back in my map era, we're ukrainemaxxing right now
Declarations of the imminent doom of Ukraine are a news megathread specialty, and this is not what I am doing here - mostly because I'm convinced that whenever we do so, the war extends another three months to spite us. Ukraine has been in an essentially apocalyptic crisis for over a year now after the failure of the 2023 counteroffensive, unable to make any substantial progress and resigned to merely being a persistent nuisance (and arms market!) as NATO fights to the last Ukrainian. In this context, predicting a terminal point is difficult, as things seem to always be going so badly that it's hard to understand how and why they fight on. In every way, Ukraine is a truly shattered country, barely held together by the sheer combined force of Western hegemony. And that hegemony is weakening.
I therefore won't be giving any predictions of a timeframe for a Ukrainian defeat, but the coming presidency of Trump is a big question mark for the conflict. Trump has talked about how he wishes for the war to end and for a deal to be made with Putin, but Trump also tends to change his mind on an issue at least three or four times before actually making a decision, simply adopting the position of who talked to him last. And, of course, his ability to end the war might be curtailed by a military-industrial complex (and various intelligence agencies) that want to keep the money flowing.
The alignment of the US election with the accelerating rate of Russian gains is pretty interesting, with talk of both escalation and de-escalation coinciding - the former from Biden, and the latter from Trump. Russia very recently performed perhaps the single largest aerial attack of Ukraine of the entire war, striking targets across the whole country with missiles and drones from various platforms. In response, the US is talking about allowing Ukraine to hit long-range targets in Russia (but the strategic value of this, at this point, seems pretty minimal).
Additionally, Russia has made genuine progress in terms of land acquisition. We aren't talking about endless and meaningless battles over empty fields anymore. Some of the big Ukrainian strongholds that we've been spending the last couple years speculating over - Chasiv Yar, Kupiansk, Orikhiv - are now being approached and entered by Russian forces. The map is actually changing now, though it's hard to tell as Ukraine is so goddamn big.
Attrition has finally paid off for Russia. An entire generation of Ukrainians has been fed into the meat grinder. Recovery will take, at minimum, decades - more realistically, the country might be permanently ruined, until that global communist revolution comes around at least. And they could have just made a fucking deal a month into the war.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
This week on throwing away your principles for no reason: Anti-landmine NGO says landmines are okay when Ukraine uses them
reminds me of the Committee to Protect Journalists*
*as Long as They're Not Palestinian
A statement noone asked for and they had no reason to give.
However, all Western NGO's are simply extensions of the State Department, and will always act loyally when called upon to support the latest US decisions no matter how hypocritical the act may seem.
what do you think they were trying to convey with this picture
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This isn't a surprise. James Cowan - the author of this sycophantic exercise in doublethink and CEO of the HALO Trust - is a complete ghoul and (I have it on at least one person's impression who met him while working with another NGO in that orbit) a "total fucking prick".
He's a privately educated posh boy who signed up with the Ulster Defence Regiment in order to carry out occupationist violence against Irish catholics, before taking a break to get a cushy ride at Oxford in return. His career in Afghanistan and Iraq, for which he recieved most of his honours and press contacts, were some of the most spectacular failures in both wars, including the experiment to retake Marjah and install a new government there that was a huge embarrasment and barely lasted two months. He also ran an infantry batallion in Iraq that got caught numerous times lying about successes, including claiming that one assualt on a small town was big military win because they found 1.5 tonnes of poppy seeds and bomb making equipment. When investigated later it turned out to be mostly piecemeal bits of ordinary electronics and 1.3 tonnes of mungo beans, not poppy seed at all (or alternatively, that was what was handed over for verification).
He was the head of the counter-terrorism task force surrounding the London olympics too. A task force that pushed (successfully) for the government to round up and imprison hundreds of people without due process or cause, on the basis that they were 'known activists' who might protest. I personally know that at least one of these people was an animal rights activist who had attended anti-monarchy protests in the past. They spent 48 hours in a police station after their flat was raided in the early hours of the morning, being treated as though they had some secret plan to attack the Olympics and then were continuously and intimidatingly 'surveilled' afterward.
This was also the task force that treated poorer London neighbourhoods like Republican Irish ones, as an occupying force, the biggest scandal that made the press being forcibly placing missile batteries on the roofs of public housing. The military had originally promised consultations but pulled out of the first public meeting at the last minute when they heard the decision was unpopular with local people. Their position then became, 'this is important, you're not' essentially. The same person who called him a "total fucking prick" said he had it on good authority that Cowan held a grudge about the fact that they weren't going to be greeted with a heroes welcome at that meeting. One of the buildings organised a legal challenge, taking the government to court over it, in part arguing that they had chosen to make their private residences at target for the terrorism the military was supposedly trying to prevent. They lost in court, with the government simply shouting 'terrorism' over and over again at a friendly judge. But that didn't stop Cowan using his friendly media contacts to do PR for the unpopular decision, including inviting a friendly Telegraph reporter to come and LARP with one before writing articles that not-so-subtly implied that residents kicking up a fuss about their homes coming under military occupation and stacked with high explosive were somehow unpatriotic or possibly even useful idiots helping terrorists.
HALO Trust does some good work, but it's also rotten with types like Cowan who have come with an agressively political agenda and seem to use it as much to further their own social climbing and image as promote the organisation.
In short, Cowan is a fucking snake of the military/media/state establishment ladder. His concern over the lasting damage and legacy of war didn't extend to Ireland, it didn't extend to Afghanistan, it didn't extend to Iraq, and it's no surprise it doesn't really extend to Ukraine either. He's an idealogue ghoul, run through with ambitious narcissism.
Damn, good post. Putting missile batteries on a random apartment building during peacetime would be unbelievable if it wasn't the Brits
Thanks. In fact that was the narrative that much of the reporting at the time focused on - that missiles hadn't been deployed inside London since the second world war - usually instead of the residents' concerns.
absolute joke
I always love these non-governmental organizations led by completely independent civilians, you know you can expect impartiality from them
When civilian find one under their foot they will say 《it is okay Ukraine must defend itself》