighting drunken convict soldiers.
2/ According to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, which quotes an apparently leaked report, "drunken criminals of the Ministry of Defence, assigned to a military unit based in Chechnya, and an equally drunken military policeman confronted each other with weapons."
3/ It reports that the incident took place in the morning of 12 August at the Miami Club in Urzuf, near Mariupol.
4/ "Soldiers from unit 71718 [70th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment from Shali, Chechnya] were resting there, mostly former prisoners who had signed liberation contracts with the Ministry of Defence ...
5/ "Two companies sat next to each other. The first, natives of the southern regions. The second, fellow soldiers from the company attached to [the Chechen battalion] Akhmat. According to testimony, the latter drank a bottle of whiskey for three.
6/ "At the establishment's closing time (around 4 a.m.), a conflict broke out between the guests in uniform – Sergei Alikhanov, 25, a resident of the Kaliningrad region, who had been convicted of theft, and Sadrutdin Akayev, 30, a native of Dagestan, ...
7/ ... a military policeman (formerly of Buynaksk, military unit 63354 [136th Motorized Rifle Brigade]). In the fight the convicts were more convincing. But this was not the end of the conflict.
8/ "The denouement was a street scene during which Akayev opened fire with an AK-74. Alikhanov was killed on the spot. A fellow soldier from his company, fellow countryman and also convicted for theft, 26-year-old Vladimir Yevseenko (pictured), tried to stand up for Sergei.
9/ "He tried to kick the automatic rifle with his foot, but was wounded in the thigh, shin and arm. Akayev continued firing indiscriminately at everything he saw.
10/ "At the sound of the automatic rifle fire, the emergency response team of unit 71718 came running, and Akayev opened fire on the team as well. As a result, the shooter was killed.
11/ "Two medical teams travelled to the scene and found two men dead and one wounded man was taken to a local hospital in a state of alcoholic intoxication." /end
1/ Corrupt Russian officers often extort large bribes for not sending men into what are likely to be suicidal assaults. Men are hidden from inspectors to prevent exposure. A Russian soldier explains how the scam works; "the attitude is like towards cattle," he says. ⬇️
2/ A video recorded by Viktor Aleksandrovich Zhuravlev, a member of a 'Storm V' stormtrooper squad in the Russian 26th Tank Regiment (military unit 52562), describes an extortion racket in his unit. It's similar to such rackets reported elsewhere.
3/ Zhuravlev says he was badly wounded in November 2024 when a bullet hit his right forearm, shattering the ulna. Two operations were unsuccessful – the bone has not healed and he cannot move the arm or use his fingers. He went AWOL to consult a civilian doctor.
1/ Ukraine has copied Russia's Lancet loitering munition – but, Russian warbloggers say with dismay, the new Ukrainian Bulava munition is a significant improvement on the Russian original.
3/ "The Ukrainian analogue of the Lancet — the Bulava kamikaze drone:
🔺 Warhead: 3.6 kg
🔺 Range: up to 60 km
🔺 Flight time: about 1 hour
🔺 Maximum altitude: about 2 km
🔺 Speed: up to 100 km/h
1/ 'Anti-woke' American Derek Huffman is the third Texan to move to Russian-held territory to fight against Ukraine. As his predecessors were kidnapped, tortured to death, blown to pieces and killed by Ukrainian forces, it seems unlikely that his fate will be any better. ⬇️
2/ Huffman is a 45-year-old former welder who moved with his family to Russia in May 2025 to "escape LGBT propaganda" in America. He joined the Russian army to get fast-track citizenship, but to his family's dismay, he has been sent to the front lines.
3/ Huffman is the third person from Texas to have joined Russian forces. His two predecessors, both self-declared communists, were killed – one by his own side, the other by Ukrainian attacks during an assault.
1/ The Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine face a deepening humanitarian catastrophe, with some towns not having received any water for four months. Endemic corruption and systemic mismanagement by the Russian-installed authorities is being blamed for the situation. ⬇️
2/ As previously reported, much of Russian-occupied Ukraine is facing drastic shortages of water due to a combination of destroyed infrastructure, which is particularly affecting the south, and a lack of repairs and investment elsewhere.
3/ A resident of Donetsk writes: "In Donetsk and Makiivka, everything with water is a complete disaster. Translating from officialese into Russian – there will be no water at all, survive as best you can. And this has been happening for the fourth year!!!!!"
1/ A Russian warblogger fighting in eastern Ukraine says that an unprecedented number of Ukrainian FPV drones is causing huge casualties. He claims that both sides are using chemical weapons and complains about the quality of reinforcements.
2/ The 'How I went to war. Platon Mamatov' Telegram channel highlights recent aspects of the war:
"1. Walking through the forest belts to the Dnepropetrovsk region, there are many corpses, I have never seen so many during the entire war. There are really a lot of them."
3/ "2. We are not angels either, we also use chemical weapons somewhere, but we are somewhere with them, I can't see, but when they were poisoning us, when I was running from an FPV to the dugout (knowing that it was there).
1/ More than three years into the war in Ukraine, Russian army training is still often reported to be only cursory. Soldiers are usually given only a few days of training and a single outing to the shooting range. A Russian warblogger discusses why this is. ⬇️
2/ The 'Partisan' Telegram channel comments:
"Combat training? No, we haven't heard of it.
The fourth year of the war. To put it mildly, there is no development or improvement in the combat training of troops heading to the front. Quite the opposite."