Thread by @TrentTelenko

Russian Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky, commander of RuAF's left bank Dnipro forces, has ordered the re-creation of the "White Guard."

Assault units made up of 100% officers.🤯

Red Army history in 2023 🧵
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pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/…

Per Andrii Kovalov, Spokesman for the Gen Staff of the AFU:

"These are some kind of attack battalions, modelled on the White Guard units of the 1920s. The main criteria for officers in assault units are the inability to command subordinates, personal indiscipline...

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...and poor motivation."

So, let me give you the bizarre BLUF:

RuAF has a huge officer shortage in the junior and field ranks in an army that has never had an non-commissioned officer corps.

And it is now concentrating the few it has left into meat assault units?

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The _worst_ few 'failing' junior and field grade officers at commanding troops.

In so many words, these new White Guards of Russian Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky are a 'failed officer' penal unit.

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This seems to go hand in hand with the the Russian revival of SMERSH, the Red Army counter-intelligence.

Via Wikipedia:

"Joseph Stalin coined the name "СМЕРШ" (SMERSH) as a portmanteau of the Russian-language phrase Смерть шпиoнам (Smert’ shpiónam, "Death to spies")...

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...Originally focused on combating German spies infiltrating the Soviet military, the organization quickly expanded its mandate: to find and eliminate any subversive elements—hence Stalin's inclusive name for it.[6]"

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMERSH

Given the realities of Prigozhin's Wagner mutiny showing large numbers of the Russian Army as supporters of any mutiny that ends the war.

We can expect any Russian officer that isn't a ruthless yes man in feeding his men into the meat grinder will wind up in the meat grinder
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Given what SMERSH did in WW2, you can also expect any RuAF officer who is any good and has a significant following of competent officers will also be made a "White Guard" if they are seen as a potential Prigozhin style mutiny threat.

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This survival threat to individual RuAF officers means at the very least we will be seeing higher RuAF casualties in December 2023 than the horror show that November 2023 was.

What RuAF officers are learning now is personal survival, not winning.
9/9 End

https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1733938929512882351

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