1/ As Ukrainian forces advance in the Kursk region, law and order in frontline Russian-held areas is reported to have collapsed completely. "Rampant looting" is said have broken out – being done by the Russians themselves – while local residents say they feel abandoned. ⬇️
2/ The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel reports that "in the border areas of the Kursk region, where fighting has been going on all week, there are no police, no firefighters, no doctors, no representatives of the administration.
3/ "According to official information, more than 76,000 people left the settlements (most of them left on their own, since there was no organized evacuation, despite the statements of the authorities), but there are still people there, mostly elderly."
4/ The channel says that "the desertion of villages and towns has become a catalyst for rampant looting". The disorder is being carried out by the Russians themselves, though it isn't clear if opportunistic civilians or indisciplined soldiers are responsible.
5/ A local resident says: "They are robbing stores, there is a collapse in Korenevo, the “Magnit” [supermarket, pictured below] was simply destroyed. There is no water, no gas, no electricity.
6/ "There was no organized evacuation, and if there was, then why didn’t we hear anything about it in Lobanovka [an outlying area of Korenevo]?"
According to VChK-OGPU, "a similar situation exists in other border municipalities."
7/ It reports that "Kursk residents are sure that representatives of the [regional] administration, having abandoned people to their fate, themselves provoked the collapse in the border areas.
8/ "Currently, it is impossible to get through to the administration of the Korenevsky district of the Kursk region. People are forced to self-organise in order to protect themselves and their property and essentially perform the functions of state and law enforcement agencies."
Addendum: The Ukrainians have now published a video which shows soldiers, possibly from the Rosgvardia, looting an abandoned Russian house in the Kursk region. New thread here:
1/ Russian senior commanders are bogged down with bureaucracy, according to a Russian war blogger, due to an insistence on 'hypercentralism' – the practice of making the administration of a unit the responsibility of one person, without delegation of responsibility. ⬇️
2/ The pseudonymous 'Vault No. 8' comments that whereas the US has long understood the need to unburden senior officers, Russia "loaded them to the maximum, saying that the top brass knows better how to manage and distribute resources."
3/ He provides "a few small details of this phenomenon in matters of supply," beginning with waybills to provide vehicles with fuel:
"There is a separate sheet for each vehicle. Some sheets have separate points: permission to drive up to 200 km/h and drive at night."
1/ Russian firefighters have failed to extinguish an out-of-control fire at an oil depot in Saratov, caused by a Ukrainian drone strike, despite repeated attempts. The attack is said to have caused fuel shortages for the nearby military airfield. ⬇️
2/ The Engels oil depot was targeted on the night of January 7-8 and has been burning out of control ever since. Attempts by firefighters to use a foam generator to extinguish the blaze have been unsuccessful. They are now reportedly waiting for new equipment and foam.
3/ Engels-2 air base is home to the 121st Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment with the Tu-160M and 184th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment with the Tupolev Tu-95MS strategic nuclear-capable bombers. Both bomber types have repeatedly carried out long-range attacks against Ukraine.
1/ A top-level scam at the Russian Ministry of Defence, in which decrepit old ships were used for one-way trips to transport weapons and equipment to Syria as part of the 'Syria Express', may have reduced Russia's ability to evacuate its equipment following Assad's fall. ⬇️
2/ The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel reports that top Russian defence officials purchased old cargo ships destined for scrapping, for the price of new ships, redesignated them as military transports, and used them to transport arms to Syria before selling them to Turkish scrappers.
3/ The scam was reportedly the work of former Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (l) and his deputies Timur Ivanov (c) and Dmitry Bulgakov (r). All three have since been sacked, and Ivanov and Bulgakov have been charged with large-scale corruption.
1/ The military commander of the Wagner Group, Anton "Lotus" Elizarov, is reported to have been fired. The move is said to be the result of interpersonal conflicts and Wagner's disastrous defeats in Africa in 2024. A former GRU major is slated to replace him. ⬇️
2/ The Russian warblogger Anastasia Kashevarova writes that Elizarov left the Wagner Group before the New Year at the instigation of Yevgeny Prigozhin's son and heir Pavel, who took over Wagner following his father's death in August 2023.
3/ Kashevarova presents a number of reasons for Elizarov's dismissal:
"1. When the brigade commander was chosen, not all commanders were present at the Council.
1/ Russian air defence crews reportedly shot down Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 with two missiles fired from a Pantsir launcher near Grozny, after being 'blinded' by a Russian electronic warfare system, according to a detailed account of the incident on 25 December 2024. ⬇️
2/ An account published by the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, which has often published information that appears to have been leaked from sources in the Russian security forces, describes some of the preliminary findings of the official Russian criminal investigation.
3/ It reports that Grozny was guarded by the following air defence systems: two Pantsirs, an S-300 (recently delivered from Syria) and a Buk air defense system. One of the Pantsirs was installed in the Visaitovsky district north-west of Grozny.
1/ Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov recently boasted that 96% of injured Russian soldiers treated in hospitals were able to return to duty. However, Russian milbloggers point out that that is only because badly wounded men are usually left to die on the battlefield. ⬇️
2/ The '5 mg KGV' Telegram channel highlights Belousov's fallacy in claiming a mere 0.5% mortality rate with the (very graphic) illustration of the case of a soldier who went 32 days without evacuation after having his leg blown off by a drone-dropped munition.
3/ "Due to the impossibility of timely evacuation, the soldier ended up on the operating table 32 days later (!). Active growth of granulation and protruding bone fragments in the area of traumatic amputation are visible.