aihue

In the 20 months of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, the Ukrainian army has captured around 200 of Russia’s T-72B3 tanks.

The T-72B3, a product of Uralvagonzavod in Nizhny Tagil, is one of Russia’s newer tanks. And unlike, say, the T-64BV, the T-80U or the T-72AMT, Ukrainian industry doesn’t have much experience with the type.

So when a Ukrainian tanker with the callsign “Kochevnik” ran into problems with his captured Russian T-72B3—problems local expertise couldn’t immediately solve—he called Uralvagonzavod tech support. And incredibly, the help line actually helped.

Militarnyi captured Kochevnik’s calls on video.

Kochevnik serves in the Ukrainian army’s 54th Mechanized Brigade, which fights around Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine and operates mostly Soviet-vintage equipment including T-64 tanks and BMP fighting vehicles. It also owns some of Ukraine’s ex-Russian T-72B3s.

Kochevnik was trolling the Russians, mostly. But his gripes with his 45-ton, three-person tank were real. The tank had been spewing oil. Its compressors weren’t working. The electrical turret-rotation mechanism kept failing, forcing the crew to rotate the turret with a hand crank.

While any tank can be temperamental, the list of malfunctions Kochevnik was dealing with might speak to inconsistent workmanship at Uralvagonzavod’s factories.

A Russian who gave his name as Aleksander Anatolevich, who clearly was unaware that Kochevnik is a Ukrainian soldier, promised he’d bring up the problems with the design bureau in Nizhny Tagil—and that he’d also contact the engine-manufacturer in Chelyabinsk.

Kochevnik wasn’t done trolling. He also got ahold of Andrey Abakumov, a Uralvagonzavod director. Abakumov asked Kochevnik to describe the tank’s problems in detail on WhatsApp.

That’s when Kochevnik finally revealed he’s Ukrainian, and his army had captured the problematic T-72 around Izium late last year.

Laughing, Kochevnik ended the call.

Three Russian propagandists — military expert Konstantin Sivkov, TASS news wire employee Mikhail Tereshchenko, and political analyst Timofei Sergeitsev — recently found severed pig heads outside their homes. (Death threats for these guys are no surprise.)

MOSCOW, September 27 - RIA Novosti. Konstantin Sivkov, a prominent Russian military expert, told RIA Novosti that unknown people planted a pig's head under his door and threatened to kill him for supporting the Defense Ministry.

This is the second such case to come to light on Wednesday: the day before, the press service of the Rossiya Segodnya news agency said, a pig's head was planted under the door of RIA Novosti columnist Timofei Sergeitsev.

"I was on vacation. A pig's head was planted right under the apartment door. Then they called me and told me that it was due to the fact that I was misbehaving in the information space. They started demanding from me that I refuse to support the actions of the Russian president, refuse to support the special military operation and our Armed Forces," Sivkov said.

"There were threats up to and including assassination. The following was said verbatim: "We have long arms, and we can kill you at any moment, and nothing will happen to us for this," Sivkov added. The doctor of military sciences specified that this incident happened to him on September 19. According to him, he immediately contacted the law enforcement agencies, but did not make public statements. Now he has confirmed the fact of what happened after a request from RIA Novosti and the appearance of information in the Telegram channels. Sivkov refused to comment on the investigation, referring to the secrecy of the investigation.

This is not the first case of psychological pressure on Sivkov. Earlier in April 2023, the expert received from an unknown sender a bust of Marshal Zhukov, gilded in the same way as the statuette with the explosives that were used to kill military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky.

The total combat losses of the enemy from 24.02.22 to 12.09.23 were approximately:

• personnel - about 269760 (+550) persons,
• tanks - 4568 (+8) units,
• armored personnel carriers - 8778 (+11) units
• artillery systems - 5872 (+33) units,
• MLRS - 764 (+4) units,
• air defense systems / Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 515 (+3) units
• aircraft - 315 (+0) units
• helicopters - 316 (+0) units,
• UAV operational-tactical level - 4645 (+17),
• cruise missiles - 1455 (+0),
• ships / boats / warships / boats - 19 (+0) units,
• vehicles and fuel tanks - 8413 (+43) units,
• special equipment - 881 (+4).

Data are being updated.

The Russian military intends to recruit 420,000 contract personnel by the end of 2023. On 3 September 2023, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dimitry Medvedev stated that so far 280,000 personnel had been recruited. These numbers cannot be independently verified. Russia's conscription continues to have negative effects on its industry workforce. The Yegor Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy found that Russia's industry shortage of workers reached a new high of 42% for July 2023, 7% higher from April 2023.

In contrast to conscription efforts elsewhere, in the IT sector Russia has taken steps to preserve the workforce. This likely highlights the particularly acute shortages in the sector after about 100,000 IT workers left Russia in 2022. This equates to 10% of the IT sector workforce. On 4 September 2023, President Putin signed a decree to increase the exemption age of military recruitment for IT professionals from 27 to 30.

This shows that mobilisation and conscription within Russia has worsened non-defence workforce shortages. In the run-up to the Russian presidential elections scheduled for March 2024, Russian authorities will likely seek to avoid further unpopular mobilisations.

The total combat losses of the enemy from 24.02.22 to 11.09.23 were approximately:

• personnel - about 269210 (+580) people / persons,
• tanks - 4560 (+6) units,
• armored personnel carriers - 8767 (+12) units
• artillery systems - 5839 (+28) units,
• MLRS - 760 (+0) units,
• air defense systems / Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 512 (+3) units
• aircraft - 315 (+0) units
• helicopters - 316 (+0) units,
• UAV operational-tactical level - 4628 (+35),
• cruise missiles - 1455 (+0),
• ships / boats / warships / boats - 19 (+0) units,
• vehicles and fuel tanks - 8370 (+32) units,
• special equipment - 877 (+5).

Data are being updated.

Russian authorities in the occupied regions of Ukraine plan to hold elections for the first time, on the 8-10 September 2023, in parallel with those held in the Russian Federation. Voting has already started in Zaporizhzhia and Mariupol.

Whilst over 1,000 candidates have been indentified, there is a lack of qualified, experienced, and willing candidates according to some reports. There is also an absence of independent candidates that are not members of the Kremlin endorsed parties, indicating that these will not be free or fair elections. The Ukrainian Centre of National Resistance claims that the occupation administrations have significantly overstated the number of voters on the electoral register.

Kremlin polls indicate United Russia, the dominant political party in the Russian Federation, is predicted to gain 80 per cent of the vote in the four occupied regions. The United Russia party will likely command the majority of seats in an attempt to secure the Kremlin's hold and influence over the occupied regions.

The total combat losses of the enemy from 24.02.22 to 05.09.23 were approximately:

• personnel - about 265680 (+560) persons,
• tanks - 4489 (+9) units,
• armored personnel carriers - 8670 (+7) units
• artillery systems - 5649 (+38) units,
• MLRS - 747 (+6) units,
• air defense systems / Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 504 (+1) units
• aircraft - 315 (+0) units
• helicopters - 316 (+0) units,
• UAV operational-tactical level - 4512 (+31),
• cruise missiles - 1447 (+0),
• ships / boats / warships / boats - 19 (+0) units,
• vehicles and fuel tanks - 8175 (+26) units,
• special equipment - 851 (+4).

Data are being updated.

She already has been released after being charged with discrediting Russia's Military

On 31 August 2023, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), alongside international partners, published a report on a malware campaign targeting Android mobile devices used by the Ukrainian military.

The malware, referred to as ‘Infamous Chisel’, has been used by the Russian cyber threat group known as Sandworm. NCSC has previously attributed Sandworm to the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate’s (GRU) Main Centre for Special Technologies (GTsST).

Infamous Chisel enables persistent access to, and the collation and exfiltration of data from, compromised Android devices. This includes targeting applications used by the Ukrainian military.

Infamous Chisel has highly likely been used with the aim of stealing sensitive military information. This activity demonstrates Russia’s continued use of cyber capabilities to support the invasion of Ukraine.

The total combat losses of the enemy from 24.02.22 to 04.09.23 were approximately:

• personnel - about 265120 (+460) persons,
• tanks - 4480 (+4) units,
• armored personnel carriers - 8663 (+14) units
• artillery systems - 5611 (+29) units,
• MLRS - 741 (+2) units,
• air defense systems / Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 503 (+1) units
• aircraft - 315 (+0) units
• helicopters - 316 (+0) units,
• UAV operational-tactical level - 4481 (+37),
• cruise missiles - 1447 (+0),
• ships / boats / warships / boats - 19 (+1) units,
• vehicles and fuel tanks - 8149 (+47) units
• special equipment - 847 (+6) units.

Data are being updated.