Iconic Donbass Veteran and Kremlin-Sceptic Andrei "Murz" Morozov Committed Suicide Last Week

Rest in peace, Murz.

I have a lot to say about Murz. But first, I will let the other bloggers say their piece about him and his death.

First, let’s let the Western media take a crack at it. Here:

Andrey Morozov, a prominent pro-war Russian blogger, has reportedly died by suicide following outrage over a post in which he claimed that the Russian army lost 16,000 soldiers during the capture of the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka.

Morozov, who went by the pseudonym Murz on Telegram, was an ultra-nationalist commentator who fought alongside Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and participated in Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

On Sunday, Morozov wrote to his 120,000 followers on Telegram that Russia lost 16,000 personnel and 300 pieces of armour during its months-long capture of Avdiivka. The post drew heavy criticism from senior Russian propagandists, who accused the blogger of “slandering the Russian defence ministry”.

In Morozov’s final messages on Tuesday morning, he announced his suicide and said he was pressured by his superiors to delete the post detailing the number of casualties in Avdiivka. Several people close to Morozov on Tuesday confirmed his death, with some saying that he had shot himself.

Triggered in part by the rebellion by then-Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin last year largely cracked down on voices such as Morozov, who once was part of a loud group of ultra-nationalist hawks who criticised Moscow over shortages of weapons and accused the Russian military leadership of hiding the true death toll among its forces.

Russia hides its war losses and the true casualty toll from its invasion of Ukraine remains a secret, though western officials believe the war has cost the country more than 315,000 dead and injured troops.

Avdiivka, which once had a population of 32,000, fell to Russia on Saturday, presenting Vladimir Putin with his biggest battlefield victory since Russian forces captured the city of Bakhmut in May 2023.

They got the jist of it.

NOTE: I don’t know how many died taking Avdeevka, but Murz’s numbers seem high and so do the Guardian’s 315k dead for Russia. However, I do think more Russians than Ukrainians died taking the town because that just makes sense according to all military logic that I am aware off. Armies make and hold fortified positions for a sound reason usually, not just an aesthetic choice, and that reason is to inflict greater casualties on the attacker than they normally could in the open field. We are being told that this literally ageless logic no longer applies to the SMO though, for some reason that no one specifies. Maybe it is because of the artillery. More likely it is because of how moral Putin is though. So moral and heterosexual that Almighty Yahweh himself tips the mathematical scales of war in Shoigu’s favor. And all he requires in return is the occasional sacrificed airplane in the Azov sea region to keep his favor.

THE LORD loves the smell of smoldering fuselage, probably.

But, to be fair, I am not a priest, so ask yours for theological consultation on this matter first.

Now, Murz was a vet of the first part of the Not-War — the eight years during which volunteers and local militia managed to hold back the UAF despite Moscow’s repeated attempts to stab them in the back and stuff them kicking and screaming back into Ukraine. Needless to say, like all vets of the first part of the Not-War, Murz believed that the Kremlin were enemies of the Russian people and the Donbass independence/reunification project. In fact, I can’t think of even one veteran from the early phases of the Not-War who didn’t loath and despise the Kremlin and the FSB and the oligarchs who run Russia (and Ukraine and Donbass). Not one. Isn’t that strange? Why are none of them buying the 5D Yahtzee story about Putin and his friends? Perhaps all of these Donbass fighters were actually … dare I say it … le Nazis???

But I exaggerate.

There is actually one OG Donbass militia leader from the initial rebellion who supports Putin. Funny enough, he is the only non-Russian of the bunch and the only one who ended up escaping assassination. Are these points correlated in some way?

You decide:

Murz was pretty big at his peak, with almost Strelkov-level name-recognition. But he fell off particularly steeply in recent months as his severe depression and PTSD and the bad news from the front started affecting his writing and outlook. Worse, the Kremlin-run state media went after Murz many times, calling for his arrest, discrediting him, calling him a traitor.

Once again, we are talking about the bipedal humanoid man-rodent Vladimir Soloviev (Shapiro) and his political program of ritually denouncing anyone critical of the Kremlin from the right of center.

In stark contrast, Shapiro also signs petitions to and demands the Kremlin release anyone that he is distantly related to, even if they are anti-Russian and pro-Liberal. All this despite ostensibly being Russia’s #1 patriot himself.