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thebigmole.bsky.social
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1/ A Russian veteran of the Chechen war who has deserted from the war in Ukraine has described how poorly-equipped Russian soldiers were forced into assaults, shot by their own side if severely wounded, and stopped by Chechen 'blocking detachments' if they tried to retreat. ⬇️

submitted 4 hours ago • 2 comments

1/ The Russian army is sending one-armed and one-legged soldiers into assaults, according to a wounded Chechen soldier who has been assigned to a so-called 'cripple battalion'. He says that the men's fitness status is systematically being falsified. ⬇️

submitted 1 day ago • 10 comments

1/ Three years into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a prominent Russian warblogger laments that the Russian people still don't understand what the war is about. He urges the Russian leadership to inspire the people, as with sufficient inspiration "they will go to Poland". ⬇️

submitted 2 days ago • 9 comments

1/ Russian military recruiters are enlisting the elderly, alcoholics, drug addicts and the homeless into the army, apparently to meet recruitment quotas. Not surprisingly, the new recruits are proving problematic in training and on the battlefield. ⬇️

submitted 2 days ago • 24 comments

1/ Iran's rapid military collapse is being blamed by Russian warbloggers on rampant corruption under the country's notionally Islamist regime. Everything is for sale like in "the late USSR", they say, which has allowed the Israelis to infiltrate Iran with ease. ⬇️

submitted 3 days ago • 9 comments

1/ A single Russian brigade has lost more than 12,000 men – more than five times its authorised strength. Its soldiers say they are subjected to violence, abuse, torture and robbery by their own commanders, who throw them into bloody attacks where thousands die. ⬇️

submitted 4 days ago • 21 comments

This week on the blog! Part 2 of our look at the famous opening sequence of Gladiator (2000) this time looking at formations, signals and infantry tactics. Once again, Gladiator does a deceptive job of pretending accuracy, while not achieving it. acoup.blog/2025/06/13/c...

submitted 5 days ago • 13 comments

1/ On preparing a new member of a Russian stormtrooper unit, to which he has been assigned as a punishment, for his first assault mission: ⬇️

submitted 5 days ago • 6 comments

1/ Corrupt Russian officers are suspected to be selling information to Ukraine, contributing to the destruction of high-value assets such as this Iskander missile launcher, according to a Russian journalist. ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/oldd...

submitted 6 days ago • 6 comments

1/ The imprisoned Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin has given a gloomy prediction of the likelihood of Russian success in the Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine. They're well-defended by the Ukrainians, he says, while Russia has insufficient forces to capture them. ⬇️

submitted 6 days ago • 10 comments

1/ Israel launched drones which attacked targets in Iran using what may have been an identical method to that employed by Ukraine recently. A video shows what appears to be a commercial vehicle, reportedly used as a drone launcher, self-destructing near Tehran yesterday. ⬇️

submitted 7 days ago • 10 comments

1/ Putin's announcement of a new Russian drone force has been welcomed grudgingly by Russian warbloggers. They complain that it's far too late, and highlight the deficiencies of a bureaucratic system that provides soldiers with too few drones. ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/kyiv...

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

1/ A Russian army captain whose commander ordered him to be tied to a tree so that the Ukrainians would kill him says that he is now being sent to his death on the front line. He accuses his senior officers of stealing volunteer aid sent to the 24th Motorised Rifle Regiment. ⬇️

submitted 9 days ago • 10 comments

1/ A Russian soldier says that his commanders banned the wounded from retreating from the battlefield and executed those who retreated without orders. The injured men who stayed there "rotted alive without medical care and water". He had to pay a $38,000 bribe to be evacuated. ⬇️

submitted 10 days ago • 13 comments

1/ A Russian military doctor has spoken frankly in an interview about the atrocious state of Russian military medicine and the lack of medical training given to soldiers. Most of the wounded die, he says, and doctors themselves are treated as 'slaves' by the Russian military. ⬇️

submitted 10 days ago • 6 comments

1/ Colonel Anton Necherda, the commander of a Russian Army regiment, is reported to have been arrested for a string of brutal crimes against his own men including extortion, beating, torture and murder. His own deputy, a lieutenant colonel, was allegedly one of his victims. ⬇️

submitted 11 days ago • 15 comments

1/ Russian soldiers face being sent to their deaths if they appeal publicly for volunteer aid, according to Russian warbloggers. Commanders regard it as reflecting badly on the Russian army, forcing aid appeals to be made anonymously. Even so, much of the aid is still stolen. ⬇️

submitted 11 days ago • 5 comments

1/ Russian warbloggers are advocating various ways of taking revenge on Ukraine, but Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist and propagandist Dmitry Steshin has proposed an option which even the warbloggers aren't sure about: nuking Chornobyl. ⬇️

submitted 13 days ago • 8 comments

1/ A Russian deserter has described how Russian evacuation teams loot bodies for items to trade for alcohol and leave the wounded to die. He had most of his teeth pulled out to force him to join a stormtrooper squad, after which he deserted and fled to Germany. ⬇️

submitted 13 days ago • 10 comments

1/ Foreign-made components in Russian Kilo-class submarines in the Black Sea Fleet have reportedly been systematically stripped out and replaced with Russian or Chinese components. However, this is said to have resulted in corruption and significant problems with reliability. ⬇️

submitted 14 days ago • 10 comments

1/ Russia's use of frontline 'combat donkeys' is backfiring, according to Russian warbloggers. They say that the animals' large thermal signature is allowing the Ukrainians to track them easily and expose hidden Russian positions. ⬇️

submitted 14 days ago • 17 comments

1/ The Russian Air Force's inability to protect its aircraft against Ukrainian drones is symptomatic of its neglected status within the Russian armed forces, according to a prominent milblogger linked to the air force. He says it is afflicted by "desperation and poverty". ⬇️

submitted 14 days ago • 14 comments

1/ A Russian military journalist says that Russian manufacturers won't produce electronic warfare drones because "the more UAVs shot down at the front, the more orders they have". It's said to illustrate how they are treating the war as a get-rich-quick scheme. ⬇️

submitted 15 days ago • 10 comments

1/ Following Ukraine's drone attacks on Russian airfields, the Russian Air Force is reported to have responded by ordering its personnel to build wire and mesh anti-drone shelters for aircraft – at their own expense. Naturally, the airmen aren't happy about this. ⬇️

submitted 16 days ago • 7 comments

1/ Russian sources report that today's Ukrainian strike on the Kerch Bridge to Crimea failed to damage the bridge itself due to the successful operation of protective structures around the bridge supports. ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/kate...

submitted 17 days ago • 6 comments

1/ Two fatal bridge collapses in 24 hours have highlighted the shoddy state of Russia's railway infrastructure. Despite a recent record level of investment, much of the money has been stolen by corrupt contractors and Russian Railways officials. ⬇️

submitted 19 days ago • 11 comments

Fireside this week, discussing the US system of officer training, with a focus on 'PME' (Professional Military Education) in the staff and war colleges. It's an important ecosystem for training America's military leaders, but not one the public thinks much about. acoup.blog/2025/05/30/f...

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

1/ Evidence reportedly from the scene of the assassination of the deputy mayor of Stavropol, former Russian army major Zaur Gurtsiev, suggests that the bomb which killed him and his companion Nikola Penkov was remotely detonated. ⬇️

submitted 21 days ago • 5 comments

1/ The killer of the deputy mayor of Stavropol, former Russian army major Zaur Gurtsiev, is reported to have been a man whom he met on a gay dating website. The man may not have known he was carrying a bomb. ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/mili...

submitted 22 days ago • 14 comments

1/ This graph from @jonbruner.bsky.social tells an important story: America's current dominance in science only began after the mid-1930s, when persecuted scientists began fleeing universities in Germany and then elsewhere in occupied Europe.

submitted 23 days ago • 11 comments

1/ While the Ukrainians welcome home their exchanged prisoners of war, Russian warbloggers criticise their own POWs for not having died fighting and call for them to be interrogated and/or prosecuted for surrendering. ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/urik...

submitted 25 days ago • 12 comments

1/ An announcement that Russia's new BT-3F is entering testing has been met with hostility by Russian warbloggers, who accuse its makers of ignoring lessons from the Ukraine war. "Just copy the Bradley," one urges. ⬇️

submitted 26 days ago • 9 comments

This week on the blog: The logistics of Road War in Mad Max (and similar) settings: given logistical and tactical constraints, how might we actually expect warfare to be waged in a post-apocalypse? The answer is...a little bit technical. acoup.blog/2025/05/23/c...

submitted 28 days ago • 23 comments

1/ North Korean "hobbits" are "passionately fond of chocolate, foreign films and pictures of naked women," have trouble telling Russians and Ukrainians apart, and have a habit of stealing and vandalising things, according to a Russian warblogger. ⬇️

submitted 28 days ago • 8 comments

1/ The huge reported scale of corruption in the Russian military wouldn't be possible without the active support and involvement of senior officers. An appeal to Putin from one Russian soldier highlights how even generals are likely to be profiting from the war in Ukraine. ⬇️

submitted 32 days ago • 5 comments

1/ Russians in pre-trial detention – not even having been convicted of a crime – say they are being tortured and forced to choose between sexual assault and signing a military contract. At the front, they were told they were animals and were wiped out in their first assault. ⬇️

submitted 32 days ago • 19 comments

1/ North Korean soldiers fighting against Ukraine in Russia are reportedly causing problems for the local people, including drunkenness, thefts and attempted rapes. It's being blamed on the unusual degree of freedom that they're experiencing fighting for Russia. ⬇️

submitted 33 days ago • 10 comments

1/ Nearly two years after Yevgeny Prigozhin died, an account has been published of a tense meeting with Vladimir Putin in which the Wagner Group leader rejected subordination to the Russian Ministry of Defence. "Zhenya, you're fucking nuts", Putin is said to have told him. ⬇️

submitted 34 days ago • 4 comments

1/ Officers in a Russian rifle regiment are said to be labelling soldiers as deserters to avoid paying them, beating them, denying medical care, forcing female medics into sex, and sending men into assaults without equipment while telling them to scavenge it on the battlefield. ⬇️

submitted 35 days ago • 18 comments

1/ A veterans' certificate has become one of the most sought-after documents in Russia due to the benefits it brings. Not surprisingly, this is attracting legions of imposters and 'dead souls', a classic Russian scam dating back at least 200 years. ⬇️

submitted 35 days ago • 5 comments

1/ A Russian soldier who has fled to the West for asylum has described life in an occupied frontline Ukrainian district. He describes children being abducted, wounded soldiers being sent into assaults, corrupt and incompetent officers, and a tank unit relying on 70-year-old film props. ⬇️

submitted 36 days ago • 8 comments

1/ Thousands of Ukrainian civilians still live in destroyed villages under Russian occupation. Their situation is less visible than those in the cities, but a Russian soldier's account gives an idea of an environment where occupiers and civilians co-exist uneasily among ruins. ⬇️

submitted 37 days ago • 3 comments

1/ A shared love of nuclear weapons unites Ukrainians and Jamaicans, a new poll reports. Africans and South Asians don't like international law, Russians are keener to fight for their country than Ukrainians, and the latter want more than Russians to spend money on defence. ⬇️

submitted 38 days ago • 5 comments

1/ According to the original source: "9th separate motorised rifle brigade. "500s" (deserters) who try to escape from their positions are put in a barrel without being given any food or water for several days."

submitted 38 days ago • 5 comments

1/ A military doctor who has deserted from the Russian army says she was forced to be a commander's 'field wife', had to rate crippled men as fit, saw 'undesirable' soldiers being shot by their officers, and others being "sold for slaughter" for their commanders' profit. ⬇️

submitted 38 days ago • 10 comments

1/ A new survey shows that global trust in the United States has plummeted since Donald Trump returned to office. Trump himself is less popular internationally than Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Israel and Iran come out as the least popular countries in the world. ⬇️

submitted 39 days ago • 10 comments

1/ The screech of drones (sound on) has become the defining sound of the Russia-Ukraine war. Two Russian commentaries describe what it's like in an environment where, according to Russian sources, Ukrainian drones outnumber Russian by seven to one. ⬇️

submitted 39 days ago • 5 comments

1/ A frustrated Russian warblogger complains at the "hopeless" nature of coordination between units of the Russian army, which he says is characterised by "arrogant disregard". It's a situation, he says, where "one branch of the military spins on the dick of another." ⬇️

submitted 40 days ago • 3 comments

1/ An ongoing crisis at Russian Railways is deepening, with a 50% cut on payments to employees and such a severe shortage of personnel that some divisions of the company are down to 40% of their intended staff numbers. Despite this, it has imposed a ban on hiring. ⬇️

submitted 42 days ago • 22 comments