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
Jun 13 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
1/ Russia's attempts to block Telegram and force the population to switch to the state-approved messenger app MAX have simply resulted in the population adopting VPNs en masse. Ordinary Russians describe how they are evading the government's blocks. ⬇️ Image 2/ VPNs are a booming business in Russia, with a massive increase in downloads over recent months. Circumvention is routine, even for pro-regime loyalists. According to one Russian citizen, "even the vatniks at work have VPNs."
Jun 12 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
1/ Outgoing US DNI Tulsi Gabbard's release of "evidence of US biolabs" around the world, with Ukraine singled out in her statement, is being widely cited by Russian commentators as proof of Russia's propaganda conspiracy theories on the topic. ⬇️ Image 2/ Many Russian warbloggers and commentators have reported the release. A number have taken the opportunity to highlight how, in their view, Gabbard has vindicated Russia's claims about "Ukrainian biolabs" which were supposedly being used to develop biological weapons.
Jun 12 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
1/ Donald Trump's weak and vacillating approach towards Iran is being watched with keen interest in Russia as a lesson in how to bend America to its will. Russian political scientist Yuri Baranchik recommends that Russia should step up hostile activity against the EU and US. ⬇️ Image 2/ Writing on his Telegram channel, Baranchik asks: "What can we learn from the Iranian experience?

Iran just gave the world a masterclass in how to negotiate with the US from a position of strength."
Jun 12 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Ukraine's attacks on Russia's oil refineries are reportedly pushing them into a crisis, with a loss of control over fuel supplies and a lack of effective anti-drone defences. Russian oil giant Rosneft is reportedly pushing for nationalisation. ⬇️
2/ Russia's oil refinery ownership is dominated by a handful of large vertically integrated companies. State-controlled Rosneft and Gazprom Neft control the largest and most modern refineries, along with a number of private companies including Lukoil, Surgutneftegas, and Tatneft.
Jun 12 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
1/ Many of the Russian soldiers seen daily being blown up by Ukrainian drones are there not because they're trained infantry, but are specialists or even officers who are being sent to their deaths as a punishment. A Russian colonel says he's never seen anything like it. ⬇️ Image 2/ An 'old recruit' who has survived two years' service in the Russian army writes to warblogger and journalist Maxim Kalashnikov to relay his experience of how the army is routinely sending men to die in assaults for displeasing their superiors, regardless of their expertise:
Jun 12 • 23 tweets • 3 min read
1/ The Russian government claims that Ukraine's drone attacks against Russia are for political rather than military aims, given the supposed impossibility of a Ukrainian victory. A Russian warblogger warns that this is a dangerous illusion resulting from distorted information. ⬇️ 2/ Svyatoslav Golikov, author of the 'Philologist in Ambush' Telegram channel, writes:
Jun 12 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
1/ Russian warbloggers are baffled and angry at the Kalashikov Group's announcement of a single-shot shotgun, chambered in a lower-powered calibre, for shooting down drones. One comments that "You can probably only shoot yourself with it". ⬇️ Image 2/ In a Telegram post on 8 June, the Kalashnikov Group announced a new gun produced by specialists at the Central Research Institute of Precision Engineering (JSC TsNIITochMash, part of the Rostec State Corporation under the management of the Kalashnikov Group):
Jun 9 • 20 tweets • 3 min read
1/ Why is Russia so vulnerable to Ukraine's mid-range drone attacks? Russian drone developer Alexey Chadayev says that it's due to an ongoing and unresolved series of Russian failures in developing new interceptor drones and anti-drone capabilities. ⬇️
2/ Chadayev asks:

"What's going on?

The balance of the war has shifted significantly in the enemy's favour, not because of any problems on our part at the front—the same positional dragging continues there, essentially."
Jun 9 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
1/ Russia faces "tectonic events" in the near future due to Ukraine's seizure of the initiative in the war, which presages an "impending disaster", according to a gloomy commentary by Russian journalist and warblogger Maxim Kalashnikov. ⬇️
2/ Kalashnikov draws attention to the convergence of several unfavourable trends for Russia – economic, military and industrial – which he says are seriously threatening a Russian war effort that is faltering and weakened by chronic corruption, inertia, and backward-thinking.
Jun 9 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
1/ The explosion in Moscow this morning killed Colonel Damir Davydov, head of the procurement department of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense, according to VChK-OGPU. ⬇️
2/ VChK-OGPU reports:

"The BMW X3 in which Damir Davydov, head of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate [GRAU] of the Russian Ministry of Defence, was blown up today belongs to Davydov himself. He purchased the used car in 2024 from a businessman in the Vladimir region. Image
Jun 8 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
1/ Russian journalist and blogger Anastasia Kashevarova is baffled and upset by Russia's apparent helplessness in the face of Ukraine's drone campaign. "They're fighting us, and we're wanking our limp dicks," she complains. "Guys, what are you doing?" ⬇️
2/ Kashevarova writes:

"The enemy is loading UAVs with all sorts of destructive elements. The enemy doesn't care what they use to kill you, as long as it kills you. The enemy is hitting everything that moves on the roads."
Jun 8 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
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. Image
Jun 8 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Igor 'Strekov' Girkin must die, says another Russian warblogger. His missives of doom are not universally welcomed by Russia's 'angry patriots', who don't always appreciate the ideological commitments which underlie his criticisms of the Russian war strategy. ⬇️ Image 2/ Girkin has repeatedly issued warnings about Russia's failing strategy in Ukraine, and the consequences thereof, along with criticisms of the Russian leadership. He is currently in prison for his criticisms, but this doesn't seem to have deterred him.
Jun 5 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Donetsk Airport has been converted into a launch base for Russian attack drones, with hardened concrete shelters erected on the runways, aprons, and taxiways to protect them from attack. More than 130 shelters have been built, along with concrete warehouses and launch pads. ⬇️ Image 2/ Recent satellite imagery shows that, as of 2 June 2026, the following are located on the airport grounds:

▪️130 drone storage shelters
▪️4 concrete warehouses for drones.
▪️Four fixed launch pads.
Jun 5 • 53 tweets • 8 min read
1/ Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin predicts that Russia will be stripped to the bone – "IN THE EVENT OF DEFEAT, THEY WILL TAKE EVERYTHING FROM US—UP TO AND INCLUDING NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND SOVEREIGNTY" – in a long and deeply gloomy commentary posted on Telegram. ⬇️ Image 2/ Girkin, who is currently in a prison for former security officials in the Kirov region, analyses the deteriorating situation in the war and warns that Russia is not going to end up in a good place:
Jun 5 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
1/ Russia's corrupt elites are drinking 'Long Epstein Island' cocktails in St Petersburg while soldiers and civilians die, Crimea is effectively cut off, the Donbas is under constant attack, and Russian defenders struggle, an angry Russian warblogger complains. ⬇️ Image
Image 2/ Anger and contempt at the excesses of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) has become a widespread theme among Russian warbloggers, who almost all regard it as an expensive distraction from an increasingly difficult war.
Jun 5 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
1/ Whatever Russian officials thinks they're achieving by hosting far-right influencer @RealCandaceO in St Petersburg, it's lost on Russia's warbloggers, who say they're dying of cringe. "They probably even licked the ass of that Yankee scum," one says appreciatively. ⬇️ Image 2/ 'Belarusian Silovik' observes sarcastically:

"American journalist Candace Owens, who attended the SPIEF, posted a photo on X with Russian journalists who surrounded her.

Of course, she's a REAL AMERICAN."
Jun 5 • 26 tweets • 6 min read
1/ Vladimir Putin's unconvincing claim that Russia deliberately targeted a 'barn' in Ukraine to test the $50 million Oreshnik missile has produced scorn and incredulity among Russian warbloggers. "Fucking hell," says one flabbergasted warblogger. ⬇️
2/ On 24 May, Russia fired two Oreshnik IRBMs at Ukraine, with inert warheads. One demolised a garage complex at Bila Tservka near Kyiv; the other, embarassingly, fell short and landed in Russian-held territory.
Jun 4 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1/ A "time bomb" has detonated under Russian rumps. Botched attempts in the early 1990s to replicate Brazilian butt lifts are now disintegrating inside Russian backsides, causing buttocks to 'literally melt'. ⬇️ Image
Image 2/ 'Baza' reports:

"Thirty years later, the first post-Soviet buttock augmentations have become a shapeless mess and caused a ton of discomfort to their "owners."
Jun 4 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Ukraine appears to have attacked Russian aircraft under cover in concrete shelters, likely with drones flown into the entrances. Details are as yet scant. ⬇️ Image 2/ "The 'Helicopterpilot' Telegram channel, written by a Russian military helicopter pilot, predicted on 27 May that "judging by how the Ukrainians are progressing and methodically whacking our air defence systems, oil refineries, trucks, and military equipment along the…
Jun 4 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
1/ A Russian soldier serving in Ukraine says that the situation is terrible and getting worse. "It’s absolute chaos over here with all the bodies right now ... the action is getting heavier and heavier every day. We're just a bunch of fucking losers." ⬇️
2/ Russian warbloggers are becoming increasingly outspoken in describing how the war is going badly for their side. 'When the cannons start singing' publishes an account from a reader who is with the Russian Army in Ukraine: