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/ Iran's rapid military collapse is being blamed by Russian warbloggers on rampant corruption under the country's notionally Islamist regime. Everything is for sale like in "the late USSR", they say, which has allowed the Israelis to infiltrate Iran with ease. ⬇️
2/ Dmitry Steshin writes:
"The West has found Iran's solar plexus and is hitting it precisely and methodically. Of course, it is being helped from within. Who? Why? I'll explain based on my personal impressions."
3/ "It is generally accepted that Iran is ruled by the 'ayatollah regime', it is solid, there are no cracks. This is both true and false. Iran, as it seemed to me, is a country torn apart by internal contradictions, like the late USSR. I lived there.
1/ A single Russian brigade has lost more than 12,000 men – more than five times its authorised strength. Its soldiers say they are subjected to violence, abuse, torture and robbery by their own commanders, who throw them into bloody attacks where thousands die. ⬇️
2/ The 15th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade is based in the Samara region, but recruits from across Russia. Personnel from at least 77 regions have been listed as missing or dead, with the largest number being from the Volga Federal District and the Astrakhan region.
3/ At least 12,689 soldiers from the 15th Brigade have been listed as missing or killed in social media posts. At least 7,436 were killed, and another 5,253 are reported to be missing. This contrasts with a normal peacetime establishment of around 2,000 personnel.
1/ Russian warbloggers say that Russian army commanders are causing unnecessary problems for other units, and heavy casualties for their own men, by lying about their successes. This exposes the flanks of neighbouring units and causes men to be sent into unsupported assaults. ⬇️
2/ The Russian army has had widespread problems with commanders falsely claiming to have captured objectives – a practice dubbed "taking on credit" – since the early days of the war in Ukraine.
3/ False reporting often takes the form of sending a few expendable men forward to plant a flag on a building in a Ukrainian-held settlement, so that a drone can video it for a report of a successful capture to be sent to HQ. This is termed a "photo fact".
1/ On preparing a new member of a Russian stormtrooper unit, to which he has been assigned as a punishment, for his first assault mission: ⬇️
2/ "The smell of pine needles, dust, exhaust fumes. The noise of the engine, the rustle of gear, the jingle of all sorts of shiny things falling into a bag. The dry sound of phones being lowered into a lock box. The crunch of automatic rifles being checked.
3/ "The quiet curses of the company commander, yanking a garish, bright Esmarch harness off the shoulder of one of the careless newbies in the assault.
1/ The imprisoned Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin has given a gloomy prediction of the likelihood of Russian success in the Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine. They're well-defended by the Ukrainians, he says, while Russia has insufficient forces to capture them. ⬇️
2/ Girkin writes:
"The offensive in the Sumy region had been in preparation for a long time. The enemy knew about it very well, the enemy began building defensive structures against this supposed offensive several months ago, built several defensive lines to the east of Sumy."
3/ "And now they are already reporting construction to the west – well, apparently because everything they could build to the east has already been built.
The distance from the front line to Sumy is now about 20-25 km.
1/ Corrupt Russian officers are suspected to be selling information to Ukraine, contributing to the destruction of high-value assets such as this Iskander missile launcher, according to a Russian journalist. ⬇️
2/ On 5 June, Ukraine destroyed an Iskander ballistic missile launcher and its rockets. According to Russian journalist Maxim Kalashnikov, the launcher was destroyed and 8 personnel from the 26th Missile Brigade (military unit 54006) were killed.
3/ Kalashnikov says that “the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Security Service of Ukraine [are working] to actually knock out our operational-tactical missile units, those same Iskanders. They started hunting them.”