1/ A US citizen who lived in the Ukrainian city of Vuhledar, recently captured by Russia, is to be granted Russian citizenship after secretly providing Russian forces with targeting information on Ukrainian defences for at least the past two years. ⬇️
2/ The 'Donetsk People's Republic' Defence Headquarters has stated that the unnamed American has been evacuated from Vuhledar to Donetsk, where he has been photographed with local forces.
3/ According to the statement, he has been in Ukraine for at least two years and "gave Russia valuable intelligence that allowed it to carry out high-precision strikes on the enemy while minimising damage to civilian infrastructure and the civilian population."
4/ The statement adds that "the issue of granting political asylum and obtaining Russian citizenship is being resolved".
5/ He is not the first American to defect to Russian forces in Ukraine. Perhaps the most notorious example was the so-called 'Donbass Cowboy', self-proclaimed Texan communist Russell Bentley. It didn't end well for him. /end
1/ Telegram is deeply embedded into Russian military units' internal communications, providing functionality that MAX, the Russian government's authorised app, doesn't have. A commentary highlights the vast gap that is being opened up by the government's blocking of Telegram. ⬇️
2/ The Two Majors Charitable Foundation writes that without Telegram, information exchange, skills transfer, and moral mobilisation work within the Russian army will be crippled:
3/ "I'd really like to add that for a long time, we've been gathering specialized groups in closed chats, including those focused on engineering and UAVs, to share experiences and build a knowledge base. Almost everyone there is a frontline engineer.
1/ Russia's Federal Customs Service is seeking to prosecute Russian volunteers who are importing reconnaissance drones from China to give to frontline troops. It's the latest chapter in a saga of bureaucratic obstruction that is blocking vital supplies to the Russian army. ⬇️
2/ Much of the army's equipment, and many of its drones, are purchased with private money by volunteer supporters or the soldiers themselves. High-tech equipment such as drones and communications equipment is purchased in China or Central Asia and imported into Russia.
3/ However, the Federal Customs Service has been a major blocker. Increased customs checks on the borders have meant that cargo trucks have suffered delays of days or even weeks, drastically slowing the provision of essential supplies for the Russian army.
1/ Leaked casualty figures from an elite Russian special forces brigade indicate that it has suffered huge losses in Ukraine, equivalent to more than half of its entire roster of personnel. Scores of men are listed as being 'unaccounted for', in other words having deserted. ⬇️
2/ The 10th Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade (military unit 51532) is a special forces (spetsnaz) unit under the GRU. It is a 2002 refoundation by Russia of a Soviet-era spetsnaz unit that, ironically, passed to Ukraine when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.
3/ Since the invasion of February 2022, the brigade has been fighting on the Kherson front, which has seen constant and extremely bloody fighting over the islands in the Dnipro river and delta. Russian sources have reported very high casualties.
1/ Russian warbloggers are continuing to provide examples of how Telegram is used for frontline battlefield communications, to refute the claim of presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov that such a thing is "not possible to imagine". ⬇️
2/ Platon Mamadov provides two detailed examples:
"Example number one:
Aerial reconnaissance of Unit N spotted a Ukrainian self-propelled gun in a shelter in the middle of town N."
3/ "Five minutes after the discovery, the target's coordinates and a detailed video were uploaded to a special secret chat group read by all drone operators, scouts, and artillerymen in that sector of the front.
1/ The Russian army faces a crisis with obtaining aid for its soldiers, who are dependent on volunteers to provide them with everything from socks to Starlink terminals. Russian warbloggers say that the blocking of Telegram will wreck voluntary assistance efforts. ⬇️
2/ 'It's time ZOV to go home' writes:
"Since 2022, Telegram has become the primary source of funds for the front. Numerous units and volunteers have created their own channels."
3/ "This has enabled us to address a colossal number of issues that needed to be addressed right then and there. It's impossible otherwise: when a fundraising campaign begins, it means the fundraising item was needed yesterday, and there's no time to waste.
1/ Russian soldiers overwhelmingly prefer to use Telegram for tactical communications despite the Russian army having its own dedicated military messengers. The reason isn't complex – the military's own alternatives are unreliable and difficult to use. ⬇️
2/ 'Vault No. 8' explains the problem:
"The Telegram slowdown is particularly nasty because Telegram is used for communication on the front lines.
Military messengers have been around since I wrote about this, but... Guess what you have to do to get a firmware-ready smartphone?
3/ "That's right! Buy it [with your own money] and send it in for a firmware update. On top of that, one of the military messengers periodically crashes like crazy, and the phone has to be sent in for a [periodic] firmware update, which takes at least a couple of weeks.