Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
ChrisO_wiki Profile picture
ChrisO_wiki
@ChrisO_wiki
Independent military history author and researcher. Coffee tips are appreciated! https://t.co/t1EjNrIZ2c Now also at https://t.co/4qGQ2ffHJJ
499 subscribers
Jul 21 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Ukraine has copied Russia's Lancet loitering munition – but, Russian warbloggers say with dismay, the new Ukrainian Bulava munition is a significant improvement on the Russian original.
2/ The 'Yasinovataya, Donbass on the line of fire' Telegram channel summarises the Bulava's capabilities:
Jul 21 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
1/ 'Anti-woke' American Derek Huffman is the third Texan to move to Russian-held territory to fight against Ukraine. As his predecessors were kidnapped, tortured to death, blown to pieces and killed by Ukrainian forces, it seems unlikely that his fate will be any better. ⬇️ Image 2/ Huffman is a 45-year-old former welder who moved with his family to Russia in May 2025 to "escape LGBT propaganda" in America. He joined the Russian army to get fast-track citizenship, but to his family's dismay, he has been sent to the front lines.
Jul 21 • 40 tweets • 7 min read
1/ The Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine face a deepening humanitarian catastrophe, with some towns not having received any water for four months. Endemic corruption and systemic mismanagement by the Russian-installed authorities is being blamed for the situation. ⬇️ Image 2/ As previously reported, much of Russian-occupied Ukraine is facing drastic shortages of water due to a combination of destroyed infrastructure, which is particularly affecting the south, and a lack of repairs and investment elsewhere.
Jul 20 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
1/ A Russian warblogger fighting in eastern Ukraine says that an unprecedented number of Ukrainian FPV drones is causing huge casualties. He claims that both sides are using chemical weapons and complains about the quality of reinforcements.
2/ The 'How I went to war. Platon Mamatov' Telegram channel highlights recent aspects of the war:

"1. Walking through the forest belts to the Dnepropetrovsk region, there are many corpses, I have never seen so many during the entire war. There are really a lot of them."
Jul 19 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
1/ More than three years into the war in Ukraine, Russian army training is still often reported to be only cursory. Soldiers are usually given only a few days of training and a single outing to the shooting range. A Russian warblogger discusses why this is. ⬇️ Image 2/ The 'Partisan' Telegram channel comments:

"Combat training? No, we haven't heard of it.

The fourth year of the war. To put it mildly, there is no development or improvement in the combat training of troops heading to the front. Quite the opposite."
Jul 18 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
1/ Organised crime is now thriving in the Russian army as a result of its recruitment of tens of thousands of convicts. Former inmates extort, rob and torture soldiers with impunity to extract millions of rubles in pay and bonuses from them, as two recent accounts highlight. ⬇️ Image 2/ Aleksandr Vladimirovich Efreemov of the 9th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade (military unit 71443) told his wife that "If you don't find the money soon, they'll kill me". After arriving at a location in Ukraine, he was thrown into an open-air pit along with many other men.
Jul 18 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
1/ At least 133 Russians POWs freed from Ukrainian captivity are reported to have have died or gone missing in action after being sent back to the front lines, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Some are said to have been executed. ⬇️
2/ As previously reported, returning POWs are being treated harshly by the Russian authorities and are often sent straight back into combat, without even a family reunion. New research by Verstka illustrates their fate.
Jul 17 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
1/ The occupied regions of Ukraine are facing a deepening ecological and economic crisis, with critical shortages of water, rapid desertification, and the collapse of agriculture and industries across the occupied territories. Russia is doing little to resolve it. ⬇️ Image 2/ Southern and eastern Ukraine have a naturally hot and dry summer climate that is being exacerbated by climate change. Until Soviet irrigation initiatives in the 1950s, the southern mainland of Ukraine and the interior of the Crimean peninsula were arid semi-deserts.
Jul 16 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
1/ A leaked list of casualties from a Russian battalion taking part in an offensive suggests a killed/wounded ratio of 1:36 to 1. According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, losses stand at over 100,000 dead this year alone. ⬇️ Image 2/ A reported list of the losses of the Russian 3rd Motorised Rifle Battalion of the 9th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade (military unit 71443) lists 163 casualties in only a month. Daily casualties are stated to be between 5 and 10 per day.
Jul 16 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
1/ Filthy water and exploding comrades: a Russian soldier in Ukraine provides an insight into daily life, trapped in a cellar on the front line under Ukrainian attacks. ⬇️ 2/ In a short video, a Russian soldier shows what he is drinking. "We drink this water from some reservoir. Muddy, bitter. Well, thank God that there is such water."
Jul 16 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
1/ FOOL'S GOLD IN UKRAINE, PART 3: The Russian government promises bonuses to soldiers who destroy Ukrainian tanks and seize positions – but it's unlikely that they will long enjoy the benefits. Former Russian soldier Igor S. explains more about the illusory riches of the war. ⬇️ Image 2/ For part 1, see the thread below.
Jul 15 • 30 tweets • 5 min read
1/ FOOL'S GOLD IN UKRAINE, PART 2: Former Russian soldier Igor S. from Chuvashia was invalided out of the Russian army after sustaining injuries at Chasiv Yar. This thread continues his account of how the riches promised to Russians fighting in Ukraine are illusory. ⬇️ Image 2/ For part 1, see the thread below.
Jul 15 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
1/ Russian warbloggers say that the message from Donald Trump is clear: Russia is free to do anything it wants in Ukraine over the next 50 days. They advise the Russian government to "wreck Ukraine" in "the promised, bloodiest period" ahead. ⬇️
2/ 'Military Informant' asks, "Where did the unusual 50 days come from for Trump, who previously liked to measure everything in two weeks?" It comes up with the same answer as many Western commentators – that it matches Putin's timeframe for completing his conquests:
Jul 15 • 35 tweets • 6 min read
1/ Most Russian soldiers go to Ukraine hoping to earn life-changing amounts of money. As one ex-soldier from Chuvashia describes, however, the reality is very different: the only things that are free are "ammunition and body bags", and soldiers have to buy everything else. ⬇️ Image 2/ 46-year-old Igor S. from Chuvashia survived the Ukraine war at the cost of an eye and many fragmentation injuries. He has described his experiences with the Russian army from his mobilisation in September 2022 to his discharge following injuries sustained in January 2024.
Jul 14 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
1/ A Russian soldier with cancer and two broken legs was sent to the front lines in Ukraine to fight in a wheelchair, even though his chronic condition meant that he was ineligible to serve. After his cancer was deemed terminal, he was sent home to die. ⬇️
2/ 42-year-old Vitaly Anisimov suffered from a rare and usually fatal condition, gastric arteriovenous malformation, for which he had a complex operation in 2019. Despite still being chronically unwell, in 2022 he was abruptly mobilised into the Russian army. Image
Jul 14 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
1/ A Polish man who is fighting for Russia is urging fellow Poles to join Putin's war against Ukraine. He wants to see the 'Banderite' Ukrainians defeated, for Russian troops to "put Poland in order" and for the "traitors" in power in Warsaw to be dealt with. ⬇️ Image 2/ A Polish man who calls himself 'Polak na Donbasie' has been posting to TikTok since April 2025. He appears to be named Jacek and to have previously served with the 6th Logistics Battalion of the Polish Army in Krakow.
Jul 14 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
1/ A Russian platoon commander recounts on video how he is walking 28 km between frontline and rear positions due to Ukrainian drones suppressing vehicle movements. He says his unit has lost 37 out of 40 men in only two weeks of assault operations. ⬇️ 2/ In the video, a Russian soldier can be seen walking across what appears to be open ground, likely in eastern or southern Ukraine. It's clearly very hot – "today it's unbearable". (Temperatures in the region are currently up to 34°C (94F).)
Jul 14 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
1/ Russian warbloggers say that an overwhelming number of Ukrainian drones, along with an excessive Russian reliance on asphalt roads, is causing severe disruption of Russian logistics. Armoured vehicles have been reduced to "close to zero efficiency". ⬇️
2/ 'Witnesses of Bayraktar' writes:

"Drones are ruining our logistics. Strongholds 5 km from the front are already left without supplies, and this is in the presence of dense foliage. Why is this happening?"
Jul 14 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin is, perhaps unsurprisingly, gloomy about the prospects for Russia's push into the Sumy region. He says that the war is turning into a "grand mess" which may become "tragically analogous" to the course of events in World War I. ⬇️ Image 2/ Girkin writes on his Telegram channel:

"'As of now' - apparently, our offensive on Sumy has finally stalled - the fighting is still going on in the same Yunakivka, the northern outskirts of which our stormtroopers broke into on MAY 28-29!" Image
Jul 12 • 38 tweets • 10 min read
1/ Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Russian soldiers have been executed by their own side during the war in Ukraine – a practice called "zeroing out" or "resetting to zero". It's not just a disciplinary measure but a reflection of rampant corruption and criminality in the army. ⬇️ Image 2/ The Russian army has always practiced execution of its own men on a far greater scale than any Western military, including that of Nazi Germany. A comparison of military executions in the two World Wars illustrates this point.
Jul 11 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
1/ A wounded Russian soldier has made a video appealing to be evacuated from the destroyed frontline town of Chasiv Yar where, he says, he has been stranded in a cellar for five months. ⬇️ 2/ Chasiv Yar has been the scene of intense fighting since April 2024, in which thousands of Russian soldiers are likely to have died. Russia currently occupies about 90% of the town, which had a pre-war population of about 12,000.