Image is of Iranian speedboats spotted by a satellite in the Strait of Hormuz.
Not terribly much has happened in the last week. The main two developments is the very much expected resumption of fire in Lebanon as the ZIonists are famously agreement-incapable, and the continuing supply of equipment to the Middle East, including the George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier. This means there are now three aircraft carriers in the general vicinity, and while I'm uncertain how much of a role the burnt-out Ford and the increasingly exhausted Lincoln will ultimately play (they were rather ineffective during the first round), there are also a good ~20 destroyers and however many submarines that are carrying their own munitions. I have a couple more paragraphs of exposition below, but it's unlikely to be major news to anybody here, so I've spoilered it.
spoiler
On the one hand, it feels like a resumption of the war for the US at this point would be complete madness. We are getting article after article from even the Western media admitting to US standoff+interceptor missile shortages, as well as detailing the extensive damage to US bases. The Zionists are also getting ever more mired in Lebanon, with Hezbollah's unjammable fibre optic drones playing an ever more prominent role in causing substantial long range damage to invading forces. On the other hand, it is very unlikely that most of the US's remaining firepower is being brought to the region on a mere bluff. For its part, Iran and their allies seem to have their finger on the trigger, with their own extensive repairs, upgrades, resupplies, and adjustments having been made for round two.
Assessing the overall global economic situation is difficult, not least because of a degree of financial manipulation that is almost admirable in its sheer scale and recklessness - to quote Ghalibaf: "Their frontline is the yield curve." Multiple countries are now facing real and desperate shortages, including major economies like Japan. Diesel prices continue their record rises, and reports about the potential impacts to all sectors of the global economy are streaming in, with famines around the world now very likely. While the US is profiting from the rise in oil prices, it seems like it will be unable to meaningfully increase production for at least a year or two, and so the US will certainly not be replacing the massive oil barrel deficit to create an energy hegemony, as some have suggested. In contrary: this is the best opportunity in a generation for China, Russia, and Iran to collectively make economic decisions that could cripple entire pillars of American hegemony. However, if the response is lacking - and we've all seen before over the last four years how China's responses to crises have been on the lacking side - we could see a (albeit temporary) strengthening of the US's financial power, as this global crisis will almost certainly result in debt climbing even higher as Western financial institutions grant loans en masse to struggling countries in the developing world. It's very uncertain times.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
Is the Ukraine war still a stupid waste of human life and a slow crawl meat grinder in general? I was talking to a libbed up colleague of mine about the war last night. The average lib still thinks Russia, and Putin specifically of course, are engaging in this war for purely expansionist/imperialist reasons, and have absolutely no conception of Ukrainian politics before 2022 of course. I was able to establish some credibility for myself by insisting that, no, they did not simply claim Ukraine for the love of the game, but initially were intervening in a years long civil war on behalf of a besieged minority receiving the brunt of legal discrimination. This person was completely ignorant of both the civil war and language law/discrimination.
I wish there was a culmination of articles changing their narrative over time from Western media. I remember how bakhmut and other cities were initially declared important fortresses, then brazenly claimed to be killing thousands of Russians per day, and then immediately declared not actually important as soon as Russia finished their sieges. It would be nice to be able to confront them with the changing narrative before their very eyes. I swear to God these people don't have object permanence. They still think Ukraine is soundly winning the war and are baffled at how anyone could think otherwise. Pretty funny that they were talking about how Russia is instituting a more active draft and that shows how weak they must be now, given that of course busification has been a thing for at least 2 years now in Ukraine. Real "Our glorious mobilization, Their wretched draft" hours.
I don't know I'm just ranting as I try to comprehend the brain worms I was just exposed to. I don't even have to start listing alternative sources or narratives with these people. Like, their own sources fall apart under even a little bit of scrutiny. It would blow their minds to hear not just the narrative critiqued but an entirely different vision of events put forward.
I've been following this conflict sometimes closely since the escalation. And since I don't really have any non-lib person to talk to irl about this, you've opened up a bit of a can of worms. Yes it's still a stupid waste of human life. From a detached paying attention to how things are going have been going point of view, it's about to get pretty interesting for a number of reasons. Largely the state of the battlefield, the state of the Ukrainian military, and the tech being adopted
All of this implies to me that the war might be entering a new phase. I'm not a military analyst, but if the Ukrainians are able to use the autonomous drones to hold territory, we might actually be entering the stalemate that Western media has been claiming for the past 4 years.
I could find references if you want, but this was written strictly from memory. Most of this should be taken with a grain of salt as a result.
Thanks! I appreciate a thoughtful response, even if I have to chock it up to what someone said and consider it hearsay for now.
yes
I don't think Russia's invasion really had much to do with Russian minorities in Ukraine, regardless of what they stated officially. It was a inevitable reaction to the continued expansion of NATO and not wanting to have Americans lined up on the Russian border.
The "oppressed minority" is nice PR but very rarely is the actual reason countries start a war. The Nazis somewhat famously used this excuse multiple times to invade their neighbors.
I agree, and I overstated my emphasis on it in my OP. I was just trying to offer an example of messaging that the liberal was COMPLETELY ignorant of. I'd use that credibility as a basis to question the Maidan revolution more thoroughly and NATO's history of military encroachment, if given the opportunity, but the conversation turned before then. My point was just to show how dramatically uneven the coverage of the conflict is, and to question the narrative of le epic wholesome chungus Ukrainians fighting against ontologically evil Russian hordes.
Both can be true. The Ukrainian far rights extreme Russophobia is well documented and the west giving them control of the country allowed them to carry out what they've been calling for for decades.
I agree the primary reason for Russian intervention in Ukraine was a reaction to NATO provocation but that doesn't mean Russian speakers in Ukraine weren't actually being persecuted and facing discrimination.
I don't know if that's what you were getting at but your phrasing seems rather dismissive of the internal contradictions within Ukrainian society.
I can't even get to that point with them. I just get called a shill and blocked
Pulling the west's best trick in the book...sanctioning so many people around them that they eventually just end up sanctioning themselves off from reality.
Do you have any sources for these? /gen, I have lots of sources to dole out for other common lib shit but not this
Hungarian reaction to language laws from 2017
Romanian reaction to language laws from 2017
Language law requires all public business and media to be in Ukrainian with some exceptions for recognized EU languages but not Russian
EU says Ukraine laws are not compliant with EU requirements
Ukraine has been attempting to remove any legal protections for minority languages in Ukraine for over a decade now. While, the language used is generally ambiguous the aim is pretty clearly directed at the Russian language as other languages are often granted exceptions. There was also something a long the lines of a language can only be recognized as a protected minority if the population is under a certain percentage of the region. In this way, they managed to both attack Russian where it actually is a relative minority (western Ukraine) and where it's also a majority (eastern Ukraine). It was a part of the Minsk agreements as well as being a point of tension that lead to the 2014 referendums which were, initially, referendums seeking greater autonomy within Ukraine. The intent being eastern Ukraine is more Russian and sought to protect its language and culture from the western Russophobia.
Thank you, I kind of never got around to looking into the claims on either side so these will be helpful.
You can find a multitude of sources discussing the language law before the war started. It's a well recorded and discussed phenomenon even in western sources.
An academic source summarizing the larger pattern of conflict can be found here (for people who think the invasion came out of nowhere) https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-98724-3_5
Whenever somebody brings up the Russia/Ukraine war unprompted with me IRL, my trolling brain steps in and I'll just give the most unhinged takes I can think of to mess with them. One of my go-to responses is an indifferent "I don't care about fascists killing fascists on the other side of the planet". Of course that's not my real thought on the complexities of the whole situation. I'm just sick of engaging with people who aren't engaging in good faith.
As for how it's going, I work under the assumption that if things were actually going badly for Russia, the NATO media would still have it as front page news every day.