Igor Zaytsev's blog

President Rasputin has expressed his condolences to the family of the actress Inna Churikova who passed away recently. President Rasputin not once expressed his condolences to the families of the servicemen and civilians who died in the war, as far as I know. The difference is the actress died of natural causes, not as a direct result of the president Rasputin’s government treason bordering corrupt and incompetent actions.

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The Saxony’s Prime Minister wants Germany to repair the Nord Stream pipelines. It seems Germans are sure Rasputin will start pumping them with the cheap natural gas as soon as the war is over, and Germany will turn-off its energy sanctions against Russia.

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Turkey is negotiating discounts and payment delays for 2023 Russian natural gas supplies. I’m sure president Rasputin will also be happy to support Turkish economy giving it discounts and delaying payments so they could continue supply Ukraine with outlawed munition, drones, armored vehicles and so on. After all, he always had good personal relationship with the leaders that actively trying to harm his country.

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The power struggle between fractions in Moscow made public again. This time the Siloviki fraction is trying to suppress the emerging opposition in their backyard. Namely Prigozhin, who publicly complained that MoD is stealing his thunder after tactical success Wagner Group had in Soledar. And this time is not lowly general like Lapin, but the next-in-line-for–the-throne Shoigu himself (though still not mentioned by name).

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Berdyansk regional authority official’s car was bombed (the official himself was elsewhere at the time. Another Ukrainian terrorist act against civil administration official, this time on Russian territory bordering UA.

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The German minister of defence is resigning her position. The reason isn’t immediately clear, but she was the one that promised 40 Marder IFV’s and hinted at Leopard-2 main battle tanks to be supplied to UA.

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US is to reach their approved budgetary debt of ~$31B in January 19. Legislators would have to raise the national debt cap again, but this time it may be even more tricky than usual.

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Israel is halting its monthly payments to Ukrainian refugees. Actually, the article mention that Russian and Belarus refugees were also in this category. Anyhow, those people would have to start finding work (which is not an easy task in Israel which has a large number of migrant workers), or be heading back to their respective or some third countries.

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Italian magazine reports (via Russian Kommersant news agency) that US is pressuring Rome to supply one of the 5 Italian SAMP/T medium-range air-defense systems to UA. Article also says that one of those five batteries is currently deployed in Kuwait. Somehow, Italy (with French assistance) is expected to supply one battery to Ukraine. The SAMP/T uses an Aster family missiles, intended originally as Franco-Italian naval air-defence and missile-defence system. It has an active radar terminal guidance system. Different versions (or “blocks” in US terminology) of the Astern missiles exist, from the basic medium-range anti-aircraft missile with limited anti-ballistic-missile capabilities, to the more advanced ones with emphasized anti-ballistic-missile capabilities and extended range. Whose are expensive missiles which could be compared to the latter variants of Standard SM-2 missiles but with active radar homing, which increases their price. Depending on the exact model of missiles supplied to Ukraine, they could have somewhat similar capabilities to the S-300PS/PM and Patriot PAC-2, or to the S-300VM and Patriot PAC-3. In any case, one battery will hardly make any difference to UA, and will be felt more by the Italian armed forces, which only have five of those batteries in their possession.