An abject lesson about why it's important to follow Z-vatniks in Telegram if you support Ukraine

A vatnik video that is truly, seriously mandatory to watch for Ukraine supporters, how to deal with Russian trolls easily and the problem with western media.

Everyone who supports Ukraine MUST watch the video that’s in this post with subs! This is Girkin's buddy Maxim Kalashnikov, but this starts with a fragment of current Russian internal propaganda about how "nationalists" - read, those vatniks who care about the war, ideologistical volunteers who help out Russia's army with donations, training and everything, without whom Russia would not be able to fight at all are being demonized. The rest is great too - but this is EXTREMELY important to see, so that you'd understand why I say that Russia has about a year remaining.

You see, unlike Ukrainian units who record their requests for help and show their thanks, in Russia, commanders send those who ask for volunteer help to die in meat assaults, because in their reports, “they have everything“, and it would look bad in reports. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg - they also send, say, drone experts to meat assaults because they decided to report some commanders who steal their aid and sell drugs to public, Pushilin outright banned the use of Starlink, upon whom their whole comms rely in Luhansk people’s republic and they also try to curb any such “excesses“ as it makes the government and Putin look bad.

In short, Putin’s been fed lies for SO long, and the system is SO corrupt that he’s extremely out of touch from reality. Also, remember that admitting mistakes is culturally unacceptable in Russia. It’'s better to hide everything under the rug, so that the boss (who’s never a team leader, but a mini-tzar instead) won’t beat you over the head.

This video serves as a neat illustration and more proof of the things I said in my episode 300:
https://theeasternborder.lv/podcast/war-in-ukraine-300-the-spiral-of-death/

Currently, we’re at a point where, I think, the more Russia even moves forward - within reason, of course - the faster their collapse will happen. But it is certainly inevitable by now. And this also illustrates why presuming that Kremlin’s official propaganda somehow resembles what Russian soldiers on the ground think is a massive mistake.

Also, and this is important - I thought that pro-Russian idiots had become a non-issue. The trolls leave me alone since 2022, even after Foreign Policy Magazine articles - they know that interacting with me does more damage to them anyways, as I always have a pro-war Z vatnik quote to counter their idiocy and that completely defeats their point. Arguing from any other position is utterly pointless. So, they've been avoiding me like the plague.

Instead, Kadyrov's folks have tried to kill me twice, but that's a different story. That's because I presume that nobody else reads vatnik telegram, so people try to argue with them. But you just post a note from someone on their side, countering their argument and they can't do shit. Now, I understand why people in Ukraine would be afraid to do that - but that’s also a mistake, since Denis Kozansky has no issues with such things. And western media…well, I’ve spoken about their bias multiple times already, but I think it’s worth to make my note in a full post.

I can say, with an absolute certainty, that from English language media, there’s me and Kyiv Independent whom You can trust with Ukraine war. (Besides direct osint guys like Tatarigami and Deep State and folks like that.) (Mostly) everyone else in the west has a language bias in sources where they mistake presence of a native English translation as a sign of good content - and ignore really great sources just because they don’t publish in English. If there’s anyone else who does this - I apologize, but I also can’t check every last publication. But I’ve checked a LOT of them - so you’re an outlier anyways.

Add to that the typical western academia elitism towards Eastern Europe, so any attempts to help them get ignored.

Kyiv Independent also gets the ‘ukraine bias’ bullshit reason to get ignored. I sidestep that by ONLY using pro-Russian Z sources, but they obvs can’t do that.

If you think I exaggerate, listen to my episode 300, I’ll gladly debate anyone who thinks I’m somehow wrong about stuff. Also, as a FPV pilot myself, I guarantee that Kyiv Independent are the ONLY ones who know how FPV suff works. With them I can argue about minor details for purely academic reasons. With other sources that have a similar niche?

Let’s just say that Institute for Study of War does the standard thing in academia where they use only about 65% of what info their sources actually have. I mentioned the issues that this caused with their understanding of Prigozhin, with hard evidence, in this Foreign Policy Magazine article back in 2023, it serves as a nice example now:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/16/russia-prisons-wagner-group-ukraine-crime-culture/

But our dear colleagues besides Independent, don’t take that into account and quote them wholesale. You can easily understand what that does to their predictions and analysis. We’ve reached the point where Putin’s actions are perfectly logical and predictable, Russia’s eventual collapse is inevitable at this point too - which is proven in my podcast episode, and this video holds a strong proof of this as well. Please, watch it with subs.

And if you happen to know anybody who's bothered, DM me or google up my show, The Eastern Border and use those contacts and I'll provide ample ammo. The official trolls won't do anything to me anyways, since they know they can't and it'll be fun to humiliate the foreign vatniks who've no clue what the Russian Z crowd says.

Finally, the best way how to test real post-soviet experts who know what’s up from pretentious amateurs, who might even honestly think they’ve got good analysis, but the reality is quite different is just asking them about the traditional Soviet prison laws. Ask them about Lawful Thieves, Red and Black prisons, Petukhs and so forth. (All of that’s in my FPM article - and I also explain there why it matters.)