The Eastern Border

3.07 "A Dolboyob, But Ours!"

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First of all, yes, I know the thumbnail is wrong, but I noticed that a bit too late, I hope you won’t mind. The Russian empire has a peculiar talent for producing spectacles that read like satirical fiction. This week, Mikhail Zvinchuk—the sanctioned founder of the largest military Z-channel on Telegram, Rybar—strolled into NATO-member Montenegro with a film crew, mocked the border guard on Telegram, and got detained by national security eight hours later. We trace the five-day meltdown inside the Z-sphere, from defection paranoia and Kremlin orders silencing volunteer fundraisers to the triumphant conclusion that their top military analyst is “an dumbfuck, but ours.”  Meanwhile, the backbone of the Russian digital state is catching fire. After Ukrainian drones struck Yandex data centres in Sasovo and Kaluga, Moscow discovered that ten years of building a centralized “Sovereign Internet” simply put the country’s entire digital life into a dozen flammable buildings within drone range—while air-defence radar data remains too classified to share with the targets.  We also break down Donald Trump’s diesel deal with Putin (and why Z-patriots are asking if soldiers died so Washington could permit oil trades), Dmitry Medvedev shopping for Western hostages, Russian depots running completely out of Soviet machine guns, soldados hiding like feral men in the Pokrovsk woods, and a front-line stormtrooper admitting that 70% of surviving veterans will turn to armed racketeering when they get home. Finally, through the lens of Lotman, Uspensky, and a former Storm-Z convict, we look at the void at the centre of the war—and why nobody can name the Tsar under the Kremlin stars.  Become our patron: https://www.patreon.com/theeasternborder Merch store + another option for memberships: https://theeasternborder-shop.fourthwall.com Follow what’s going on here in the very border of Eastern Europe: https://bsky.app/profile/theeasternborder.lv Download all episodes for free on our website; pictures accompanying certain episodes can be found there as well! https://theeasternborder.lv/ Car4Ukraine Eastern Border Autumn Harvest Campaign! https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/autumn-harvest-2026-the-eastern-border