It’s all about the rubles — and not being a loser.
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1/ Large numbers of elderly Russian men are being attracted by fat recruitment bonuses to join the war in Ukraine for the financial benefit of their families. "I've lived my life, we'll get an apartment for my son now, so what if I get killed?", asks one. ⬇️
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— ChrisO_wiki (@chriso-wiki.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 11:34 AM
5/ A recruitment specialist admits that many of them are poor. "But almost everyone cites patriotic feelings when asked about their motivation. Some mention debt. Of course, everyone is confident they'll survive, but they can't stop thinking about death altogether."
…...
10/ Younger males sign up because they are motivated, as a social worker involved in recruitment says, by "the fact that they're losers. For them, going through the war is one of the few goals in life that's realistically achievable."
11/ "They say it like that: 'I'm 35, I'm a total loser, this is my last chance.'You can completely screw up, get drunk, be lazy, lose your shit, have failed in your relationships, have no family, have been laying around for years playing computer games.
12/ And then they ask you: 'Want to play another game?' There's a non-zero chance it won't go well. But you'll also have money, a profession, status, respect, and the attention of society. And their eyes light up."
13/ Many see military service as the only way out of a life of low-paid drudgery. As Ivan, a fitter, says, "salaries in Russia are low. You're educated, well-read, and you work, but you have no money. If I had a peacetime salary of 200,000 rubles, I wouldn't go to war."
Ukraine hit the Russian refinery at Kstovo near Nizhny Novgorod.
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ASTRA reports a strike on the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region. Analyst group CyberBoroshno geolocated the impact site to the L-24/300 gasoline hydrotreater, which processes over 200,000 tons of fuel annually. Local authorities have not commented.
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— NOELREPORTS (@noelreports.com) October 16, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Russia’s snakebit 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, which has been chewed up multiple times already, got chewed up at Shakhove in the Dobropillia salient.
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Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade launched an assault near Shakhove, Donetsk region, using 9 BTR-82As and 1 T-80BV against Ukraine’s 82nd Air Assault Brigade. The result: 8 APCs and the tank destroyed, before even reaching the frontline.
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— NOELREPORTS (@noelreports.com) October 16, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Russia continues to lose armor at a high rate in the Pokrovsk/Dobropillia area.
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❗️Today Russians launched another large-scale mechanized assault on the Ocheretyne axis.
Oct 16 — Dobropillia (Ocheretyne axis):
Russians conducted a large-scale attack with 22 AFV on positions of responsibility of Azov.
Results of Ukraine’s defense:
• Destroyed: 9 AFV
• Damaged: 4 AFV
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— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 7:18 AM
You may recall a story from a couple days ago about Russia destroying an ammonia pipeline. Seems the Russians thought a toxic gas cloud would clear a path for them.
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Frontline report: Russia blew up an ammonia pipeline to poison Ukrainian defenders, then watched its massive relief column get obliterated anyway.
Russian commanders hoped the toxic cloud would clear a path for a massive assault column to reach trapped soldiers near Pokrovsk⤵️
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— Euromaidan Press (@euromaidanpress.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Russians deployed six tanks, over 40 armored vehicles, and hundreds of troops. Instead, Ukrainian drone operators turned the advance into a massacre, destroying over 60 vehicles and killing more than 100 troops in a matter of hours.
By nightfall, the road to Volodymyrivka had become another "road of death" littered with burning wrecks, and the trapped Russian forces remained cut off.
Ukraine erased a Russian 152 mm self-propelled howitzer firing on the city of Mykolaiv from the Kinburn peninsula.
Russia launched two Iskander ballistic missiles at a Ukrainian training center.
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Russia has published a video of another confirmed strike on a Ukraine training ground.
2 Iskander ballistic missiles hit Honcharivske y'day - about 20km from the border with Belarus
It's the 3rd strike here in 6 weeks. Ukraine admits some soldiers died, which is NOT acceptable
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— Tim White (@twmcltd.bsky.social) September 25, 2025 at 4:41 AM
The drone will find you. Resistance is futile.
An update on the ZNPP.
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☢️ Decision could be made tomorrow to pause fighting for Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station repairs, - Sky News
Alexei Likhachev, head of state nuclear corporation Rosatom, was quoted as saying that the implementation of a "quiet period" could allow for work on two damaged power lines to the plant.
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— Savchenko Volodymyr (@savchenkoua.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Another 1,080 Russians.
The cost of going down is going up.
This is a familiar story — a Russian soldier who has deserted twice details how a commander who stays drunk all the time sends his men to their doom.
You have to wonder how an army this fucked up manages to do as well as they do.
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1/ A Russian soldier has spoken of how his entire battalion was wiped out at the hands of a perpetually drunken commander who sent men unarmed and unsupported into assaults. He says his unit was in disarray, with routine beatings, alcohol and drug use, and extortion. ⬇️
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— ChrisO_wiki (@chriso-wiki.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 3:43 AM
2/ Platoon commander Anton Alekseevich Putyatov has recorded a video after deserting from the 1435th Motorized Rifle Regiment, serving near Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.
3/ He says that in the summer of 2024 he participated in assault operations near Pokrovsk. His commander, Captain Arkady Vitalievich Vasiliev, ordered the 2nd Battalion to enter the village of Novohradivka, claiming there was no enemy presence there:
4/ "As we approached the city, our battalion commander, call sign Grom, Captain Arkady Vasiliev, said to us while drunk, "The city is ours. Go in calmly." Well, he was the commander, so why doubt his words? If he said so, then it must be true.
5/ "Let's go. The second battalion was almost completely wiped out." Of Vasiliev, Putyatov says: "I never saw the battalion commander sober. He was always accompanied by some kind of shaman."
6/ He claims that Vasiliev was protected by the regiment commander, who threatens his men with execution if they disobey: "The regiment commander said that anyone who offends him will be personally shot. That's where it all begins."
7/ "He started issuing orders to surrender our weapons, our personal protective equipment, and move out at night through the minefield to the wooded area where the enemy was hiding."
8/ Putyatov doesn't explain the reason for this, but other accounts have spoken of Russian soldiers being sent out unarmed and told to scavenge weapons and body armour from corpses left on the battlefield by both sides.
9/ On a later occasion, Putyatov's platoon was forced to retreat after coming under fire. "We sat in that wooded area we'd retreated to for almost seven days. No food, no water, no ammunition resupply, no rotation."
10/ "Then they just pounded us from three sides, and [the Russians' commanders] didn't even respond. They had no time..." Putyatov says that he found out afterwards that his officers were in the basement of a five-storey building, smoking drugs.
The damaged Russian submarine Novorossiysk limps toward home.
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Russian submarine Novorossiysk now has a malfunctioning navigation system, software, and periscope as it limps to the port of Kronstadt on the Koltlin Island in Saint Petersburg according to a leak.
Shadowed by the Swedish military from air and water in the Baltic Sea.
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— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Interesting that this new drone was tested against targets in Russia.
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A new US–Ukrainian drone dubbed Artemis ALM-20, seen as a counterpart to the Shahed, has been successfully tested against targets in Russia. Built by Auterion, it features AI and self-guidance with a 1,600 km range and a 45 kg warhead. Production is set to begin in Ukraine, the US, and Germany.
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— NOELREPORTS (@noelreports.com) October 16, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Russia continues to make threats if the U.S. supplies Tomahawks to Ukraine. They must be really worried about them.
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⚡️ Russia says 'will do everything' to ensure its safety if US sends Tomahawks to Ukraine.
"Our military knows what to do; they have the military potential and all the necessary capabilities," Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
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— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) October 16, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Trump said yesterday that Indian Prime Minister Modi assured him that India would stop buying Russian oil.
India’s Foreign Ministry says that’s news to them.
Must be infuriating to have no or little water available and then see it flowing down the street.
Russia’s coal industry is circling the drain.
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The number of Russian coal companies in the red zone of risk has increased to 53 from 30 in April, said deputy energy minister Islamov
The industry's consolidated losses for the first seven months of 2025 were twice as high as for the whole of last yr,amounting to 225 billion rubles(≈ $2.8 billion)
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— Anton Gerashchenko (@antongerashchenko.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 6:20 AM
Putin says Russia doesn’t need those European customers for its gas anymore because now it has better customers.
Nine months ago no one had Trump and Ukraine become BFFs on their bingo card.
Trump had a phone call with Putin today. He and Zelenskyy are meeting in Washington on Friday. Sure, they’re buddies now, but Trump will turn on him eventually.
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😃🇺🇦🇺🇸 Chernihiv to name a square in honor of Donald Trump
The decision was supported by 22 deputies at session of Chernihiv Council.
"The renaming was carried out to honor outstanding political leaders of our time and attract international attention to the reconstruction of Chernihiv."
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— The Ukrainian Review (@theukrainianreview.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 6:02 AM
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🇺🇸🇺🇦 "The best way to get revenge on Putin is to praise Zelensky - that's how Trump sees it," - said the Politico interlocutor.
September meeting in New York is evidence of improved relations between Trump and Zelensky. After it, media began to write about previous agreements on Tomahawk missiles.
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— MAKS 25 👀🇺🇦 (@maks23.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 8:43 AM
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🇺🇸🇺🇦 How Zelensky Won Trump Over, — TIME
📍Zelensky could not bring himself to apologize after February meeting at White House, but he began to praise and thank Trump more often - this helped change the tone of the negotiations;
📍Trump is seriously considering the supply of long-range Tomahawks;
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— The Ukrainian Review (@theukrainianreview.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Russia has seen volcanoes, drought, locust, floods and towering fountains of raw sewage.
Now it’s killer ladybugs. Run! Hide!
Probably someone’s idea of a joke, but the donkey doesn’t seem to be amused.
A Russian stand-up comedian who volunteered for the war jokes about having his leg blown off by a mine.
Buildings can be turned into rubble, but memories endure.
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"russia can destroy a building, but never the memories or the feeling of home. So for me, this apartment will always look like this."
Anastasiia got a tattoo with the coordinates of her family home, destroyed by a russian strike in Zaporizhzhia💔
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— UNITED24 (@u24.gov.ua) October 15, 2025 at 1:34 PM
At what point would drones take over the battlefield completely? Twenty million? Fifty?
Rest in peace.
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Ukrainian prosecutors say mayor died from multiple rib fractures and lung damage in Russian custody after refusing to cooperate with occupation authorities — LIGA. net.
Yevhen Matvieiev, the mayor of Dniprorudne in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, suffered torture before dying on 7 September 2024.
⤵️
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— Euromaidan Press (@euromaidanpress.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 7:18 PM
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Colonel Kostyantyn Oboryn of the 11th Army Aviation Brigade downed a Russian “ZALA” drone by ramming it with his Yak-52.
A skilled pilot who defended southern Ukraine from enemy drones, he was later killed in a Russian attack.
Eternal memory and honor to the Hero.
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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 6:26 AM
Hopefully they are not mutant varieties.
The shot is a real stroke of luck, as it features a Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) and a gray owl (Strix nebulosa), which usually hides before the first rays of the sun appear.
Ukrainian music is alive and well.
Russian music, OTOH ….
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Ukrainian band ELBA performed "Verbovaia Doshchechka" vesnianka (spring folk song) on the talent show Voice of Germany
The combination of traditional singing,live instruments,modern energy caused a huge reaction in the studio, with all the coaches pressing their buttons even before the song ended
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— Anton Gerashchenko (@antongerashchenko.bsky.social) October 16, 2025 at 5:26 AM
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Sad to see this: St. Petersburg has jailed the three musicians behind Stoptime, a band that has gained a cult following by performing pop-up street concerts where they sing songs by blacklisted "foreign agents." Stoptime has suspended all future street performances.
t.me/Stoptime_Ban...
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— Kevin Rothrock (@kevinrothrock.me) October 16, 2025 at 11:48 AM
