1/ Police in the occupied part of the Kherson region have reportedly confiscated 38 blocks of explosive reactive armour from a farmer who was using them to cook food for his livestock. ⬇️
2/ The farmer, 59-year-old Sergei Stasishin from the village of Chaplynka in the southern Kherson region, said he had found the ERA blocks (presumably of the Soviet-era Kontakt variety) in his fields and decided to reuse them.
3/ A police inspection of local farmers discovered that Stasishin was using one of the ERA blocks as a frying pan and discovered another 37, still filled with plastic explosive fillers, in his closet.
4/ It's not known how the blocks ended up on his property. As the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel puts it, "It is not known which tank the arsenal belonged to, but certainly not the “Abramus”, as Kadyrov calls them." /end
1/ Russia's military registration and enlistment offices are currently flooded with people who in some cases have had to make appointments a month in advance. It's not because of a sudden surge of interest in joining up, but is due to punitive new registration requirements. ⬇️
2/ The Russian newspaper Kommersant reports that large numbers of people are visiting military registration and enlistment offices (voenkomats in Russian). They are not applicants, however, but representatives of companies with employees liable for military service.
3/ This is due to the imminent entry into force (on 1 October 2023) of punitive fines for companies violating military registration procedures. The Russian state requires companies to keep detailed records of employees who are subject to mobilisation.
1/ A high-profile military corruption case has concluded in Russia with the culprit receiving only a 5-year suspended sentence and a fine. It's not the first time that well-connected high-ranking defendants have been shown leniency by Russian courts. ⬇️
2/ Major-General Vyacheslav Lobuzko is reported to have been sentenced by the City Court in the Moscow region town of Dubna after being convicted of bribing a Ministry of Defence official to overlook deficiencies in the work performed by his employers, a company called RTI.
3/ The scandal involves the massively expensive National Defence Control Centre (NDCC) in Moscow, which was opened in 2014 after a construction project which ran wildly over budget, costing 40 billion rubles ($500 million).
1/ More evidence has emerged of Russian soldiers systematically being robbed and mistreated by the army's notoriously corrupt military police. Accounts tell of MPs stealing from, fining, jailing, assaulting and even enslaving soldiers, sometimes with apparent racist intent. ⬇️
2/ An account from a mobilised soldier in the second line of the Russian defences tells of how the military police are targeting men for trivial or invented offences. The anonymous account is published on the 'Alex Carrier' Telegram channel. His informant writes:
3/ "If you don't know, military police are the guys who in peacetime make sure that soldiers don't get too rowdy outside the unit, and in special operations maintain order in liberated territories.
1/ Russia's Ground Forces Combat Training Centre – reportedly the country's only fully modern military training base – has been seriously hampered by repeated episodes of corruption and money laundering, as well as the impact of Western sanctions. ⬇️
2/ The facility at Mulino, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, was the controversial focus of a project to equip it by the German company Rheinmetall. The @kamilkazani thread below highlights a now-deleted page from the company's website:
3/ In practice, however, Mulino is reported by the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel to have been systematically looted by its managers and contractors, which has led to equipment not being installed and construction work not being carried out. According to VChK-OGPU:
1/ Russia is creating new reconnaissance and assault brigades to defeat Ukrainian fortifications in offensive operations. The new units will be equipped with armoured vehicles and trained in close-quarters fighting and the use of drones for reconnaissance. ⬇️
2/ The pro-government newspaper Izvestia reports that the new units are "designed to storm fortifications and conduct reconnaissance in the immediate rear of the enemy." They will be incorporated into combined arms armies and a newly formed army corps.
3/ The units' recruitment has already begun, according to a source in the Russian Ministry of Defence. The move is said to have been informed by the experience of the Northern Military District, which has struggled to overcome dense Ukrainian defences in the Donbas.
1/ An incident last week in which a military policeman was filmed extorting Russian soldiers in a UAZ-452 van was reportedly just the tip of the iceberg. Soldiers are complaining that they are systematically being robbed in occupied southern Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ Commenting on the video, the Wagner-affiliated Grey Zone blog says that such incidents happen "several times a week" in the occupied Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Military police are reportedly stealing aid supplies, quadcopters and cars for their own use or to resell.
3/ "They take away cars for everything. Seat belt. Window tinting. No driver's licence. What other documents do special forces reconnaissance soldiers need with them? Maybe a military ID and a reference from the commander?