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Videos Show Russian Youths Chant Anti-War Song in St. Petersburg
A crowd of people gathering in St. Petersburg sang an anti-war song by a Russian musician deemed a “foreign agent” in a video that has gone viral.
The clips widely circulated on Telegram showed the group singing the song “Cooperative Swan Lake” by Noize MC, whose lyrics condemn the authorities, the population’s silence in the war in Ukraine and Kremlin propaganda justifying President Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
It was reported that the person leading the sing-along was arrested, and ultra-nationalist Russians have expressed anger at the scenes.
Why It Matters
Since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has faced a clampdown on freedoms, where public opposition to the war and the government is in effect banned.
Thus, gathering people to sing a song by a prominent anti-government musician is a significant expression of anger at the country’s authorities, carrying considerable risk.
Army corruption and mass death are breeding new dissent—deep inside Vladimir Putin’s loyal core
Among Russians who follow their country’s war in Ukraine, it’s difficult to overstate the lasting, demoralizing impact of the story of Ernest and Goodwin, the call signs of two experienced Russian drone pilots in Ukraine. In September 2024, after they exposed their commander’s corruption, they were sent to the front on a so-called nullification mission—the Russian army’s euphemism for a guaranteed suicide attack. Their deaths in Ukraine ignited public outrage on pro-war Telegram channels, forcing even the Kremlin to publicly address the issue. Col. Igor Puzik, the corrupt commander who sent the drone pilots to their deaths, is still in charge of his regiment and is regularly praised on state TV. Among contract soldiers, puzikovschina has become a grim neologism for a Russian command structure riddled with impunity, incompetence, and lethal betrayal; a warning that merit and loyalty no longer protect you from being used, abused, and even killed for a superior’s corruption and other ambitions.
Puzikovschina now signifies a systemic collapse of trust between the military’s leaders and its rank and file. The problem is no longer limited to isolated cases; it is endemic. Whole regiments function as private fiefdoms, with officers siphoning off supplies, selling fuel meant for troops, and responding to complaints by sending the complainers on nullification missions at the front. On his Telegram channel, a mobilized soldier with the username Vault 8 described thousands of contract soldiers who were promised one-year contracts by their recruiters, only to have their service indefinitely extended. Experienced submarine crews and intercontinental ballistic missile operators have found themselves forced into assault infantry, regardless of skills or medical conditions, because they are more valuable to the Russian General Staff as cannon fodder than as specialists.
Among ordinary contract soldiers and mobilized recruits, there is now almost universal contempt for military generals, many of whom have become infamous for nepotism, gross incompetence, and indifference toward appalling loss of life at the front. Gen. Aleksandr Lapin became the symbol of this rift after awarding a medal to his own son at the front while Russian troops under the father’s command were retreating in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in 2022, a gesture now remembered as emblematic of the high command’s obliviousness. Col. Gen. Rustam Muradov’s endless offensives near the Ukrainian town of Vuhledar—which the Russians first attacked in January 2023 and needed almost two years to take—led to mass casualties among Russian soldiers and made his name synonymous with abject failure and disregard for human life. Stories about these generals circulate widely in the trenches and on social media, corroding the basic bond of trust and subordination between ordinary soldiers and those who command them.
Dissent now comes not just from the cowered, passive remnants of Russia’s liberal circles but from millions of soldiers, their families, and even patriotic pro-war bloggers. War propaganda, police control, and the flood of money paid to soldiers and their families have not bought social peace. Protest movements like The Way Home, led by wives and widows of mobilized soldiers, persistently picket the Ministry of Defense, despite being harassed by police as alleged “foreign agents.” Families of missing soldiers face threats for insisting on finding out their fate; some commanders have reportedly threatened to “nullify” soldiers whose relatives speak out. Survivors of the first mobilization in 2022, stuck on the front for years without a break, openly discuss their desire for retribution against their own officers as soon as the war ends one way or another. Even hyperpatriotic state journalists and war correspondents, such as Roman Saponkov, warn that unless Puzik and other notorious commanders are held accountable, mobilization will fail and public confidence in recruiting will never recover.
The Kremlin’s machinery of repression—selectively jailing the loudest critics, branding dissenters as “foreign agents,” and encouraging state media to attack “traitors”—can no longer keep up with the scale and breadth of anger. Crackdowns on straight-talking critics of Putin’s prosecution of the war—including the death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the jailing of war veteran Igor Girkin, and the branding of war blogger Roman Alekhin and pro-Kremlin political commentator Sergei Markov as “foreign agents”—were meant as warnings that invisible red lines are not to be crossed. But this strategy falls flat when discontent is no longer led by a handful of public figures and has spread to millions of soldiers, as well as their families and friends, whose personal experiences contradict the official narrative.
Meanwhile, the war’s economic consequences are so severe that even the talk shows on state TV openly discuss price hikes, shortages, and public frustration. Wartime inflation in Russia stands at almost 9 percent, with central bank interest rates at 17 percent. Gasoline shortages, worsened every day by Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries, fuel depots, and pumping stations, have forced rationing and driven prices up across the country. Komsomolskaya Pravda, allegedly Putin’s favorite newspaper, now posts video debates on inflation, supply disruptions, and the surging price of food and utilities, which would have been taboo to mention just two years ago. What was previously easier to manage on a local basis—protests against wage arrears or state-sanctioned environmental disasters—has erupted into a nationwide political headache, harming not just the poor or the opposition-minded, but broad swaths of ordinary Russians who no longer believe the Kremlin’s triumphalism.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
Videos Show Russian Youths Chant Anti-War Song in St. Petersburg
A crowd of people gathering in St. Petersburg sang an anti-war song by a Russian musician deemed a “foreign agent” in a video that has gone viral.
The clips widely circulated on Telegram showed the group singing the song “Cooperative Swan Lake” by Noize MC, whose lyrics condemn the authorities, the population’s silence in the war in Ukraine and Kremlin propaganda justifying President Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
It was reported that the person leading the sing-along was arrested, and ultra-nationalist Russians have expressed anger at the scenes.
Why It Matters
Since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has faced a clampdown on freedoms, where public opposition to the war and the government is in effect banned.
Thus, gathering people to sing a song by a prominent anti-government musician is a significant expression of anger at the country’s authorities, carrying considerable risk.
Army corruption and mass death are breeding new dissent—deep inside Vladimir Putin’s loyal core
Among Russians who follow their country’s war in Ukraine, it’s difficult to overstate the lasting, demoralizing impact of the story of Ernest and Goodwin, the call signs of two experienced Russian drone pilots in Ukraine. In September 2024, after they exposed their commander’s corruption, they were sent to the front on a so-called nullification mission—the Russian army’s euphemism for a guaranteed suicide attack. Their deaths in Ukraine ignited public outrage on pro-war Telegram channels, forcing even the Kremlin to publicly address the issue. Col. Igor Puzik, the corrupt commander who sent the drone pilots to their deaths, is still in charge of his regiment and is regularly praised on state TV. Among contract soldiers, puzikovschina has become a grim neologism for a Russian command structure riddled with impunity, incompetence, and lethal betrayal; a warning that merit and loyalty no longer protect you from being used, abused, and even killed for a superior’s corruption and other ambitions.
Puzikovschina now signifies a systemic collapse of trust between the military’s leaders and its rank and file. The problem is no longer limited to isolated cases; it is endemic. Whole regiments function as private fiefdoms, with officers siphoning off supplies, selling fuel meant for troops, and responding to complaints by sending the complainers on nullification missions at the front. On his Telegram channel, a mobilized soldier with the username Vault 8 described thousands of contract soldiers who were promised one-year contracts by their recruiters, only to have their service indefinitely extended. Experienced submarine crews and intercontinental ballistic missile operators have found themselves forced into assault infantry, regardless of skills or medical conditions, because they are more valuable to the Russian General Staff as cannon fodder than as specialists.
Among ordinary contract soldiers and mobilized recruits, there is now almost universal contempt for military generals, many of whom have become infamous for nepotism, gross incompetence, and indifference toward appalling loss of life at the front. Gen. Aleksandr Lapin became the symbol of this rift after awarding a medal to his own son at the front while Russian troops under the father’s command were retreating in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in 2022, a gesture now remembered as emblematic of the high command’s obliviousness. Col. Gen. Rustam Muradov’s endless offensives near the Ukrainian town of Vuhledar—which the Russians first attacked in January 2023 and needed almost two years to take—led to mass casualties among Russian soldiers and made his name synonymous with abject failure and disregard for human life. Stories about these generals circulate widely in the trenches and on social media, corroding the basic bond of trust and subordination between ordinary soldiers and those who command them.
Dissent now comes not just from the cowered, passive remnants of Russia’s liberal circles but from millions of soldiers, their families, and even patriotic pro-war bloggers. War propaganda, police control, and the flood of money paid to soldiers and their families have not bought social peace. Protest movements like The Way Home, led by wives and widows of mobilized soldiers, persistently picket the Ministry of Defense, despite being harassed by police as alleged “foreign agents.” Families of missing soldiers face threats for insisting on finding out their fate; some commanders have reportedly threatened to “nullify” soldiers whose relatives speak out. Survivors of the first mobilization in 2022, stuck on the front for years without a break, openly discuss their desire for retribution against their own officers as soon as the war ends one way or another. Even hyperpatriotic state journalists and war correspondents, such as Roman Saponkov, warn that unless Puzik and other notorious commanders are held accountable, mobilization will fail and public confidence in recruiting will never recover.
The Kremlin’s machinery of repression—selectively jailing the loudest critics, branding dissenters as “foreign agents,” and encouraging state media to attack “traitors”—can no longer keep up with the scale and breadth of anger. Crackdowns on straight-talking critics of Putin’s prosecution of the war—including the death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the jailing of war veteran Igor Girkin, and the branding of war blogger Roman Alekhin and pro-Kremlin political commentator Sergei Markov as “foreign agents”—were meant as warnings that invisible red lines are not to be crossed. But this strategy falls flat when discontent is no longer led by a handful of public figures and has spread to millions of soldiers, as well as their families and friends, whose personal experiences contradict the official narrative.
Meanwhile, the war’s economic consequences are so severe that even the talk shows on state TV openly discuss price hikes, shortages, and public frustration. Wartime inflation in Russia stands at almost 9 percent, with central bank interest rates at 17 percent. Gasoline shortages, worsened every day by Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries, fuel depots, and pumping stations, have forced rationing and driven prices up across the country. Komsomolskaya Pravda, allegedly Putin’s favorite newspaper, now posts video debates on inflation, supply disruptions, and the surging price of food and utilities, which would have been taboo to mention just two years ago. What was previously easier to manage on a local basis—protests against wage arrears or state-sanctioned environmental disasters—has erupted into a nationwide political headache, harming not just the poor or the opposition-minded, but broad swaths of ordinary Russians who no longer believe the Kremlin’s triumphalism.
October 19, 2025 at 1:06 pm (This post was last modified: October 19, 2025 at 1:07 pm by Fake Messiah.)
Trump urged Zelenskyy to accept Putin’s terms or be ‘destroyed’ by Russia
Donald Trump urged Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept Russia’s terms for ending its war in a volatile White House meeting on Friday, warning that Vladimir Putin had said he would “destroy” Ukraine if it did not agree.
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian presidents descended many times into a “shouting match”, with Trump “cursing all the time”, people familiar with the matter said.
They added that the US president tossed aside maps of the frontline in Ukraine, insisted Zelenskyy surrender the entire Donbas region to Putin, and repeatedly echoed talking points the Russian leader had made in their call a day earlier.
Though Ukraine ultimately managed to swing Trump back to endorsing a freeze of the current front lines, the acrimonious meeting appeared to reflect the capricious nature of Trump’s position on the war and his willingness to endorse Putin’s maximalist demands.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
What? They are still afraid of the bald Russian midget. Come on guys.
Quote:Von der Leyen and Costa fail to cash in on Trump smacking Putin
De Wever, who has been Belgium’s prime minister only since February, derailed EU plans to raid frozen Russian assets and release a vital loan of €140 billion that would help fund Kyiv for the next two years.
His opposition to the plan — based on fears that Vladimir Putin would retaliate against Belgium, where the assets are held — means EU leaders will now have to come back to the question of how to help meet Ukraine’s cash shortfall in December, if they don’t call an emergency gathering sooner.
“It’s a mess,” one diplomat said, granted anonymity like others to speak freely. “This was not how it was meant to play out.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said the proposal for using the assets to create a loan to Kyiv was not being abandoned. “It hasn’t been buried, we were able to discuss technical details,” he told reporters. “We need to progress with method, because we can’t do anything that breaks international law.”
Von der Leyen tried to put a brave face on the outcome and argued that the EU would remain a staunch ally for Kyiv. “We are in for the long haul,” she explained. Ukraine, however, says it needs the money early next year.
Many of the EU’s leaders will meet again on Friday with Zelenskyy and the U.K.’s Keir Starmer as part of the coalition of the willing to support peace efforts. Zelenskyy will be hoping they have more success.
“After our sanctions, and Trump’s sanctions, the reparations loan should have made this a really good day,” one EU diplomat said. “But it’s an opportunity we’ve missed.”
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
October 24, 2025 at 2:06 pm (This post was last modified: October 24, 2025 at 2:14 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Meanwhile, ukranian paratroopers have liberated a town on the dobropillya front - kucheriv yar in donetsk. Reportedly capturing 50 more russian sadsacks alive for their pow exchange fund. This is a part of the pokrovsk salient that putin ordered meat assaults into for political leverage before the "peace talks". At present, ukranian forces appear to have chopped and funneled the advance into three distinct pockets, and this represents them closing the middle pocket.
Everything is going to plan in putins smo.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
Putin fears another coup as Russia finally begins to buckle
This month, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Khodorkovsky, who now lives in exile in London, and 22 members of Russia’s Anti-War Committee of plotting a coup.
According to the FSB, the committee, which was created to oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine, is vying for “the violent seizure of power and overthrow of the constitutional order in the Russian Federation”.
Khodorkovsky says the allegations are lies. Kremlinologists say it is a clear sign of a new sense of vulnerability at the heart of the Russian state.
“It tells us that the Kremlin is being paranoid,” says John Herbst, the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former US ambassador to Ukraine. “Putin is looking for enemies to try to bolster his regime.”
Suddenly, Putin has many reasons to be worried.
Russia’s economy is beginning to buckle. Businesses have been crippled by high interest rates, government borrowing costs have soared and economy minister Maxim Reshetnikov warned in June that the country was “on the brink of a recession”. Warnings are mounting over a potential avalanche of bad debt that could trigger a financial crisis.
Small pockets of protest are emerging. Earlier this month, hundreds of people gathered in St Petersburg Square to sing an outlawed song calling for Putin to be overthrown.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has been aggressively ramping up its drone attacks on Russian oil refineries, hammering the country’s petrol supplies.
Now Donald Trump is turning the screws. After frustration over a lack of progress to end the war in Ukraine, the US president announced new sanctions on two of Russia’s biggest oil companies on Wednesday.
India and China, the main buyers of Russian oil since the war began, responded by curbing purchases. It threatens to cut off crucial oil revenues to Putin’s war machine – and the Russian state.
“For the first time in three and a half years, Russia’s really getting hurt,” says Timothy Ash, an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme. “I think there’s some panic.”
Russia’s economy has so far been remarkably resilient during the war with Ukraine, defying predictions it would collapse after an initial wave of worldwide sanctions were levied.
One of the reasons why it has weathered the storm so far is because the Kremlin has pushed banks to lend to defence companies, rather than simply using state cash.
To do so, it gave them the green light to lend without the usual credit checks or reserves to cover potential defaults.
“They were funding the war with borrowed money all along, it just wasn’t showing on the state’s balance sheet,” says Craig Kennedy, of Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian studies.
Not only was this money lent without proper credit checks, but it has gone to a sector that has a bad credit history. All sectors in Russia are also grappling with the pain of high interest rates. The central bank rate hit a two-decade high of 21pc last October and now sits at 16.5pc.
Whatever happens, the money has now dried up. Last autumn, Nabiullina took steps to limit bank lending in an effort to rein in inflation, which peaked at 10.3pc in March.
“In terms of being able to buy victory on the battlefield, Moscow already understands it’s beyond their capability,” says Kennedy. “The longer they wait, the greater the risk of a crisis, because the debt situation isn’t going to fix itself.”
Khodorkovsky says Russia’s economic problems are not yet driving serious dissent at home. “The population notices the problems, but they are not yet severe.”
But Western sanctions have created significant problems for the country.
“The first is growing technological backwardness,” says Khodorkovsky. “Russia is becoming increasingly archaic, unable not only to produce innovations but even to adopt those of others. This is not very visible in the short term, but in 10 to 20 years it will lead to major problems.”
The second issue is Russia’s new critical dependence on China. Khodorkovsky says: “Putin’s war machine relies heavily on cooperation with the PRC. Xi Jinping could collapse the Russian economy and stop the war tomorrow if he chose to.”
China is a lifeline for Russia because it buys its oil. But Beijing is not supporting Moscow wholeheartedly.
At the start of 2024, China reinstated tariffs on Russian coal imports. At the same time, it has been flooding Russia with cheap steel imports and cars.
Domestic companies are struggling to compete. Avtovaz, the company behind Russia’s best-selling car, said in July it was considering shifting to a four-day working week because of plunging sales and foreign “price-dumping”.
There is another issue waiting in the wings. Russia’s public finances are spiralling into a mess.
Russia’s deficit is ballooning. Since the start of the year, the Russian ministry of finance has raised its deficit target for 2025 to 2.6pc of GDP, more than five times the 0.5pc it had expected at the start of the year and by far the largest annual deficit since the pandemic.
In cash terms, this would mean a deficit of 5.7tn rubles (£50bn). But the KSE Institute warned in September that the actual deficit will probably be even larger.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
Speaking of long term issues At least one out of every fifty russian males aged 18-35 has died in ukraine, with more wounded. This is the conservative estimate, not accounting for the fact that russia lists it's dead as mia and deserters to avoid paying death benefits to families.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
(October 26, 2025 at 7:40 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Speaking of long term issues At least one out of every fifty russian males aged 18-35 has died in ukraine, with more wounded. This is the conservative estimate, not accounting for the fact that russia lists it's dead as mia and deserters to avoid paying death benefits to families.
It won't be long before they're in the position of France circa 1930.
If they don't run out of ways to get the remainder to the front first, ala china in ww2.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
(October 26, 2025 at 9:44 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: If they don't run out of ways to get the remainder to the front first, ala china in ww2.
Shit, they've been running press-gangs for a couple of years already, and those extending to foreign nations. Now as then, China is the crucial player, for different reasons of course. But my own opinion is that the invasion of Ukraine won't be resolved until Xi pulls the plug on Moscow.
![[Image: bafkreihyucurbuqqcqjfvbyk3ljqgqhk3md2kz3...vvzq4@jpeg]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vjserwnfmvinyeyy7fcnf4s2/bafkreihyucurbuqqcqjfvbyk3ljqgqhk3md2kz374tlxdf7vm5vbrvvzq4@jpeg)
