Some Soldiers Of (Mis)Fortune...

... have no idea what they are getting themselves into. Evidently one such "soldier" is British dude who "fought" in all kinds of "hot spots" by means of shooting people who couldn't fight back and the last three years was "serving" with VSU marines until he finally met a real war. The name of the dude is Heiden Islyn (I believe I spell him correctly), aka on Twitter as Cossackgundi. His family in UK posted this:

We've gotten word from Johnny. "It's been 48 days, we tried our best to defend Mariupol but we have no choice but to surrender to Russian forces. We have no food and no ammunition. It's been a pleasure everyone, I hope this war ends soon."

The funniest part, of course, is the other message:

We're putting this out after direct consultation with his family. Until we're told otherwise we'll continue working on sharing the facts of the war. Hope for a prisoner exchange.

The  idiocy of this message is in the fact that these people still believe that this is some kind of joke. Couple of LDNR people (or sympathizers) have already explained in their responses that this "soldier" is a foreigner and a mercenary and he will not be exchanged. He will be charged and then will spend a great deal of time, many years, in Russian or LDNR high security hotels where his attitude will be further adjusted and he will learn how real wars conclude. 

There is a confirmed information circulating in Russian net that the occupation which is most in demand in LDNR right now is prison guard. Prisons are overflowing with those who, unlike regular VSU grunts, will have to face war crimes tribunal. The number of ukie POWs grows really fast, not to mention the fact that the dynamics of surrender also is highly positive. More and more VSU and even Nazi battalions' personnel surrender. The disposition of 404 forces in fully blocked Azov Steel is now known with most of command corps hiding primarily in underground bunkers while forcing (coercing that is) grunts to go up and fight. All attempts by different units of Azov and VSU to break out are checked and result in more KIAs for Ukrainian side and more POWs. 

The main issue now is how to approach the final mop up of this Azov Steel facility. One can try to pump a gas similar to what was used to disable terrorists during Nord Ost operation, or, in the end Russia has some really monstrous bunker busting munitions which can settle the issue. The problem, of course, that there are still civilian hostages there and one also have to consider future plans for Azov Steel, that is what it would take to restore it and put back into operation. But, as Vladimir Putin stated today, and I have no reasons to doubt his statement, the operation proceeds according to plan and...

Russia’s current account surplus, the broadest measure of trade, more than doubled in the first quarter of 2022 from the same period last year amid soaring oil and gas prices, according to data from the Russian central bank cited by Bloomberg. Russia—which continued its oil and gas sales in Q1 at the highest prices in years—saw its current account surplus jump by more than 2.5 times from last year’s first quarter to $58.2 billion from $22.5 billion.Russian revenues from oil and gas sales soared in the first quarter, while imports plunged amid companies withdrawing from Russia over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. This resulted in a major surplus in the Russian trade of goods and services.

For some this is an extremely painful news. As I said, the West really finances Russian operations in Ukraine and elsewhere. But this is a topic for separate discussion. Especially on the issue of Western "economists" having no clue about how real economy works.