1/ Morale is so good in the Russian army that its soldiers are deliberately committing crimes to get themselves sent to prison and thus save their lives, according to a veteran pro-Russian soldier in Ukraine who has been fighting since 2014. ⬇️
2/ The Telegram channel 'When the cannons started singing' provides an illustration of the Russian army's current state of mind, from "our friend and subscriber, a war veteran who served with the militia since 2014 and later with the Russian Armed Forces":
3/ "Here, people commit crimes deliberately to go to prison. There was this guy who called someone in his city and said the train station was mined. They took him in later.
4/ "I talked to him, and he said he'd had a one-way mission, and since they gave him a lot of money for the Special Military Operation, and this only gets [a sentence of] a couple of years, it wasn't the worst option.
5/ "People are thinking about how to get a short prison sentence to get out of the army.
I also think that if I'd gone to prison in '24, I'd be out a free man by now, heh.
6/ "Some people blow themselves up. I know someone who stuck his hand around a corner with a grenade, and the explosion blew his hand off. Now they're discharging him from the army.
People are fucking sick of it.
The cuckoo's been going crazy for a long time."
7/ (It should be noted that this isn't a foolproof method; there have been reports of convicts being beaten and tortured to make them sign military contracts.)
1/ Why can't Russia have n̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ interceptor drones that work, unlike Ukraine? The answer, says one warblogger, is that Russia's military-industrial complex has been captured by big vested interests who've made it into a "gravy train". ⬇️
"The Ukrainians also made a "Yolka." How is it different from ours?
P1-SUN.
Acceleration up to 450 km/h.
Interception altitude up to 5000 m.
3/ "Our Yolka:
Maximum speed 250.
Interception altitude 2000 m.
Not allowed in the rain, not allowed at night, not allowed if facing the sun. If a bird flies between the Yolka and an enemy UAV, the Yolka can lock onto it. It can simply get knocked off course.
1/ The Russian army's response to the threat of Ukraine's drones is to give its soldiers prayer cards appealing for divine help against "demonic drones". Incredulous Russian warbloggers are demanding something a bit more tangible. ⬇️
2/ The text of the "Prayer against demonic drones" says: "O, Saint Barbara, the great martyr and patroness, look upon us who grieve and suffer from the demonic drones, that sow death and destruction."
3/ "Strengthen us in faith and hope, give us strength and courage not to despair in the struggle for truth and freedom. Our intercessor, pray for us, that He will spare us and that He deliver us from the evil slander of our enemies. Amen."
1/ The Russian government's claims that it isn't blocking GitHub are widely disbelieved by Russian commentators, who continue to protest about the severe impact that the apparent restrictions on accessing it will have on military-industrial software development. ⬇️
2/ The military-technical Telegram channel 'Atomic Cherry' is one of many to note that Russian software developers – like developers everywhere – are functionally dependent on the open-source code libraries provided by GitHub:
3/ "Russia's restrictive policies continue to strike at various locations, smashing and destroying not just the "free internet," but the information space itself, and they've finally reached the resource I've been anticipating for so long—GitHub.
1/ The Russian Navy now appears to be covering entire submarines in anti-drone nets. A satellite photograph published by a Russian warblogger shows two net-covered Pacific Fleet submarines anchored alongside quays. ⬇️
2/ According to the Russian warblogger 'Ramsay', the photo "shows the Pacific Fleet's submarine command attempting to prevent a repeat of Operation Spiderweb." The location in question is the Rybachiy Naval Base in Kamchatka, over 7,300 km from Ukraine.
3/ Ramsay writes: "The checklist for preparing the nuclear-powered missile submarine for sea now includes the item "Clearing the superstructure of anti-drone protection."
1/ Russian programmers are reporting that GitHub, the world's largest cloud platform for IT projects and collaborative development, is becoming increasingly inaccessible for them. The reasons aren't clear, but it's a looming disaster for Russian military and civilian IT. ⬇️
2/ The Internet censorship monitoring service OONI has recorded a growing trend, beginning on 5th May, of failed connections to Github from Russian users, reaching 16% of all Russian connection attempts.
3/ While Github isn't officially listed on the Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor's registry of banned websites, over 130 projects on the site have been blocked by Russian court orders, Roskomnadzor, the consumer regulator Rospotrebnadzor, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
1/ The Russian army is infected from top to bottom with false reports and fake military successes, costing many lives, according to a Russian warblogger fighting in Ukraine. He says that little effort is being made to root out the tide of lies. ⬇️
2/ The Russian army's tendency to produce and disseminate false information up the ranks all the way to Vladimir Putin has been noted often before. It has often backfired publicly on the army, most recently with its false claims to have captured Kupyansk.