1/ Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin is sceptical of "the mega-crook Donald and his cronies" and is confident there won't be a peace deal soon. In a fresh missive from prison, he draws attention to the Zaporizhzhia front, but says that Russia is unable to exploit successes there. ⬇️ 2/ Replying to an earlier letter from a friend, he comments:

"Now we have yet another “sweet expectation of a quick and inevitable deal” (that is, a “compromise”), inspired by the statements of the mega-crook Donald and his cronies."

1/ Russian State Duma deputy and surgeon Badma Bashankaev boasts that wounded Russian soldiers enjoy a 96% survival rate. Russian warbloggers point out, however, that only the lightly wounded usually get treated; most seriously injured Russians die on the battlefield. ⬇️ 2/ Badma Bashankaev is a fervent supporter of Russia's war effort and represents Putin's United Russia party in the State Duma. He has recently appeared in an interview with state news agency TASS speaking about Russia's ostensible success in treating wounded soldiers.

1/ While Russia is making incremental advances in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian soldiers say that it's resulting in carnage among their units. Conditions at Stepnohirsk are said to be dire, with entire battalions virtually wiped out. ⬇️

https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1993695775058989173

2/ Russian soldiers fighting at Stepnohirsk on the road to Zaporizhzhia city have told the 'Brothers in Arms' Telegram channel that "the situation there is, to put it mildly, dire."

1/ Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin warns from his jail cell that Ukraine and the EU have no reason to accept the Dmitriev-Witkoff proposals to end the war, because Russia is currently incapable of inflicting a strategic defeat on Ukraine, despite local tactical victories. ⬇️ 2/ The imprisoned Girkin has posted a lengthy analysis of the context of the 28-point plan (he says that he has not yet read the full content of the points, "which our media modestly remained silent about").

1/ Russian soldiers are complaining that if they fall foul of military regulations in any way – such as having only 1 litre of water in their car instead of 2, or wearing a non-regulation patch – they face being arrested by the military police and forced into an assault squad. ⬇️ 2/ The notoriously corrupt Russian military police have been hated and feared by Russian soldiers throughout the Ukraine war for their brutality and larceny. To the soldiers' frustration, they are now reportedly dragging men off to die in assault squads for petty infractions.

1/ Why have so many supposedly MAGA accounts on X been exposed as being based in Nigeria? The answer may be linked to the unfortunate coincidence that the word "maga" in Nigerian Pidgin English means "a gullible person, a fool, or the unsuspecting victim of a scam". ⬇️ 2/ "Maga" is widely believed to have evolved from the Yoruba word "múgùn" (or "mugu"), which translates to someone who can be easily manipulated or used as a "ladder to reach the top".

Calling someone a "maga" is an insult, implying they are simple, easily controlled, or naive.

1/ A Russian soldier recruited under duress from a penal colony says that his unit has suffered 97% casualties in recent assaults, with a constant supply of new cannon fodder arriving and dying immediately. "They fucking keep replenishing, replenishing, replenishing," he says. ⬇️ 2/ The man, who identifies himself as Ramzan, says that he was serving a sentence in a penal colony when he was brutally forced to sign a military contract by a "camp boss" – another prisoner who was working for the prison management.

1/ The Kyiv Independent is reporting that Trump envoy Steve Witkoff is "running a shadow operation inside the White House in an effort to sideline pro-Ukraine officials", cutting out Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an effort supported by Vice President J.D. Vance. ⬇️ 2/ According to sources quoted by the Kyiv Independent, Witkoff is "running a broader operation with [Russian envoy Kirill] Dmitriev, trying to sideline the pro-Ukraine voices in the Trump administration."

1/ Russian lawyers say that gamers could face up to six years in prison or charges of treason if they stream S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 or wear a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. T-shirt, following the Russian government's designation of its Ukrainian developers as an 'undesirable organisation'. ⬇️ 2/ The Russian Prosecutor General's Office added Kyiv-based GSC Game World to its list of 'undesirable organisations' on 18 November. The developer relocated many of its staff to Prague after the full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022.

1/ Vladimir Putin is reported to be unhappy with the proposed Witkoff-Dimitriev peace plan for Ukraine. "Trump is in a hurry, and Vladimir Vladimirovich is not so much," says a Russian source. ⬇️ 2/ The independent Russian news outlet Verstka reports that Russian diplomatic sources and sources close to the Kremlin consider the draft agreement to be "vague, in need of revision, and not fully implementable." They see it as merely a basis for a future agreement.

When an American billionaire offers money to people from relatively poor countries (Serbian average monthly salary $1,329) for riling up and radicalising Americans, it's not surprising that they'll take up the offer

https://twitter.com/micah_erfan/status/1992018233541738506

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1992151787609243877?t=RldR-9OxqEpyhhYtDYAvSg&s=19

1/ In 2024, Vladimir Putin created a new programme called 'Time of Heroes' to train Russian soldiers and war veterans to be part of a "new elite" to lead Russia in the future. However, soldiers are finding that they are being declared to be deserters if they enroll in it. ⬇️ 2/ The 'Time of Heroes' programme was launched on 1 March 2024 after a speech by Putin in which he declared that participants in the Russian invasion of Ukraine should be given training to occupy leadership positions in the Russian government and state institutions.

1/ Corrupt Russian military recruiters, police officers, local administrations, and – allegedly – drug dealers are said to be conspiring to recruit drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally disabled to join the army, likely to profit from bounties and recruitment bonuses. ⬇️ 2/ Russian warblogger Anastasia Kashevarova has published a denunciation of what she calls "discrediting the army in the rear by its own people." She describes how people who are completely unsuited to military service are ending up in the army:

1/ Russian warblogger Roman Alekhin is very upset with @olliecarroll's recent piece in The Economist on infighting between Russian pro-war commentators. Some – including Alekhin – have been declared 'foreign agents' after falling out with the Kremlin. ⬇️

https://x.com/olliecarroll/status/1990619200206012914

2/ Writing on his Telegram channel, Alekhin complains that the Economist had the cheek to lead the story with his own mugshot:

1/ The US has secretly been working with Russia to develop a new peace plan for Ukraine, according to a report in Axios. The 28-point plan is said to cover peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future US relations with Russia and Ukraine. ⬇️ 2/ Axios reports that Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff has been working with his Russian counterpark Kirill Dmitriev to develop the plan, apparently without Ukrainian or European input, with European officials only now being briefed on it.

1/ Russian soldiers say they are being minimally equipped and told to scavenge supplies from corpses in infiltration missions in which most of them will be killed. Artillerymen and drone operators are being expended as stormtroopers. ⬇️ 2/ An exchange of short comments between Russian warbloggers who are fighting in Ukraine highlights the realities of Russia's current tactic of sending small, minimally equipped groups of men to infiltrate Ukrainian positions in the face of omnipresent drones.

1/ This video of two Russian soldiers being abused by their commander highlights the violence and cruelty now endemic in the Russian army. The unit in question provides a microcosm of how this has now become routine after three and a half years of war.

https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1990451884763558238

2/ According to a soldier of the 30th Motorised Rifle Regiment who filmed one man being repeatedly shot with an air rifle and another being put naked into an open-air pit or zindan, "the company commander regularly uses such punishments against undesirable soldiers."

1/ Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin warns that Russia's recent tactical successes around Pokrovsk and elsewhere are likely to have little effect on the overall trajectory of the war in Ukraine, unless Russia is willing to commit fully to the total defeat and dismemberment of Ukraine. ⬇️ 2/ Girkin has issued a fresh letter from a B̵i̵r̵m̵i̵n̵g̵h̵a̵m̵ Kirovo-Chepetsk jail and (somehow, probably by text messages) has given an interview to the Russian news outlet RTVI, giving his current assessment of the state of the war.

1/ Russian soldiers fighting near Pokrovsk say they are eating bark to avoid starvation, while they face systematic extortion, embezzlement, and violence from their commanders, who send numerous men to their deaths and routinely execute others who are deemed inconvenient. ⬇️ 2/ Vladimir Valerievich Dulyaninov, serving in the 6th Guards Tank Regiment (military unit 93992), has recorded a series of videos which his aunt has released in an apparent effort to pressure the Russian authorities to take action against the regiment's commanders.

1/ The occupied Donbas is a garbage-filled, dysfunctional, and corrupt region infested by packs of man-eating dogs, according to a Russian warblogger. In a remarkable display of cognitive dissonance, she blames Ukraine and says that Russia is only in nominal control. ⬇️ 2/ Journalist and warblogger Anastasia Kashevarova, who has frequently campaigned to improve the situation of Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, has posted a long denunciation of the situation in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, partly under Russian control since 2014.

1/ A Russian soldier with a mental disability says that he was imprisoned in an open-air pit for 54 days to force him to join a stormtrooper squad. His experience highlights the Russian army's increasing use of men with disabling mental conditions as frontline troops. ⬇️ 2/ Oleg Gennadievich Kalmykov of the 15th Motorised Rifle Regiment (military unit 31134) has recorded a video recounting how he was imprisoned for nearly two months in a zindan, a pit in the ground sealed with iron bars but otherwise open to the elements.