1/ Daniel Martindale, the US missionary who has defected to Russia and publicly declared that he has spent the last two years spying on the Ukrainian military, describes himself as a Christian and 'conservative American', and subscribes to a wide range of conspiracy theories. ⬇️
2/ Martindale, a native of Indiana, held a press conference earlier today in Moscow in which he explained why he decided, as soon as the war broke out in Ukraine, that he would cross the border and spy for Russia while posing as an aid worker.
3/ During the press conference, he explained that he decided to support Russia because "the war in Ukraine is not as much of a cultural issue ... for people in Russia and Ukraine, as it is a continuation of Washington's battle with the rest of the world, really, …
4/ …and even with its own citizens. I see it as just America's attempt to contain and to repress Russia in their attempt to be an equal player in the world."
5/ "I see it as a war where one side is fighting for justice, and the other side is really just interested in their own financial and business interests, and really not interested in the well-being of their own citizens ... or even in the welfare of their own soldiers."
6/ Martindale also sees Vladimir Putin as someone who would be ideally suited to serve as President of the United States:
7/ "If I happened to be in the United States right now, it definitely would need to be a candidate who is for peace. But he also needs to do that in a way that is in line with my religious views.
8/ "So he needs to support a traditional family where you have a man, woman, children being brought up to be normal people in a productive society. If Putin was running in the United States today, I would vote for him."
9/ (Putin is known to have had several mistresses and a number of semi-secret children. Meanwhile, Russian children from kindergarten age upwards are being taught weapons handling, battlefield tactics and wound-dressing.)
10/ Martindale sees the United States government as a personal enemy of himself and people like him, claiming that it was responsible for 9/11. In his eyes, it is the enemy of 'conversative Americans', who have just cause to go to war with it:
11/ "I understand from about 2005 that the United States government is my enemy, personally, because of the fact that they are responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001."
12/ "For a conservative American, we always understand from the very beginning that the government is our enemy. But when they declare war on their own citizens, that is a cause to go to war with them."
13/ In a bizarre section of the press conference, Martindale played a video showing him admitting to his brother, mother and father that he had been spying for Russia and warning them to expect hostile attention from the US government. They, however, are supportive of him.
14/ - Brother: "I don't think it's a real big problem, Danny. I mean, what kind of pressure do you think they'd put on mom and dad anyway, throw us in jail for what?"
- Mother: "They have no morals, [they're not] Christians. They just killed so many people in North Carolina."
15/ - Brother: "Yeah... Well, if some neo-Nazis come up to our door, I'm going to smoke them."
16/ Martindale's social media accounts also show support for a plethora of conspiracy theories on topics such as vaccines, 4G and 5G, the gold standard, CRISPR gene-editing technology, Satanism in Hollywood, Trump 2020, colloidal silver, Bill Gates, and anti-government themes.
17/ Notably, his conspiracy ideation appears to start towards the later part of the COVID-19 pandemic around 2020. It appears that he, like many others, fell down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories during COVID-19 that has led him to commit extremely destructive acts.
18/ Russia has amplified conspiracy theories as part of its campaign of disinformation against the West, exploiting the anti-government sentiments of American conservatives. It seems that Martindale was already primed to believe Russia's versions of why it invaded Ukraine. /end
1/ A Russian warblogger fighting in eastern Ukraine says that an unprecedented number of Ukrainian FPV drones is causing huge casualties. He claims that both sides are using chemical weapons and complains about the quality of reinforcements.
2/ The 'How I went to war. Platon Mamatov' Telegram channel highlights recent aspects of the war:
"1. Walking through the forest belts to the Dnepropetrovsk region, there are many corpses, I have never seen so many during the entire war. There are really a lot of them."
3/ "2. We are not angels either, we also use chemical weapons somewhere, but we are somewhere with them, I can't see, but when they were poisoning us, when I was running from an FPV to the dugout (knowing that it was there).
1/ More than three years into the war in Ukraine, Russian army training is still often reported to be only cursory. Soldiers are usually given only a few days of training and a single outing to the shooting range. A Russian warblogger discusses why this is. ⬇️
2/ The 'Partisan' Telegram channel comments:
"Combat training? No, we haven't heard of it.
The fourth year of the war. To put it mildly, there is no development or improvement in the combat training of troops heading to the front. Quite the opposite."
1/ Organised crime is now thriving in the Russian army as a result of its recruitment of tens of thousands of convicts. Former inmates extort, rob and torture soldiers with impunity to extract millions of rubles in pay and bonuses from them, as two recent accounts highlight. ⬇️
2/ Aleksandr Vladimirovich Efreemov of the 9th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade (military unit 71443) told his wife that "If you don't find the money soon, they'll kill me". After arriving at a location in Ukraine, he was thrown into an open-air pit along with many other men.
3/ His wife says: “He spent all this time in a pit, and there were boys sitting there with him. They were beaten every day with clubs and rebar, and money was beaten out of them.”
1/ At least 133 Russians POWs freed from Ukrainian captivity are reported to have have died or gone missing in action after being sent back to the front lines, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Some are said to have been executed. ⬇️
2/ As previously reported, returning POWs are being treated harshly by the Russian authorities and are often sent straight back into combat, without even a family reunion. New research by Verstka illustrates their fate.
3/ Data from the 'I Want to Live' project identifies a total of 133 people from 49 Russian regions and three occupied regions of Ukraine. They comprise a mixture of mobilised men, career military and Wagner Group mercenaries.
1/ The occupied regions of Ukraine are facing a deepening ecological and economic crisis, with critical shortages of water, rapid desertification, and the collapse of agriculture and industries across the occupied territories. Russia is doing little to resolve it. ⬇️
2/ Southern and eastern Ukraine have a naturally hot and dry summer climate that is being exacerbated by climate change. Until Soviet irrigation initiatives in the 1950s, the southern mainland of Ukraine and the interior of the Crimean peninsula were arid semi-deserts.
3/ The now-destroyed Kakhovka Reservoir alone supplied more than 12,000 km of canals in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, with reservoirs supplying Crimea and the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. Water supplies depend on infrastructure neglected or destroyed in the war.
1/ A leaked list of casualties from a Russian battalion taking part in an offensive suggests a killed/wounded ratio of 1:36 to 1. According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, losses stand at over 100,000 dead this year alone. ⬇️
2/ A reported list of the losses of the Russian 3rd Motorised Rifle Battalion of the 9th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade (military unit 71443) lists 163 casualties in only a month. Daily casualties are stated to be between 5 and 10 per day.
3/ This is almost certainly an underestimate, as commanders often underreport losses to make themselves look better or to exclude those who have been executed or tortured to death by their own side. The brigade is known for cruelty towards its men.