Image is of General Abdourahamane Tiani, leader of Niger (left) and Ibrahim Traoré, leader of Burkina Faso (right).
The Alliance of Sahel States (ASS) formed on September 16th in the wake of the coup in Niger in late July, in which Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso created a military and increasingly economic alliance in which attacking one would result in the other two joining. This was initially most relevant militarily, as ECOWAS was threatening an invasion of Niger if they did not restore civilian rule. Nonetheless, due to a mixture of a lack of real strength in ECOWAS due to Nigeria's internal problems, and the influence of Algeria, a very strong regional military power who negotiated against a war which could further destabilise an already destabilised region, and the vague promises of future civilian rule, the external military threat seems to have mostly dissipated.
However, internal threats remain. Burkina Faso is fighting against ISIS and al-Qaeda, which commit regular massacres of civilians; the government controls only 60% of the country. In Mali, the government is fighting against similar groups as well as the Tuareg, which inhabit the more sparsely populated north of the country - the government is in the process of kicking out the UN mission to Mali, and in the process retaking rebel stronghold cities like Kidal, which is raising some eyebrows as to what exactly the UN was doing all this time; and Niger is fighting against similar Islamic groups too, and is kicking out the French for being exploitative motherfuckers. Combine this with the sanctions against Niger which are crippling the country, disease outbreaks in Burkina Faso, and just the general shitty state of the world economy, and the situation is not looking very good currently.
That all being said, economy and trade ministers from all three countries have met this past weekend in Bamako, the capital of Mali. There, they recommended that the countries: improve the free movement of people inside the ASS (don't laugh!); construct and strengthen infrastructure like dams and roads; construct a food safety system; establish a stabilization fund and investment bank; and even create a common airline. This is all attracting foreign attention too - Russia has signed a deal to build Africa's largest gold refinery in Mali, and China is the second largest investor into Niger after France, ploughing money into the gold and uranium industries there. And, of course, the Wagner group is in the region - though I'm unsure if they're having a major or minor impact on events there.
The weekly update is here on the website.
Your Monday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Wednesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Burkina Faso! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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. Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
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.
The newest Seymour Hersh article further cements the narrative his sources are giving him shit now in order to poison the well.
TL:DR Fictional negotiations between Zaluzhny and the Russians.
I think just is a good start to explain why its nonsense.
Scandals happen for a reason. So Zaluzhny overtook Zelensky in terms of electoral trust.2
For those not following anymore, there is a long term dispute between Zelensky and other parts of the military led by Zaluzhny over the military strategy. Zelensky favors these stupid heroic defenses that obviously always fail why Zaluzhny apparently always wanted a more defensive approach. The focus point was Bakhmut defense vs retreat and then the failed offensive.
But now the narrative also includes the elections. Zelensky's government approval is tanking for obvious reasons and Zaluzhny is possibly the main opposition candidate as head of the military and embodying the people's trust on the military over the civilian government.
This conflict between them is nothing new but this scandal is hurting Seymour's credibility a lot. Again Mercouris makes a few more points even I missed at first glance today, starting here. I think this is just the third interesting thing that happened this year during this war, he is right this is the strongest indicator of a real political crisis in Ukraine that should be undeniable, he talks more about Zaluzhny vs Zelensky after this.
Anyway the points I think are not so obvious:
1- Even if true, Zaluzhny is in no position to carry out official negotiations, he can not claim to represent the government, he certainly can't claim to have any backing from the west. This should've been strike #1 for SH's trust on the source.
2- The same is true for General Gerasimov, he is not employed in any diplomatic capacity. He is Chief of the General Staff but most importantly, the fact the source picked him shows the they have no understanding of Russian government or politics, they actually believe Russia is a military dictatorship just like Ukraine, you know that smell of neolib BS? The point here isn't "democracy"(lol) but the fact Russia has an actual functioning government with clear division of roles and functions. The fact this isn't obvious to the source makes it clear the source is entirely speaking from a western biased perspective about Russia, you can almost dismiss it entirely based on this.
3- Lavrov was just on the news yesterday saying the exact opposite of all of this, that negotiations are impossible basically because western governments put their political credibility behind support for Ukrainian "democracy" and "western values". Any negotiation would mean admitting defeat and you can be damn sure Russia wouldn't take this without gloating over it to literally everyone in the world. Why conduct any of this in secret with some dumbass Ukrainian general lol.
Now for the obvious points you can skip
1- It is so remarkable Gerasimov would just so happily echo the same BS narrative about Russia being "incapable of winning the war". Not only it goes against everything pushed by own Russian "propaganda", it goes against every combat report and situation analysis since about week 2 of the failed counter offensive, when it became obvious it was a clown shitshow. Also Russia is making slow and steady in Avdeyevka, you'd lose some serious personal credibility to even suggest it in public.
2- SH needs to google what is a Minsk agreement, surely he must know already how we got here? Why would the Russians ever trust Ukraine let alone the west now.
3- The concessions are worse than what they were even back in April 22! At the time the terms was complete Ukrainian neutrality. Somehow this idiot thinks the Russians would accept Ukraine joining NATO? Maybe its not "impossible", but not without major concessions which they're not getting in the first place. Getting to keep what you conquered isn't a concession specially when the enemy already tried to take it back and failed lol.
If I said earlier Russia would gloat over defeating western "democracy" in Ukraine then the reverse is also true, it is inconceivable now that Russia would so easily allow Ukraine to join NATO which is exactly what Ukraine wanted. It would be seen as a victory for the west and allow the Biden admin a clear path to the '24 elections.
Hersh doesn't seem to have clocked he's been the target of an intelligence operation, dude has been talking nonsense for months now
Your sources are fucked Hersh, wake up
Dude is like 86 now so uhh....
Excellent write-up. I also wondered what’s going on with Hersh.
How long until Zelesky gets removed from power by a military coup?
Impossible to tell honestly.
The Ukraine myth relies on the facade of it representing western democratic values, therefore it is almost impossible to see the US allowing such a coup.
At the same time Ukraine is supposed to have elections at some point and clearly as the polls show already Zelensky would face tough competition and it will only get worse from here. However having a literal army General becoming president isn't a good look for a democracy either way so it is understandable I guess this situation is being delayed.
There are other factors like Ukraine needs more mobilizations and these are unpopular. If I were to take a guess I'd say the opposite, the US is more likely to support Zelensky if/when he tries to get rid of Zaluzhny so that the Ukrainian people have no alternative. Again if you look at the polls above he is the only remotely popular alternative. All that matters is to create a favorable scenario so Zelensky can win the election, then it doesn't matter anymore.