1/ The Russian Navy is being condemned as "unteachable" by Russian warbloggers following a Ukrainian attack on an ammunition depot, which is said to have destroyed 5,000 tons of ammunition. They say that the Navy has learned nothing from the war. ⬇️
2/ High-resolution satellite images from before the strike show massive amounts of ammunition being stored in the open air at the 15th Arsenal of the Russian Navy in Petergof, Leningrad region. This Soviet-style practice has led to repeated disasters at Russian Army depots.
3/ As 'Alex Parker Returns' comments, "The ammunition was stored outdoors, so triggering a detonation using drones was no problem. Pypa [Putin], here are the results."
4/ 'Military Informant' echoes the criticism:
"Judging by other early high-resolution images, ammunition was simply lying around in the open on the arsenal grounds, which led to the inevitable consequences.
The inability to learn, as it were."
'Ramzai' is scathing:
5/ "Unteachable! After the massive explosions and fires at military arsenals in 2022-2023, when the enemy methodically "took them out" one after another, it seemed the lessons had already been learned and the end of storing ammunition in open-air stacks. But no!
6/ "The naval commanders are learning nothing from their land-based "brothers"! They're so far away from the front! They [the Ukrainians] won't make it there!
They did!
7/ "The result is the evacuation of an entire region. As usual, we'll keep a mournful silence about the arsenal's air defences.
8/ "Under Comrade Stalin, everyone responsible for this arsenal would already be sitting in investigators' offices, dreaming of a "penal battalion." Anything short of being thrown up against the wall for criminal negligence.
9/ "But for today's naval commanders, this is simply an annoying detail. Collateral damage, so to speak. No one will even be removed from their positions..." /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."