Samizdata

In the beginning there was Perun. He referred to there being Russian “mil-bloggers” on Telegram. For those who don’t know Telegram is essentially Twitter without “community guidelines”. Seeing as I was on Telegram following Ukrainian “mil-bloggers” it didn’t seem such a great leap to include a few of their Russian counterparts. Coz balance is really good isn’t it?

I eventually found 3 Russian mil-bloggers to follow. The first I found was Donbass Devushka. This was maybe a couple of months ago.

And now she’s hit the headlines.

It is claimed that she claimed to be a Russian living in Luhansk when in fact she is an ex-US Navy sailor living in Washington state. I never saw this claim; at least not on the Donbass Devushka – DD as I shall now refer to her – channel. Jake Broe has a good video about this.

It is claimed that she solicits donations ostensibly for Russians affected by the war and the donations have not reached any Russians, affected by the war or otherwise. I cannot recall seeing any such solicitation. If solicitation there be it certainly isn’t a regular occurrence. And anyway, where would you prefer money donated by gullible pro-Russians to end up?

It is claimed that she was the first person to publish images – doctored images no less – of the US intelligence documents which have been such a big story in the last couple of weeks. I don’t recall seeing any such post. If it were posted and I didn’t see it there are good reasons why I might not have done. DD has a bad case of blogorrhea. Every day she – I say “she”, she claims the channel has multiple authors – posts something like 170 entries. Getting through that takes time. It is not helped by a bug in Telegram for Mac which means that page down doesn’t work. Fortunately it is helped by another bug in Telegram for Mac which from time to time will skip 50-100 entries.

Not that it matters much. Even if I had seen it I wouldn’t have paid a great deal of attention. The published images don’t look like an intelligence assessment to me. Colour! Flashy fonts! Large pieces of paper! In an intelligence document! Get away! And, anyway, I wouldn’t have had the skills to make sense of it.

So, if I managed to miss the big story what did I learn from following DD? A few things. I should point out that from the very beginning I was very sceptical about the things she said. I rapidly came to the conclusion that the channel was pure Kremlin propaganda. There was at no point any departure from the Kremlin line or criticism of Russia or Russian performance in the war. I was more interested in what sorts of stories she was promoting and what arguments she was making. Anything unverifiable – like a headling-grabbing intelligence report – I mostly ignored. So, a list:

1. The “Ukrainians are Nazis” is an incredibly important line for the Russians.
2. Syria – for some reason – is a big deal to the Russians
3. …as is the idea of a “multi-polar” world
4. Russia uses drones. Fewer than Ukraine but the best quality footage I have seen is Russian.
5. While Ukrainians refer to their enemy as “orcs”; the Russians refer to their enemy as “Khokhols”
6. There are occasional claims of Ukrainian brutality

How’s about that for an anti-climax?

I would agree that Ukraine also has the corruption but nowadays it’s much lower compared to what it was before because our Western allies are controlling us and it’s great. Honestly I am so tired of Ukrainian corruption that I would be glad to have the external control over our country – as what Vladimir Putin says – just temporary to provide reforms and institutions and to make our society better but you know we have what we have. I am OK with the President Zelenskyy but not OK with the current Ukrainian Parliament. OK it seems like I am deviating from the topic.

– Denys Davydov. Crimean-born, former commercial pilot turned war blogger.