1/ Residents of the 38-storey Volga Sky apartment complex in Saratov filmed a Ukrainian drone hitting their own building. The strike was likely unintentional, with the nearby Engels-2 airbase the most likely target.
2/ The explosion was reported to have seriously injured one person and caused significant damage to the building.
1/ Russian soldiers who complained yesterday about their commander brutally beating their comrades, extorting them, and stealing from the dead, have reportedly been sent on a potentially suicidal combat mission – likely as retaliation for complaining. ⬇️
2/ The wife of Alexander Valerievich Shirinsky, a squad commander in the 506th Motorised Rifle Regiment, says that along with at least three other men "he was also brutally beaten on the night of August 24-25, tied to a tree for the whole night, his arms and legs are…
3/ …blue from the ropes, his face is covered in abrasions, he cannot walk, he also already had a wound – shrapnel in the chest, but Lt Col Voskoboev still sent him on a combat mission with shrapnel in the chest.
1/ One interesting aspect of the charges against Pavel Durov is the role that's likely to be played by Article 323-3-2 of France's Criminal Code, which only went into force in February 2024. Elon Musk could well be vulnerable under the same article. ⬇️
2/ Article 323-3-2 creates liability for "a person whose activity consists of providing an online platform service" who is "knowingly allowing the transfer of products, content or services whose transfer, offer, acquisition or possession is manifestly illicit".
3/ If they are found guilty, this is punishable by five years of imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 ($167,000) euros. If they carry out this offence as part of a 'criminal gang', they can be imprisoned for 10 years and fined 500,000 euros ($557,000).
1/ Over 600,000 Russians are estimated to have left their country since 2022 in the biggest exodus since the post-Soviet period. Many have left to avoid being mobilised to fight. One man managed to escape into exile after deserting the Russian Army twice. ⬇️
2/ Govorit NeMoskva tells the story of Alexander, a 46-year-old who was the chief engineer of a large construction company. When mobilisation was announced in September 2022, he believed that he would be protected by his company. He soon found this was not the case.
3/ "It turns out they got me ripped off. I worked for companies whose owners were well-known and very rich people. They most likely received orders to [send employees] to war." Even though he had no previous military experience, he was immediately mobilised.
1/ A group of Russian junior commanders have today published an appeal to the military authorities about the use of violence and extortion by their battalion commander and his deputy, as well as the theft of money from the salary cards of dead soldiers. ⬇️
2/ In a video publicised by the human rights organisation , four soldiers from the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Motorised Rifle Regiment accuse their battalion commander, Lt Col Sergei Voskoboev and his deputy, Alexander Smolyakov, of abuse of authority.Gulagu.net
3/ The men state that on the night of 24-24 August 2024, three contract soldiers (named as Samir Isaev, Marat Tulebeev, and Andrei Andrianov) were brutally beaten, and money was also extorted from Captain Pavel Malyshev and Alexei Kolupaev. Their video shows the men's injuries.
1/ Indonesian mercenaries are reported to have joined the Armenian Battalion (ArBat) of the Russian Armed Forces to fight in the Kursk region. The battalion, part of the "Pyatnashka" international brigade, has published a brief video of its first Indonesian contract soldiers. ⬇️
2/ The ArBat's Telegram channel says that it has recruited "a number of local residents who are ready to go to the Donetsk People's Republic, undergo training with our instructors and fight against Ukrainian neo-Nazism with weapons in hand." It is reportedly fighting in Kursk.
3/ The battalion was founded by Armen "Gorlovsky" Sarkisyan (or Sargsyan), a crime boss from the Donetsk region who organised groups of titushki (thugs) who violently opposed Ukraine's 2014 revolution. He has been on the Interpol wanted list since 2014.
1/ French football may have played a role in the arrest yesterday of Telegram head Pavel Durov. There has reportedly been a sharp increase in pirate streaming of French football matches on Telegram, which the company has been very slow to deal with. ⬇️
2/ RTL reports that hundreds of thousands of French football fans are watching illegal streams due to the high cost of the officially endorsed DAZN streaming platform. On 16 August, more than 200,000 people used illegal Telegram streams to watch Paris Saint-Germain beat Le Havre.
3/ The broadcasters work with anti-piracy firms such as LeakID and Athletia to detect and report illegal content. However, Telegram reportedly shows "little enthusiasm for cooperating and removing streams in a timely manner."