1/ Russian warbloggers are very upset at the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine that leaves the objectives of the 'Special Military Operation' unfulfilled. One asks, "does the death of my boys mean nothing [but] a dog's dick and a hole after the assault?" ⬇️
2/ The prominent Russian war correspondent and propagandist Alexander Sladkov has aroused controversy by arguing that Russia is not fighting for territory but "for Russia’s status in the new global world order that is currently being formed."
3/ "The SMO is part of Moscow's global plan to return to the status ranks. We are breaking in by force, pushing the EU, taking what is rightfully ours – a fair position in the international economy and politics.
4/ "The military is at the center of the main processes, they loudly remind who we are, and that other countries should reckon with us. Not only because we are rich, but because we are rich and strong."
5/ Other Russian warbloggers surmise, probably correctly, that Sladkov is reflecting a new official propaganda line that it doesn't matter if Russia takes all the territory it claims in Ukraine, as long as Trump gives it the "status in the new global world order" that it craves.
6/ This is anathema for ultranationalist warbloggers. "It's too early to slam on the brakes or does the death of my boys mean nothing and I've been here in the militia for so many years for a dog's dick and for a hole after the assault?," asks 'Management Speaks'.
7/ 'Callsign Osetin' writes: "What status can we acquire if we are not fighting at full strength and we are considered weaklings, and our army is not taken seriously in the confrontation with the NATO army (a direct army, and not the [Ukrainians] with all NATO standards),…
8/ …where did you get the idea that Kherson and Zaporizhia will be Russian cities if we have not yet agreed on anything, and territorially they are now with the [Ukrainians]? And we still have a long way to go to Zaporizhia... Some kind of double standards are emerging...
9/ "What is going according to our plan? The fact that the Ukrainian is still sitting in the Kursk region, is it also part of our plan?"
10/ Yaroslav Belousov complains: "The liberated lands of the former Ukraine – our Russian people live in them, groaning under the yoke of the blue-yellow Bolsheviks.
11/ "Russia without Kharkiv, Odesa and Yekaterinoslav [former Russian imperial province covering the modern Luhansk, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions] is like a person without a leg or an arm: you can live, but still somehow not right...
12/ "Our "return to the status ranks" without the liberated lands of Novorossiya and Malorossiya is a regular soap bubble that will burst so quickly that you won't even have time to blink.
13/ "Only the recovery of the lost inheritance will give others grounds to communicate with us as equals."
'Colonel Kvachkov and his comrades' argues: "It is not about territories. It is about destroying the Russophobic virus that was launched into our people."
14/ "Its consequence was the destruction of the united Russian state and its fragmentation into three warring parts [i.e. Russia, Belarus and Ukraine]. The goal is to reunite these three parts into one whole. This goal is in the interests of Russia.
15/ "This is not the whim of this or that patriot. This goal is objective."
'Roy TV - Maxim Kalashnikov' says sarcastically: "Apparently, we don't need the fertile territories of the Black Sea region with Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa, Transnistria."
16/ "This is not tundra blown by cold winds, really. It turns out that it is cheaper to develop it, permafrost is cooler than rich black soil!
17/ "And in general, it turns out that we fought not for the reunification of Russians and not for the creation of a Great Russia from the Dniester to Sakhalin, not for the destruction of Bandera, but for the status of the Russian Federation in the world...
18/ "And the Kiev Banderas will still have access to the Black Sea. To export bread and raw materials through ports, to import weapons...
19/ "You know those students from Donetsk who were mobilized and thrown into battle in the summer of 2022 without even entrenching tools (they dug trenches with their old helmets).
20/ "Were they fighting for aluminium supplies to the USA? For the Yankees' ability to mine rare earths?" /end
1/ Constant Ukrainian drone strikes in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region have driven the Russians to a desperate measure: they're unbanning Telegram because their mobile air defence teams can't manage without it. ⬇️
2/ The Russian-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky has announced the temporary unbanning of Telegram in the region (see the video above):
3/ "Today, we are experiencing certain difficulties with the alert system. Unfortunately, the Max messenger functionality currently does not allow for consistent delivery of push notifications about threats to the public.
1/ RT war correspondent Alexander Karchenko calls for a change of tactics in the face of relentless Ukrainian drone attacks. Instead of dispersing troops, he calls for Russian soldiers to group together to fight off the drones. ⬇️
2/ Writing on the 'Witness of Bayratkar' Telegram channel, Karchenko comments:
"The tactic of maximally dispersing troops has stopped working. An entire division now watches as a single soldier attempts to march one kilometer across an open field."
3/ "A human being is the smallest unit. It's impossible to divide him into parts without causing harm. And once we've reached the limit of dispersal, the vector simply must reverse. This is already happening at the front.
1/ Russian commanders often send men on suicidal 'flag-sticking' missions to raise the Russian flag over objectives, so that they can claim to have captured them and obtain personal rewards. As a Russian warblogger comments, this frequently leads to heavy Russian casualties. ⬇️
2/ Commanders' routine lies about military successes have often been commented on by Russian warbloggers. They have strong incentives to fake successes, such as the prospect of cash awards, medals, and promotions.
1/ Russia's statistical agency Rosstat has recently highlighted Russia's dire demographic situation, which has become far worse due to its war losses. Komsomolskaya Pravda war correspondent Grigory Kubatyan suggests nuking Ukraine as a solution. ⬇️
2/ The slumping birth rate has recently been the subject of Rosstat data and has produced alarmed commentary from Russian commentators (see thread below). The war's human losses have also become so huge that they can no longer be ignored.
3/ While Russia has declined to release casualty figures, Western and Ukrainian sources have consistently estimated between 1-1.2 million Russian casualties (with estimates of around 500,000-600,000 Ukrainian casualties). Russian warbloggers seem increasingly to accept this.
1/ Russian soldiers in Ukraine face a "catastrophic" shortage of drones and personnel at the front, according to two Russian warbloggers. The Russian offensive is coming to a standstill with Ukrainian forces said to be outnumbering the Russians two or three to one in places. ⬇️
2/ Anatoly Radov compains that the massive Russian missile strikes against Kyiv over the weekend were a case of exerting the wrong kind of force in the wrong place:
3/ "The real problem with these expensive retaliatory strikes is that there's a catastrophic shortage of Mavics and FPVs on the front.
1/ Continuing with Russian warbloggers' reactions to the overnight Oreshnik ballistic missile attacks against Ukraine, there's a great deal of criticism and bitterness about the Russian government's tactics. One asks: why not attack London instead? ⬇️