1/ Recent news that sailors from the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov have been sent to fight in Ukraine as infantry, due to a shortage of personnel, highlights how Russia has been expending specialists of all kinds to fill gaps. ⬇️
2/ This has been happening for some time – there have been reports of specialists such as UAV operators, artillerymen, nuclear missile troops and even doctors being pressed into service as stormtroopers to participate in frequently bloody assaults.
3/ The Russian milblogger Roman Alekhin blames generals for lying about troop numbers and misleading the high command about the true state of affairs at the front. He says that rather than admit the truth, they are essentially throwing in any specialist they can get hold of.
4/ (Note that in this post he, like many other Russian milbloggers, refers to "the Laotian army" as a euphemism for the Russian army, to evade the censors.)
5/ "Let's conduct a thought experiment.
Let's say that during the hybrid war with the USA, the generals in the Laotian army decided to deceive the Supreme Commander and say that a battalion was always at least 300 people.
6/ "And at that moment, the Laotian army had 1,000 battalions, that is, 300,000 bayonets. But in reality, in the Laotian army, a battalion could have had 60 or 100 people.
7/ "And so the lying Laotian generals decided not to tell the Supreme Commander that they had been lying all this time, but to compensate for the lack of personnel with various narrow military specialists, of whom there were not so many left in Laos.
8/ "Now here's a question for a thought experiment:
what will happen to the Laotian army when, due to an attempt to hide the real state of affairs with personnel, it wears down its narrow military specialists to zero in the infantry?
For me the answer is obvious...
9/ "The Laotian army will win, of course, because there are many Laotians and they will throw hats at them, and also beat down any enemy with shovel handles, even one supported by American innovative technology!
10/ "I even think that the Laotians were very surprised that they were convinced that there were trenches, but hats did not help against American bombs.
It's good that it's different for us. Isn't it really different?" /end
1/ A Russian cannibal who killed a Tajik migrant, cut out his heart, and videoed himself frying it with vegetables and eating it, has been allowed to go home to recover from injuries received fighting in Ukraine. He is the latest in a series of cannibals to fight in the war. ⬇️
2/ Dmitry Malyshev was one of a group of three friends who, in December 2013, decided to become bandits in their home district in the Volgograd region. They planned to attack police officers and steal their weapons and ammunition for subsequent attacks.
3/ The plan did not work because they mistimed their attack on a police patrol. Instead, they shot up two men in a car that came along later, but that didn't work either: the car crashed, rolled, and was too badly damaged to steal. The bodies were not discovered for two weeks.
1/ A high-ranking officer of the Russian aerospace forces (VKS) is reported to have died by suicide in the Moscow region. He is said to have despaired of the bad working conditions and "criminal orders of the commanders" in the VKS Communications Centre. ⬇️
2/ Yuri Annenkov, the head of the 678th Communications Centre of the Aerospace Defense Force, is reported by the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel to have taken his own life at the end of last week in a forest belt in Balashikha, just east of Moscow.
3/ The channel reports: "Three empty bottles of vodka and empty pill packages were found next to the body, and at home, relatives found a suicide note in which the commander complains of despair and says goodbye."
1/ Russian combat medics are haphazardly trained, are not issued supplies, and are sent to die on assault missions, according to a Russian medical Telegram channel. Some commanders are said to be 'hiding' medics in UAV units to ensure they do not get used as stormtroopers. ⬇️
2/ The 'Doctors, you are not alone' channel complains about the current state of combat medicine in the Russian army and advocates that the American 68W combat medic system should be adopted – though with Russian soldiers receiving 1950s first aid kits, this might be ambitious.
3/ The channel, which organises supplies for medics, discusses the role of 'freelance' or 'tactical' medics who supplement regular paramedics. They are supposed to give immediate first aid to frontline casualties before evacuating them to field hospitals in rear areas.
1/ The alleged culprits for the death by torture of Russell Bentley, the Texan communist-turned-mercenary fighter for Russia, have been charged with his murder:
3/ It's rare for Russian soldiers to be charged with murder in the Russian-occupied Donbas, which is generally regarded as a lawless region. What likely made the difference in Bentley's case was a campaign for justice by Russian milbloggers, who saw him as one of their own.
1/ With an estimated 200,000 men killed so far in the Ukraine war, Russia's cemeteries are booming. A 'cemetary mafia' is profiting by violently taking over cemeteries, funeral businesses and even hospitals, attacking funerals, and setting fire to rivals.
2/ A criminal gang led by Moldovan native Roman Ikizli is reported to have taken over cemeteries in the Leningrad region, using bribery, threats and violence against competitors. In September 2024, they were reported to have seized control of a district hospital.
3/ Although municipalities own public cemeteries, by law they must create a specialised burial service or transfer these functions to a business selected through competition. The 'cemetery mafia' has been able to exploit this process to obtain cemeteries by bribery and violence.
1/ A Russian colonel has been charged with extorting at least 1 million rubles ($10,800) from his subordinates over the past year. He is reported to have blackmailed his men and threatened to send them to join stormtrooper units, with a high chance of being killed. ⬇️
2/ According to the Chita-based newspaper Vechorka, judicial authorities in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine have opened a criminal case for "bribery on an especially large scale" against 57-year-old Evgeny Luzhbin.
3/ ASTRA reports that Luzhbin commanded a motorised rifle battalion of military unit 95482, based in Chita. He is accused of having levied fines, which he kept for himself, on his subordinates for offences such as drinking alcohol or leaving their unit.