1/ Russian tank crews are being sent to their deaths en masse in infantry assaults, according to a Russian soldier's plea for help. With tank use now severely limited due to drone strikes, their crews appear to be surplus to requirements. ⬇️
2/ A Russian soldier writes to the warblogger 'Voenkor Kotenok':
"Hello. I can't help but tell you what's really going on in the tank battalion of the 110th Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces (formerly the 100th Brigade of the DPR People's Militia).
3/ "Basically, tanks are now hardly taking part in direct combat, and so every two to three weeks, two men from each company in the battalion are drafted into the infantry and sent to assaults, to fortified positions, to support UAVs.
4/ "The companies no longer have three platoons; they exist only on paper, but in reality, all the soldiers were sent to the assault, were killed, or went missing. Now it's time for the 2nd Platoon.
5/ "They recently announced that they were training two more men for the infantry... The tankers are disappearing ingloriously.
Then, most likely, the battalion will be abolished on paper. If there are no men, there will be no tanks, no battalion.
6/ "How can this be stopped? How can this fact be made public? People are ready to go into battle and defend their homeland. But I consider it a crime to waste the lives of tankers like this. After all, tankers are not infantry.
7/ "It's easy to send a tanker to the infantry, but try to quickly turn an infantryman into a tanker, train him, put him in a tank, and go fight the enemy! Try it!
8/ "I beg you, whoever is responsible for this, to stop this outrage and the destruction of our tankers through your own absurd actions. I appeal to the Minister of Defence, to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief [i.e. Vladimir Putin]. I ask for your intervention.
9/ "After all, it's an illegal practice to send tankers who have seen combat since the beginning of the Special Military Operaion, who have invaluable experience in tank combat, who know a tank like the back of their hand, who have orders and medals, to assault units.
10/ "These are just a few of the names of the tankers killed and missing in action [who were] recently sent to assault units:
11/ "While I was writing this message, I received information that literally all tankers were being thrown into the assault. A couple of men were left to guard the tanks. The rest [have been told]: forward, everyone, everyone, everyone." /end
1/ Former Roscosmos CEO and current Russian Senator Dmitry Rogizin has a novel suggestion for deterring Western countries from seizing 'shadow fleet' tankers. He advocates turning them into giant bombs by rigging them to explode if they're captured. ⬇️
2/ Commenting on the British seizure of the Russian shadow fleet tanker SMYRTOS at the weekend, Rogizin – like many other Russian commentators – likens it to an act of piracy. He suggests:
3/ "I believe we should mine the tankers we use. Initiation should occur when appropriate commands are received or when a tanker deviates from its route and is forced to enter a foreign port.
1/ Russian warbloggers have rushed to disclaim blame for the attack on the historic Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. They claim the Ukrainians did it themselves, argue that the church isn't sacred to the Ukrainians, and say Ukraine just wants Russia to look bad. ⬇️
2/ Damage, what damage?, asks Andrey Medvedev, claiming that the whole thing was faked for the cameras:
"There's no need to restore anything in general. There's no damage. It's just a vivid night picture. Which suggests a deliberate arson for the sake of a photo."
3/ Lev Vershinin says the church was a legitimate military target:
"My busy schedule prevented me from commenting on the strikes on Kyiv this morning, and thank God for that, because I might have said something stupid in the heat of the moment."
1/ Iran has reportedly assessed that Donald Trump is "mentally incompetent" and has incorporated psychologists into its negotiating team to adapt the wording of the proposed agreement "as if the recipient were a [mental] patient ... whose capacity is limited." ⬇️
2/ The Russian 'Political Report' says that "Iranian authorities have included leading psychologists in the negotiating team to review drafts of all messages before sending them to Trump."
3/ "This is not a supplementary measure, but a direct consequence of an internal assessment that the American president is mentally incompetent, whose reactions cannot be predicted by conventional diplomatic methods.
1/ Russian commanders routinely make false claims to have captured territory, in order to win awards and personal bonuses. However, the army is reportedly stepping up efforts to uncover instances of "painting over" the map of the front line in Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ Russian warblogger Vladimir Romanov highlights how the practice is causing mass casualties among Russian soldiers, with some commanders maintaining two parallel maps – one of the true line of contact, and a more flattering 'painted over' version to show to their superiors.
3/ "Returning to the paint-overs, the higher-ups periodically conduct compliance checks on the personnel data.
In some places (like in the Kupyansk sector), this is purely formal.
1/ An increasingly severe shortage of fuel is gripping wide areas of western Russia as well as occupied regions of Ukraine. Russian warbloggers report that there is no fuel at all in some regions, with fuel rationing affecting the army as well as civilians. ⬇️
2/ Following repeated Ukrainian attacks against Russian oil refineries, fuel shortages are spreading across western Russia. The Tatarstan-based Tatneft group appears to be particularly badly affected.
3/ Restrictions on fuel sales have been introduced in St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Moscow region, Samara, Nizhegorod, Udmurtia, Kazan, Cheboksary, Ulyanovsk, and other Russian cities, and in the occupied east and south of Ukraine, most notably in Crimea.
1/ A Russian soldier reports that he and four of his comrades were whipped, chained around the necks, tortured, and imprisoned in a sewer, while his officers stole his possessions and emptied his bank account. He says the men experienced "punishments like in Ancient Rome." ⬇️
2/ Dmitry Strelets is a soldier in the 4th Assault Company of the 68th Tank Regiment (military unit 91714). He says that he has endured torture and slave-like conditions at his Avdiivka-based unit.
3/ According to Strelets, these abuses were perpetrated by a sergeant major with the call sign "Foma," a political officer named "Dobry," his deputy "Bzhik," and their accomplice "Putnik."