1/ Complaints about Internet blocks from Russian Instagram celebrities are obscuring a host of other problems, many caused by the Ukraine war, argues journalist Anastasia Kashevarova. Her long list highlights the increasingly severe difficulties faced by Russia's population. ⬇️
2/ Kashevarova writes:
"About the women's rebellion. I am against gender rebellions and any others, since they are destructive and distract from solving real problems towards confrontation between the sexes, redistribution of spheres of influence, struggle of individuals."
3/ "Here there is no longer any smell of protection of human rights, there is a draining of the painful things and presenting the people's pain in the light of some kind of stupidity and foolishness.
4/ "I have a different goal. I want the following categories of the population to be heard in our country:
– families of those missing in action in the Special Military Operation;
– mobilised and conscripts who were forced to sign a contract, or had it signed for them;
5/ "– those who trumpet about the terrible bacchanalia in the ranks of the army, where there should be discipline and unity – extortions, beatings, fraud, drug trafficking;
6/ "– working mothers, whose [state] support is ill-conceived and practically non-existent, all state support goes to social parasites who do not even properly raise children and live on taxes that are paid by the working mother;
7/ "– young people who can't work in their field because they won't be able to feed their families, or who can't make a career because Bolshoi prima donnas are nothing compared to those who have occupied all the positions and placed their family members and friends there;
8/ "– agricultural workers, who are now at risk because the authorities can come and kill chickens/cows/goats without explanation or reason. And no amount of compensation will cover the damage;
9/ "– IT specialists who have long been talking about cyber threats, but no one listened to them, and now all the actions of the Ministry of Digital Development and Roskomnadzor are only worsening the situation and pushing the country into destruction;
10/ "– those who live under constant drone attacks; those who suffered, whose relatives died, but compensation does not compensate for the damage and does not resurrect the deceased children;
11/ "– Donbas residents who still don't have water, who can't enter the Russian legal system because the new regulations don't fully address the situation there – people can't re-register their homes, their real estate and businesses are being squashed,…
12/ …and there's nowhere to seek protection. Some categories of the population still aren't provided with medication;
– families of the seriously wounded who need long-term rehabilitation, not just 20 days;
13/ "– children should be heard by adults. It's children who suffer the most - they're orphaned, abandoned by their families and the state, beaten, raped, and murdered;
– psychologists who note a high rate of mental disorders and depression among the population;
14/ "– security forces who expect and are already recording rising crime rates among teenagers, migrants, Roma, and former prisoners returning from the Special Military Operation;
"– volunteers who work [to help] the front line and save lives in hot spots.
15/ "Where there's no Ministry of Emergency Situations or military, they work, by themselves!
These are just a few of the issues we raise and offer solutions to.
16/ "I don't want these issues to be obscured by a rivalry between the smart and the beautiful, between show business and politics.
Don't channel the people's pain. It's all just a farce. My poor country.
17/ "P.S.: I forgot to mention small and medium-sized businesses, which should be preserving jobs and paying ever-increasing taxes, while their advertising and technical capabilities are being increasingly restricted." /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? ⬇️