Your "Sit-Rep" of the Slavlands Situation, Sir

COMMANDER Rurik has urgent news to share with you.

As COMMANDER of the Patriot Liberation Army (banned in 27 countries), I may as well get all of my info-soldiers up to speed with a quick summary of what has occurred in the Slavlands recently.

The big staffing changes at Kremlin HQ still being discussed and speculated on. We have some speculation that Patrushev is going to be put in control of some big juicy shipyards as he is otherwise gracefully retired.

Good for him. Here:

Two new special assistants will appear in the updated cabinet of Russian President Vladimir Putin. We are talking about the former secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Patrushev, and the ex-governor of the Tula region Alexei Dumin.

This was announced at a briefing by the official representative of the presidential administration Dmitry Peskov.

The Kremlin’s press service reported plans for former Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev and former head of the Tula region Alexei Dumin.

He will deal with shipbuilding issues.

The new responsibilities of Patrushev as a presidential spokesman.

Peskov does not exclude that this industry will not be the only one that the ex-secretary of the Security Council will oversee, but shipbuilding will become its main responsibility. According to the spokeswoman, this area is of strategic importance in our country.

This is a huge industry, and therefore the experience of Nikolai Platonovich will definitely play a big role here.

- said Peskov.

So, despite working with Putin to set up and run the spook occupation government in Russia for more than 20 years, Patrushev is being sent off into the sunset on a golden parachute it seems like.

Oh well?

**

And then we have Dyumin getting pulled up into the Presidential Administration as overseer of sports, apparently.

This is a big step up for the man.

Now, Dyumin is part of the same Yeltsin cabal and served as Putin’s bodyguard and head of security until he started getting promoted left and right in rapid succession following the events of Crimea. People speculated that Putin was grooming him to succeed him as president back in 2018 for the next term. But as we have found out, Putin is indeed eternal and won’t give up power any time soon, probably because he fears what will be done to him after he resigns. Speculation aside, Dyumin has been involved in all sorts of profitable ventures related to sports teams, construction projects and the defense industry. He has been sitting in Tula, a very profitable region, as governor since 2016 after one of Medvedev’s people was forced to resign and hand over the governorship to Dyumin. There was an election, I’m sure, but such things are just formalities in the Slavlands.

More importantly, he is speculatively credited with:

• The Crimea reunification operation (a Prigozhin claim, verboten in Russian media)

• Rescuing Yanukovitch from Ukraine

• Ending the Shoigu mutiny

  

• Being Putin’s chosen successor

And some other stuff too.

There is definitely a lot of hype around this guy.

I strongly doubt most of the claims though, of course. That is, I think it is significant that he is being hyped up by the media, but I am suspicious about the reputation that the media is creating for him as a kind of shadow-soldier-patriot of Putin.

Most worryingly is that he himself admits that he got his start as a bodyguard to Putin thanks to the recommendation of Zolotov. This is important to consider because, first of all, Zolotov is a very dubious character who also got his start as a Yeltsinite revolutionary and is now a Putin loyalist as a result:

Secondly, his association with Zolotov would explain how he came to play a role in negotiations with Wagner when they rolled up to Moscow region and only Zolotov’s troops stood between them and Moscow city.

In short, Dyumin almost certainly isn’t some sort of secret patriot. But, it seems that there is a second faction within Moscow that thinks highly of him (and of Prigozhin) and this may become important to uncover in the near future. He certainly seems like the type who has a vested interest in Russia not being destroyed and dismembered because he can’t just re-locate to Boca Ratan in Florida unlike many of the other officials in Putin’s Administration.

**

I never got around to talking about the Russian offensive south of Belgorod, but since the news is good, I figure it might make for a nice change of pace to cover it. First, a decent summary to share with you. Here:

The advance from the north.

There were fewer [UAF troops] in that direction than expected, no mines, and there was a clear intelligence failure.

In the Russian army, on the contrary, counterintelligence support turned out to be at its best (for the second time in a row after Avdeevka), and measures began to be taken to secure the battlefield, in particular, preliminary strikes on bridges in the rear of the tactical defense. The small bridge, as you can see, only needs one small rocket.

At the moment, our troops have achieved two small penetrations.

Volchansk and several other villages were almost taken.

There is nothing more to say for now - there is simply no data for any analysis of compliance.

The pace of the offensive is very low for what happened to the located enemy on the first day of the offensive. The bridgeheads taken are also very small.

If this is some kind of trick to draw the reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine here, then there are no questions. But if you look at the fact that it looks like what happened was an offensive done by decisive individuals, then, accordingly, questions should arise.

Here, of course, to draw any conclusions, you need to know the balance of forces.

So far it looks as if we are seriously short of an army, or as if Lapin and the headquarters are afraid to strike a fatal blow to the [enemy].

Taking into account the psychological trauma suffered during the first stage of SMO, this is understandable.

Well, yes, our troops still do not have access to normal [secure] communications, and with a deep breakthrough they will lose coordination.

Now next, the enemy will transfer his reserves here, and the advance will slow down.

What can I say about this attack direction in general?

The direction is very promising. If we do not try to reach Kharkov (there is no need) to attack Chuguev, then after its appearance, the prerequisites arose for our troops to move in the direction of the south, to Izyum. On the other hand, from Volchansk you can go to Kupyansk, which will fall under attack from both sides (find somewhere a map with the direction of the troops so that it is clear what is being discussed), and only then to Izyum.

All these conclusions, of course, can be discounted by the option according to which our troops simply create a buffer zone. Then no one will go forward to Izyum in the foreseeable future, of course.

Given the pace of progress, it is very far from Izyum.

For the most important thing now - not to incur too many losses, this is more important than Russia’s territorial successes, we need to gain time until the personnel changes in the Ministry of Defense are converted into an increase in the combat capability of the army.

The operational opportunity that has opened up for our army is to attack where the Ukrainian Armed Forces reserves are being withdrawn.

(...)

An important issue is the actions of Ukrainian troops. So far there is a feeling that there is no one in particular to direct them to the north.

This may not be the case, a couple of weeks will tell.

But if they continue to throw a “hodgepodge” of detachments from different brigades to the north, this means that we seriously underestimated their losses, which became a surprise at the end of the war for that part of the Ukrainian population that is still capable of thinking much stronger than us now it seems.

Then the question “why doesn’t Syrsky counterattack?”, which was asked more than once on this channel, will be answered.

But let's wait. Everything will become clear very soon, good luck to our soldiers.

So, in short, the attack met with more success than was expected. From the Ukrainian side it turns out that:

• defenses were not prepared

• money and supplies dedicated to this section of the battlefield were embezzled

• no reserves of men were ready for the attack in the rear

• this despite the fact that an attack was coming was broadcast clearly by the Russian side

Then, things took a turn for the better when:

• UAF lines were quickly overrun with little resistance but …

• because there are so few men on the Russian side, this cannot be exploited and this indicates that …

• the attack wasn’t supposed to succeed that much and the only goal was to simply push out from Belgorod a bit to create a buffer zone …

• which is part of Moscow’s strategy for “freezing” the conflict by creating DMZs along the contact line that is …

• probably going to be implemented now with the new defense minister appointment

Nothing of any significance was taken or lost during this attack and so I feel justified in ignoring it for the first week. You have to learn to ignore the screaming headlines. A few square kilometers here and there is considered a very big deal in a grinding trench war. This is what the “Ukraine is doomed!!!” people were freaking out about, I guess.

But the fact that the north was so undefended by Kiev and that Moscow had to have known this and still refused to commit troops to exploit this is still more proof of just how fake and managed the war is. They don’t have to bang their heads against the fortified UAF lines in Donbass. They can go around if they were so inclined. But no, no doubt this is against the “gentlemens’” rules that they came to with their partners in Washington and Kiev.

**

And there you have it, info-soldiers. In short, we’ve got the Anal-Globalist-Bill Gates-Nazis on the run! And we will all of us be home before Christmas, I’m sure.

This is COMMANDER Rurik signing off.