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/ Three years on from the sinking of the cruiser Moskva, a leaked report indicates that the warship was in a 'deplorable' condition when it left Sevastopol for the last time. Commentators suggest it may have had its radars wrongly painted with a radio-opaque paint. ⬇️
2/ The video above shows the ship's departure from Sevastopol on 10 April 2022. Exactly two months earlier, on 10 February 2022, its captain Anton Valerievich Kuprin wrote a "Reference Report on the Status of the Guided Missile Cruiser 'Moskva'", which has been leaked.
3/ The report is among a set of materials on the ship and its sinking which has been collected by Dmitry Shkrebets, the father of one of the sailors who died on the Moskva, which was the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
1/ Disastrous Russian attempts to mount armoured assaults are being blamed on commanders relying too much on electronic warfare equipment to defeat drones while ignoring the need to ensure that it is updated with a current tactical threat library. ⬇️
2/ Lamenting the destruction of dozens of armoured vehicles in failed assaults such as the one shown above, in the Zaporizhzhia region, the 'Zhivov Z' Telegram channel puts the blame on commanders who ignore or overlook the need to maintain EW systems mounted on vehicles:
3/ "Attacking in columns on sections of the front where the enemy has not switched off drone launch points and artillery is, in my opinion, criminal negligence. You can sacrifice as much as you want to Ares. He will not appreciate it.
1/ Ukraine was reportedly able to breach Russia's fortifications in the Kursk region in August 2024 because of a massive fraud by Russian constructors and politicians, with fake companies, fake workers, substituted materials, and trenches made of "shit and sticks". ⬇️
2/ Prior to the incursion, the authorities in Moscow sent the Kursk regional government $230 million to fortify the border. At least $50 million is said to have been stolen. On 16 April 2025 former governor Alexei Smirmov and his former deputy were arrested on corruption charges.
3/ Smirnov (shown here) is currently in pre-trial detention and is accused of personally stealing more than a billion rubles. Three heads of the Kursk Region Development Corporation and a number of company executives were also arrested.
1/ Russian warbloggers are strongly critical of Putin's so-called 'Easter ceasefire' in Ukraine. One calls it a gift to 'Donny Trump'; others point out that the Ukrainians will be able to use it to their advantage, and describe it as a trap. ⬇️
2/ 'Ghost of Novorossiya' invokes the famous Simpsons rake-stepping meme to criticise the ceasefire indirectly: "In honour of the festive truce, I will break my ban on advertising on the channel.
Advertisement of agricultural equipment: Minsk rake, model 3.0, 11-year warranty."
3/ 'Time_of_Tremor' comments that "it is very difficult to say why and for what purpose [the ceasefires] are being carried out."
1/ Russian soldiers are heavily dependent on aid provided by volunteers, but are afraid to publicly identify their units because they fear being sent to their deaths by their commanders if they disclose that they are short of vital supplies. ⬇️
2/ The prominent Russian Telegram channel 'Two Majors' harshly criticises the attitude of Russian commanders towards volunteer efforts, which have to be undertaken under a cloud of secrecy and fear – in marked contrast to comparable Ukrainian efforts.
3/ "Do you know, dear readers, why we often do not write specific names of units and parts, glorious cities of their permanent deployment points, which sent their heroes to the front?
1/ Uranus has been severely pounded in Ukraine over the past two years. The Russian space agency's head says 105 of its employees have died and 342 have been wounded fighting in Ukraine, likely as members of the Roscosmos volunteer battalion. ⬇️
2/ In an event marking Cosmonautics Day (12 April), Roscosmos head Dmitry Bakanov told attendees: "While carrying out combat missions, 342 of our comrades were wounded, and 105 colleagues passed away forever or went missing."
3/ Roscosmos established the Uranus battalion, which came out of Miass, in 2023 as a vehicle for the space agency's employees to participate in the war in Ukraine. The battalion calls its fighters "Imperial Stormtroopers".