The main topic the Russians worry about right now is the second wave of mobilization.
The first war anniversary is approaching and Putin has nothing to boast about except for new losses.
The losses have to be replaced with new resources. Except for nuclear weapons,
Putin has no other option with how to change the war – he has to satiate the front with living force.
Everything Putin could try, he has already tried. There has been no order to stop mobilization.
Yesterday, Putin created a working group on mobilization for some reason.
The President’s verbal promises that mobilization has stopped mean as much as his promises
not to increase the retirement age, rewrite the Constitution and not to mobilize people (all failed).
Any statements of the state media and the Ministry of Defense mean nothing.
I’ll remind you of this post by Margarita Simonyan which is still in her Telegram-channel.
She was even so kind as to highlight the key messages with caps lock.
There are no barriers either to start the second mobilization wave, or to continue conscripting people gradually
and quietly, behind the scenes.
Moreover, that’s what state propaganda is preparing us for – that mobilization will continue this or that way.
Earlier the government stubbornly repeated that the special military operation is going on according to the plan.
Don’t you even dare to call it “a war”, “I’ll punish and imprison you without mercy!”.
But when they couldn’t make a good face in a bad game any longer, when they found out that the bluff like
“we haven’t started it properly yet” doesn’t work, then they had to transform Putin’s special operation into a people's war.
Putin’s adventure is now represented as a common business for all the Russians.
In reality, common business for all the Russians is to save the citizens of Russia.
Vladimir Putin wouldn’t be himself if he, like most of the dictators, hasn't possessed a thirst for survival.
Most of the dictators don’t know gentlemanly chess rules – when a player understands that the game is lost,
he surrenders and doesn’t waste someone else’s time.
A dictator, however, will stubbornly continue fighting even in the most hopeless case and sacrifice any chess pieces
just to postpone the inevitable loss.
If a dictator was not like that, well, he wouldn’t be a dictator. In chess a set of pieces is called “material”.
We should understand that Putin’s system doesn’t think that mobilized soldiers will be the winners in the future.
For this system the citizens of Russia are a material to continue a hopeless game.
Our task is to avoid becoming a material ourselves and to protect our close ones,
acquaintances and fellow citizens from this too.
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT SOLDIERS’ EQUIPMENT
So much has been said and written about how badly Russian mobilized soldiers are equipped,
so it looks like the topic is completely clear.
However, I’ll add a few things. Let’s remember the wealthy before-war times.
Every year the Ministry of Defense announces a spring and an autumn conscription.
The system is a well-oiled machine. Every conscription plan is well-known, and the number of conscripts is never a surprise.
There is peace and the government has plenty of money.
But even in a normal situation the military agency is not able to provide the soldiers with all the necessary things.
When we on our channel together with the viewers tried to sum up the experience of military service in the Russian army,
almost everyone recalled the common problem of old socks’ theft.
One pair of socks is given for the whole year, and after that you should do whatever you want.
Any uniform piece which is no longer good enough to wear (even shoelaces) becomes a soldier’s personal problem.
If your boots haven’t survived after the attack, you must give birth to another pair.
Obtain it wherever you want, and your chief will come and check that your new boots are just like your previous ones.
When Sergey Shoigu became the Minister of the Defense, first of all he had to solve the uniform problem.
Military uniform introduced by his predecessor Anatoly Serdyukov caused the outbreak of hypothermia
and pneumonia cases in the Russian army; there were even fatal outcomes.
Even in the peaceful times the army suffered serious losses. Instead of Serdyukov’s uniform Shoigu
introduced the so-called “all-seasons basic equipment kit”.
Later it was renamed into “all-seasons field equipment kit”. Soldiers stopped dying. But another problem has arisen.
It turned out that the country wasn’t able to produce so many of those kits.
They have to compromise – each conscription season’s soldiers have to give their uniform back after service
so that future conscription generations could finish it off.
Putin started the war with the army which lacked the most necessary things (boots, socks, and warm clothes)
even in peaceful times when conscription plans were well-known beforehand.
What the mobilized soldiers are going to wear in winter? Meanwhile, no one has canceled regular conscription too.
Vladimir Soloviev has an answer for us.
When you're given a uniform set – it's a gigantic sack with summer-winter socks, summer-winter underwear,
a mat you can sleep on, summer and winter uniform, coats, hats, boots – a lot of stuff.
Soloviev says it so confidently because most of the viewers don’t understand anything in the uniform –
“well, it’s just a pixel uniform”. But we have people in our team who do understand it.
In Soloviev’s video we can see old “earflaps” which are ironically called “hats with fish fur”.
And those Serdyukov’s military coats too, the most hideous ones, the first generation of Serdyukov’s coats.
They have a feature – the epaulets are not on the shoulders but in an American way – one on the chest and one can be taken
from the on-shoulder pocket.
After that epaulets on Serdyukov’s coats became traditional and the insulation became a bit better.
And in Soloviev's video there are the earliest coats.
In those coats the military staff died in winter not in the trenches or in a war, but in permanent bases in peaceful times.
In 2010, when the uniform was massively introduced, there was an outburst of diseases.
For example, on January 17 in the quarters in Kemerovo region more than 70 conscripts
were hospitalized with suspected pneumonia, the officers complained that new soldiers weren't well-provided for,
and the human rights advocates and experts blamed it on defective uniform.
This uniform was made by people who fought for this order – it's a huge pile of money.
And people didn't think how to make warm and comfortable uniform, but how to get more money.
They thought about an American lining – too expensive, the German one too.
Then they found a cheap Russian one, concocted this poor uniform and gave it to the army.
The field "digit" uniform replaced the Afghan uniform from the 90s. The main difference is the location of epaulets.
This is a news story from the beginning of the previous decade.
And now in this marvelous uniform the Russians have to go to war in winter.
PEOPLE CANNOT BE DEFEATED
Any war is a two-way road. As the current war has been going on for 9 months, it’s obvious that the Ukrainian citizens
have their own motivation to proceed with this war. Otherwise, the war would have stopped a long time ago.
We’ll say a few words about this important question. In the very beginning of the war Vladimir Putin announced…
The Russian army mostly fight not with the regular armed forces of Ukraine but with nationalistic groups.
Even then we said on our channel that this was a downright lie.
The Russian troops are fighting against the Ukrainian regular army which intends to defend its country.
It’s a very important thing. Even when Putin said that the special military operation was in the interests
of the Ukrainian people who had been allegedly trapped by Zelensky…
Even when Putin said that the Ukrainian military men were our friends and we needed to help them to get rid of
some “nationalist groups”…
Even at that moment the Armed Forces of Ukraine were highly motivated to perform their military duty consistent
with their oath.
And that’s what Putin didn’t expect at all!
And what’s now?
Now, no one from the Russian officials says that the Ukrainians should be liberated from “the Nazis and drug-addicts”.
Now the main party line is as follows – “the citizens of Ukraine should be left without heating,
water or electricity in the middle of winter”.
The most well-known hosts on the state TV-channels, Dmitry Kiselyov and Vladimir Soloviev, say it straightforwardly.
Less popular hosts on the same federal TV-channels laugh openly at the sufferings of the Ukrainian civil people.
The host Eugenia Petrukhina finds it amusing that the Ukrainians
who try to warm themselves up with diesel generators die from fire or carbon dioxide.
More and more messages are coming about carbon monoxide poisoning.
Journalists write about a girl who used a generator incorrectly.
She is now at a hospital — the generator cannot be left on for a night, especially in a basement, where there’s no air flow.
I’d call them death generators.
An 18-years-old girl, almost a child, got poisoned by carbon dioxide.
Who knows, perhaps, she will be disabled for the rest of her life which has just started.
The broadcast manager of the Russian “Russia Today” Anton Krasovsky said that the Ukrainian children
should be drowned or (it’s a quote) we need “to gather them in a shack and burn them”.
The Russian Investigative Committee got excited at first, but then it stated that there was nothing criminal in this statement.
Boris Korchevnikov, the head of the federal TV-channel “Spas” in the interview with a clergyman interprets
the Old Testament in a very peculiar way. He said that in the Biblical times God ordered the prophets Moses and Joshua
to destroy the whole nations in Canaan.
And it means that the genocide of the Ukrainians might be considered a divine justice.
Not without reason even the tiniest journalists like Vladislav Ugolniy can call for genocide straightforwardly
and without any fear.
Look at the author of one of the most well-known Z Telegram channels Vladlen Tatarsky.
He is so cheerful, he recorded this right in George's Hall of the Kremlin.
That’s it. We’ll defeat everyone, kill everyone, rob everyone. Everything will be just as we like.
You’ve seen just a small bit of the content produced by the official state media and the local enthusiasts.
And now think, do you want to fight for such goals described here?
Under the management of these people with such media support?
And now try walking in the shoes of the Ukrainian citizens. Most of the Ukrainians are fluent in Russian.
They use the same Internet as we do. They watch it too.
And certainly they watch it with even more attention than the Russians – because it concerns them and their children.
Imagine, how desperately, how selflessly you would fight, if it was about you.
A foreign army came from abroad which intends to destroy you and your children.
And new Alexander Matrosovs and Nikolay Gastellos (Soviet war heroes) will emerge just from a basic parental instinct,
let alone patriotism. If the army fights for its own nation’s survival, woe to anyone who meets it on the battlefield.
Russian propaganda compares Putin’s war with the Great Patriotic War all the time.
But it escapes me why on earth the Russian propagandists have decided that the Russian army is the heir
of the victorious Red Army. Not the Russian troops had to stop the enemy’s tanks nearby Moscow.
In the current war the Ukrainian army defended its capital from the foreign intrusion.
I’ll underline once again – in the beginning of the war, during the Kyiv defense,
the Ukrainian military staff just performed their military duty having limited forces and means.
And then they won.
And the best and most able parts of the Russian army died then.
And now, knowing what the Russian propagandists say about the Ukrainians and their children,
it’s not just about duty consistent with their oath and charter. It’s a patriotic war for them now.
And they are not alone anymore – they’ve got lend-lease, military and humanitarian help from many countries.
The citizens of Ukraine defend their country and families.
They felt the taste of victory under Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Kherson.
And they know what the price for defeat will be (Russian propaganda was so eloquent describing it).
You can’t defeat a nation leading a patriotic war.
The best thing which might happen to the foreign intruder is the soon-return home with some minor wound.
This happiness will not be available for everyone. Not everyone will return home.
And many people who do will never be able to lead a normal life.
Putin’s government manipulates people. Having enormous fortunes, they drive people to poverty,
debts and micro loans.
The phenomenon of Putin’s Russia is that a person who honestly works a 40-hours week can’t earn enough
to provide for himself. He should die at work and think constantly how he can provide for himself.
In a country with traditional values, spiritual bonds and a healthy family cult, most of the parents don’t raise their children.
They literally “bring them up” with many difficulties.
To raise children in Russia is not a norm, it’s like a record in weightlifting.
Driving people to inhumane conditions, this government in a voluntarily-compulsory manner offers people a simple option –
to go to war and quickly earn some money.
For a month in the front they can earn more than in a year of heavy work in their town or village.
People mustn’t succumb to such manipulation.
It’s not even that the government which constantly cheated people earlier will definitely find a way
to avoid paying everyone.
They already find such ways and say through its officials that they didn’t send you there.
Even if all the volunteers and mobilized soldiers got their salary in full, as well as all the promised premiums and benefits,
it wouldn’t change anything.
What kind of choice is that? Either to live your poor miserable life despite your hard work, skills and experience,
or to go to war in a foreign country against the whole nation.
If the government gives you just those two options, you shouldn’t agree to anything and just build another government.
Every Russian, even the poorest and most desperate one, can build a better life with his own hands.
If he hasn’t lost it somewhere under Bakhmut. But you must survive until this point.
You must stay alive and healthy, and be normal and sane.
So, don’t go to the front yourself and prevent your close ones from going there too.
And even if this person is not so close, do your best to stop him.
He will be given a coat which makes soldiers freeze to death even in peaceful times.
He will freeze with poor equipment and food until he meets a HIMARS missile or very angry Ukrainians.
This meeting will be fatal.
Because those people who sent him there told him explicitly to kill the Ukrainians together with their children.
Please, also think why should you go there? What is its positive goal?
Let’s assume you are not scared of anything - of death, of wounds. Why would you go there?
To do what? Don’t go there!
Till tomorrow!