1/ Ukraine's increasing dominance in drones is reportedly leading to individual Russian soldiers being attacked by 20 or 30 drones at once. Russian warbloggers say that Ukrainian drones are operating with impunity while their side faces a shortage. ⬇️
2/ A report by Russian news outlet RT says that as many as 20 to 30 drones are being used to attack individual Russian soldiers. 'Belarusian Silovik' responds: "Unfortunately, that’s exactly how it is."
3/ "What’s even worse is that in some areas, our side is conserving drones due to a shortage, while the Ukrainian Armed Forces can deploy 20–30 UAVs in a single sortie over a short period of time.
Right now, the average ratio of UAV deployment is probably 3 to 1."
4/ Dmitri Steshin writes of the experience of being in an environment saturated with enemy drones, and calls for Russian strikes against drone factories in EU countries:
5/ "It’s a well-known fact—and an unpleasant one—that over the past few months, the enemy has rapidly gained the upper hand in terms of drone numbers, both on the front lines and in our rear areas.
6/ "When drones appear near a rear-area bakery during an interview, and the people you were having a heartfelt conversation with just a second ago suddenly lose their train of thought, listen intently to the sky, and then start firing into that sky...
7/ "You say goodbye to your companions, drive home, and the first thing you come across is a quadcopter blazing hot under anti-drone nets. And in the evening, in Donetsk, you turn on the “spectrum analyzer.”
8/ "From 5 GHz on, the screen is red; all the signals won’t fit, and numbers appear above the waterfall, showing how many drones are on a specific frequency—a record: 12 of them.
9/ "You see it on the device’s screen and hear with your own ears how a Ukrainian relay station hangs over you for a full hour, transmitting a signal to drones at 1040 GHz, and then, after the raid, calmly flies away, having made a “lap of honour” over my district of Donetsk,…
10/ …the martyred city.
It’s better to think about why the enemy has pulled ahead and how to stop it. In my opinion, the Ministry of Defence made a good start by publishing the addresses of drone workshops in EU countries. But this is clearly not enough to solve the problem.
11/ "They didn’t start solving it in the right order, as far as I’m concerned. First, precision strikes—then publishing the addresses. That can be put on hold." /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."