Kremlin’s definition of victory/defeat in Ukraine is a mystery, so it is interesting when Rybar circulates a post clearly categorising possible outcomes. Caveat: This comes from the “angry patriots” faction, not the Kremlin. I’ll translate some of it below. Post war trade-off is focused on:

- Ukraine’s future setup: Russia won

- NATO’s setup and European security: Russia won with a knock-out

- line of delimitation: a draw

- 1991 borders: Russia lost

- Russia’s future setup: Russia lost with a knock-out

Some trolling on the account of the Moscow drone attack by Ukraine’s most famous war crowdfunding figure Serhiy Prytula and his close ally Serhiy Sternenko, a far right personality. Prytula’s foundation specialises in acquiring drones for the Ukrainian army. Prytula: Russians, this game can be played by two.

Sternenko: Good night, Moscow.

The pair is producing numerous sketches like this together, mainly with the aim of crowdfunding drones.

An important piece by Ilya Zhegulev explaining, in broad brushes, why and how Putin made his decisions on Crimea, Donbas and Feb 2022 invasion. Based partly on Ukrainian, partly on anonymous Kremlin sources. Not the final truth, but crucial details.
verstka.media/8964-2 A quick recap. The occupation of Crimea was a spontaneous, knee-jerk decision adopted by Putin on his own and against the opinion of his security aides. It was triggered by Kernes’ betrayal of Yanukovych in Kharkiv.

In an interview with Interfax, Ukrainian land forces commander Col-Gen Syrsky paints a picture of Wagner’s tactics that’s quite different from the “zombie waves” propaganda narrative. After devastating tank and artillery strikes, he says, roughy 10-men-strong assault groups proceed to capture the target, using apps which mark Ukrainian positions and backed up drones which direct artillery fire.

Russian military propagandist Aleksandr Sladkov (not a dodgy milblogger, but fully-fledged government TV correspondent) has interviewed Wagner Group’s top neo-nazi Aleksey Milchakov. Not reposting the interview because it contains open justification of ethnocide and war crimes. Sladkov openly asks Milchakov if he is a nazi. In response, the latter describes himself as Russian nationalist and claims he has nothing against the Jews and Dagestani. He dismisses neo-nazism as a subculture that was relevant in the past, but no longer.

The person behind Kremlin’s hapless attempt to launch its pet anti-globalist movement, Aleksandr Ionov, and his US friends from the Uhuru Movement in Florida, Georgia has been indicted by a US court for conducting a “malign influence campaign” in the US.
justice.gov/opa/pr/us-citi… I reported about Ionov and his friends for Bloomberg. He has many more friends in the US, but like the Uhuru folks, they are all super-fringe - mostly one-person separatist projects in places like Hawaii and California. Not sure why the Uhuru Movement was singled out.

Finally, the “St Petersburg column of the National Republican Army” has taken responsibility for the assassination of Maksim Fomin (Vladlen Tatarsky). They say they were acting autonomously and “without any help from foreign organisations, not to mention secret services”. Ukraine-based former Russian politician Ilya Ponomaryov reposted this statement on his Telegram channel exactly five minutes after it was posted.

Many among Russian opposition figures and journalists believe that NRA is a figment of Ponomaryov’s imagination.

Pro-Kremlin TG channels are circulating the allegation that Ukraine-based Russian activist/blogger Roman Popkov was the one who recruited Darya Trepova, the suspect in St Petersburg bombing attack. It very well could be a propaganda attempt to implicate Russian exiles. Popkov is formerly a prominent
National-Bolshevik Party figure, Limonov’s ally. Lately, he’s been reporting for a media outlet funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He is an open sympathiser of Azov movement and advocates violent resistance to Putin’s regime.

Detailed footage of the bombing attack that killed milblogger Maksim Fomin (Vladlen Tatarsky). It shows Fomin asking the alleged perpetrator, Darya Trepova, to sit down near him. She obliges, remaining a few metres away from the epicentre of explosion. In this video, Trepova is seen walking out of the cafe after the bombing, looking dazed and not exactly running away.

Video from the scene of St Petersburg explosion. It took place during an event featuring pro-Russian military blogger from Donbas Maksim Fomin (Vladlen Tatarsky). He is dead, according to Dva Mayora TG channel. Over a dozen people injured. Moment of explosion

Russian Volunteer Corps video posted by Misanthropic Division, a neo-nazi platform, today in the context of Bryansk incident. Hand gestures speak for themselves. The soldiers shout: “Slava Rosssii” (“Glory to Russia”, an equivalent of the Ukranian slogan). Since questions arise, Russian Volunteer Corps are old-school neo-nazis, linked to Azov movement, who have nothing to do with Ilya Pononaryov. They hate the latter for having been a member of the Communist Party and Surkov’s associate.

Posted by Karpatska Sich, this video show soldiers standing in front of a medical facility in Lyubechane, Briansk region (Russia). They claim to be members of the Russian Volunteer Corps fighting on the Ukrainian side. Russian Volunteer Corps is headed by Russian neo-nazi Denis “White Rex” Nikitin (Kapustin).

Karpatska Sich is a far right Ukrainian military unit that serves as a mobilisation platform for foreign volunteers.

“In 2022 BGR made more than half a million dollars lobbying for Pentagon contractors, some of whom are already profiting from the Ukraine war.”

BGR’s senior advisor is former US envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker. theguardian.com/world/2023/mar… Volker is also a distinguished fellow at CEPA, which published his call for arming Ukraine prior to Putin’s invasion, as the article points out.

This might be the start of a serious conversation about the beneficiaries of an endless war in Ukraine. Top of the list is Putin.

Ukrainian police in the war-torn Kharkiv have counted 245 teenagers who were prevented from staging a mass fight inspired by a Japanese anime crime cult originating from Russia.

Around a hundred members of the same cult, known as Redan, were arrested in St Petersburg yesterday. A story you have won’t be able to grasp if your main source of news is Twitter. Or NYT for that matter.

Yes, real security guarantees is full integration of a democratic post-Putin Russia into the EU, NATO. This is not as far-fetched is it seems. It’s just that conflict brings more benefits to various interest groups than peace.

https://twitter.com/russianforces/status/1602618760183119874

There are all kinds of ways in which this conflict can be frozen for some time, but this is the only way it can be solved.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, outed by the Bell as the author of Rybar, the most professional of Russian military propaganda channels on TG, is making a full coming-out in an hour-long interview on RTVI. Zvinchuk says, among other things, that he lost many in his network of informers in the Ukrainian army after Russia’s latest defeats. He says some fled to Poland and then onwards to Russia.

Seeing it in multiple examples: Russian opposition personalities find it shocking to which extent the belligerent part of pro-Ukraine community is opposed to the idea of a democratic Russia integrated with the West. I also used to find it shocking for a long time. Still do.

https://twitter.com/mpltnv/status/1594583417252978689

The explanation is that hateful narratives towards liberal Russians have always been spread in Ukraine by what we commonly know as mafia state - a concoction of oligarchs, siloviki and far right thugs, aided by US think tanks that take cash from the likes of Pinchuk.

Our book with my Twitter-phobic friend Sten Inge Jørgensen is now on sale in Norway. It deals with Russia’s (self-)alienation from the rest of Europe and the trauma of the genocidal 20th century - two factors that led to a new relapse of aggression resulting in a devastating war. The position of both authors is that Putin’s regime, responsible for the aggression against Ukraine, should be defeated. This, we believe, is impossible without getting Russians on board. Not the liberal Russians, but the conformist majority which underpins the regime.

Former head of Heinrich Böll Stiftung in Ukraine. The talent of some Western institutions to attract the worst of Russians never seizes to amaze me.

https://twitter.com/leonov_mr/status/1565778868866371584

Guess I need to explain the context here. Sumlenny is making an anal rape joke in response to a female Russian political prisoner who wrote an open letter today.

Russian propaganda has un-embargoed videos of Azovstal POWs, so now there is plenty on TG channels. They typically show four able-bodied soldiers carrying one wounded on a stretcher, which explains the ratio - 51 sent to hospital vs 200+ moved to a POW camp after surrender. The International Committee of the Red Cross considers publishing images of POWs a breach of Geneva convention, but both sides in this war do it, including some videos of gross mistreatment and executions.

Commander of DNR’s Vostok unit claims an agreement has been reached with a group of Azovstal defenders about their surrender. He assumes they are going to release their wounded. Another source says this is expected to happen at 1730 local time. Various military propagandist channels now say the handover of Azovstal wounded, some of them at least, is already under way. Needs verification, no videos yet.