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.
4/ "Now all those who suffered from his torture have been sent on a combat mission, in fact, they are the main witnesses of these crimes, there are many more victims. Battalion commander Voskoboev abuses alcohol, he is very cruel, I am very worried about my husband."
5/ According to the human rights organisation , Shirinsky said that he was beaten by four people seeking to "exert moral and physical pressure" on him. The beaten soldiers had previously not been allowed to wash, shave, or perform personal hygiene.Gulagu.net
6/ His wife says that Shirinsky is now in a very bad condition, not only from his previous shrapnel wound, but from a series of new injuries inflicted during the beating. "His arm did not move after the injury, and after all these violent actions, he cannot walk at all."
7/ "He managed to report that his arms and legs were swollen, his head and face were swollen, and cut. He repeatedly told me in conversation that his command abuses alcohol and treats its subordinates like expendable material.
8/ Today they were all sent on a combat mission and I am worried about him." /end
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.