Igor Zaytsev's blog

Two stories seem connected to the previous update.

Prigozhin no more enlisting criminals. The coincidence is remarkable. It seems after the evil clown Progozhin decided he is now a superstar and started to criticize the Russian MoD, about month ago he lost access to the cheap and dispensable cannon meat from penal colonies. Since those are contracted for 6 months only, it means he will lose the bulk of his forces (by Western reports between 20 to 40 thousand men) in the next five months. Well, maybe if he would be a good evil clown, he’ll get this privilege of grinding Slavs (on both sides) and make money in the process back. Yet it is also possible he will be dethroned, since the last execution-style killing of a known Lugansk militia officer nicknamed Bereg is rumored to be connected to Wagner.

On the “new uniforms” RuMoD initiative, some new interesting details emerged and got widespread by reposts on Rybar Telegram channel. Specifically, the “new and improved” uniform made of (reportedly) low-quality materials is being sold for thousands of USD worth of rubles. The producer is a newborn company, headed by the son of high-ranking Russian official in charge of government procurements. But no matter how loud the news is, it is obvious any government corruption is unpunishable and won’t be noticed by authorities, as long as doon by the “right” people.

After the lost boy in nominal charge of the project called UA has visited UK to ask for some fighter jets, Sky News publishing an article explaining why he wouldn’t. The most hilarious part of this farcical sitcom is where it estimates UA pilot would have to undergo a training lasting about 10 years before they could be qualified to fly UK fighter jets.

The economic fraction of Russian government entered a state of frenzy, trying to keep the broken system afloat instead of fixing it. They put out more and more subsidies to try and stabilize the inherently faulty Russian industry. This is in a situation then the new government budget has swayed deeply into the red.

Meantime, UA has profited more last year from transit of Russian natural gas than the year before the war. Kremlin Kleptocrats are not only selling to the Europe, but they also transferred more than $1B to UA in 2022 and provided it with all the energy it might need to fuel war efforts.