Meduza has obtained a copy of a pamphlet that was written by Russia’s military leadership shortly after the army’s retreat from Kherson in fall 2022. The document, which the military has begun issuing to Russian soldiers upon deployment to Ukraine, reiterates Moscow’s ideological justification for the war, condemns the Kherson retreat as a “shameful surrender,” and draws extensively from Joseph Stalin’s infamous Order No. 227, where the Soviet dictator called for “alarmists and cowards” to be “annihilated” on the spot. In English, Meduza summarizes the booklet and what we know about its origins.‘This is Goebbels stuff’In the fall of 2022,...