1/ An increasing number of criminals and mercenaries from Africa are fighting with the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. In the latest instances, a convicted criminal from Cape Verde appeared in a propaganda video and a Somali was captured by Ukrainian forces. ⬇️
2/ The 'Angry Chuvashia' Telegram channel reports on a video circulated over the Christmas period by soldiers from Russia's Chuvash Republic, in which they send greetings and victory messages from the Luhansk region to the "city of Chuvashia" (sic).
3/ One of them is a man called Pina Nelson, a resident of the city of Cheboksary who is originally from Cape Verde. He has reportedly been prosecuted "ten times for disorderly conduct, twice tried for theft, once each for a death threat, robbery and insulting a police officer."
4/ He was sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment in February 2021 for stealing a mobile phone and bank card. After being released from a prison colony in Lapsary in Chuvashia, he was recruited to fight in Ukraine.
5/ In another case reported recently, a Somali mercenary was reportedly captured by Ukrainian forces near Avdiivka. The circumstances of his recruitment aren't clear but it's reasonably likely he was recruited from prison.
6/ The same thing happened with two men from Tanzania and Zambia who were killed fighting in Ukraine in 2022. There have almost certainly been other cases as well. /end
1/ Mobilised Russians are stoically enduring appalling conditions on the front lines in Ukraine, without food or water and with endemic theft of their supplies and equipment by their own side. Meanwhile, many of their wives are afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation. ⬇️
2/ A report by Radio Free Europe highlights the experiences of mobilised Russians fighting in Ukraine through the accounts of two families, one from north-west Russia and the other from the Sverdlovsk region in the Urals at the far eastern edge of Europe.
3/ Tatyana is the wife of a contract soldier named Sergei, who went to war voluntarily last July. She says that most Russian soldiers are, like her husband, simply looking to earn money to support their families and pay off their mortgages.
1/ A GRU project to create a 'volunteer corps' to replace the Wagner Group is reported to have run into severe problems, with crippling shortages of fuel and lubricants hampering operations in the Bakhmut and Avdiivka areas. ⬇️
2/ The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel reports that an acute shortage of fuel and lubricants has affected almost all units of the 'volunteer corps' created by the GRU's First Deputy Head, Lt Gen Vladimir Alekseev, particularly in the areas of active combat in Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
3/ These problems have reportedly arisen despite the 'volunteer corps' being incorporated into the GRU's organisational structure as a separate special department at the 462nd Special Purpose Training Centre (likely a spetsnaz training organisation).
1/ An 18-year-old Russian has become the youngest person confirmed to have died fighting for the Russians in Ukraine. His death, only two and a half months after signing up, followed the Russian government's decision in 2023 to let teenagers go to war straight from school. ⬇️
2/ The BBC's Russian Service reports on the death of Stanislav Silchenkov, who died on 17 November at Synkivka in the Kharkiv region, north-east of Kupiansk. According to his mother he had signed a contract to join the Russian forces only 10 weeks previously, on 5 September.
3/ Synkivka has been the scene of heavy fighting in recent weeks. Russia has repeatedly attempted unsuccessfully to break Ukrainian lines with infantry and armoured assaults.
1/ A Russian analysis of the Ukrainian attack on the large landing ship Novocherkassk on 26 December has listed 38 fatalities, 29 injured, and extensive damage to harbour installations and other on-shore properties, as well as the effective loss of the ship. ⬇️
2/ According to a chronology and accounting of the attack published by the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, the Novocherkassk was struck on the bow at approximately 02:30 on 26 December by a single Storm Shadow cruise missile. A second Storm Shadow landed in the water near a pier.
3/ Fragments of both missiles were later found. Ammunition aboard the ship exploded at 03:30, causing widespread destruction and the total loss of the ship. A state of emergency was declared and Ministry of Emergency Situations workers began extinguishing the fires.
1/ A Russian State Duma deputy, an FSB general and others have co-written a 'scientific paper' about the genocide of Russians by "beast people", feminists who worship the demoness Lilith, a lack of men due to a US plot, reptilian infiltrators, and oral sex. ⬇️
2/ The St Petersburg-based journal "Legal Science: History and Modernity” has published a paper which argues that Russia is under siege from 'non-humans' (defined as Westerners, Asian migrants and supporters of democracy and liberalism).
3/ The authors divide the world's population into two groups: humans, created by God, and non-humans, created by the Lord God: "In the Bible there are two main cosmic entities, God and the Lord God. ..."
1/ Russia's process for deciding who is a 'foreign agent' is reported to be arbitrary and corrupt, with individuals being deliberately set up for inclusion and others added because they are associates of targeted individuals or simply because they have annoyed officials. ⬇️
2/ Russia's Foreign Agents Law, passed in 2012, requires anyone who receives "support" from outside Russia or is under "influence" from outside Russia to register and declare themselves as "foreign agents". This has enabled the authorities to harass and censor them.
3/ Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the number of people being targeted under the law has increased greatly. Many independent journalists, news outlets, activists and critics of the regime have been targeted. Some have had to go into exile; others have been imprisoned.