October 31st's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
November 1st's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
November 2nd's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
November 4th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Today's the day I put the extra furniture I need for this place together, so that'll be a bunch of fun. Though I can post some links here and there in the rest breaks.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists, for the “buh Zeleski is a jew?!?!” people.
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn't really need more, but:
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.
Last week's discussion post.
So I saw a post on R*ddit where it showed ukrainian troops capturing an enemy position that was operating a PM M1910 heavy machinegun. The comments are, of course, saying that Russia is about to collapse because they're using WW1-era tech. The position, in all fairness, was probably manned by LPR/DPR reservists, which are using older equipment.
There are other posts that I have seen in the past where it shows ukrainians USING PM M1910's, which is still part of the official inventory of the UA. Which is fine, I dunno, it's a good weapon for reservists I guess? it saves other more capable HMGs from being used in rear areas and shit like that. But when :reddit-logo: finds it's actually their side who's using WW1 era tech, suddenly it becomes wholesome, very clever from the ukrainians to keep even old weapons around to resist the [RACISM] invader!
Same goes with the whole T-62M fiasco, the russians are desperate that's why they're sending tanks from the 60s. Ukraine were given modernized T-55s but that's fine. Slava Ukraini, you know!
I fucking hate westerners and their "football team" logic applied to geopolitics and war.
:parenti:
I think guns are among the only pieces of equipment in a war where it's generally basically fine to use ones from decades ago. Certainly not ideal but it's not a big deal, a bullet is a bullet, and you're limited by what a human can see and carry and by human reaction times and aim anyway.
It'll probably be like that, just minor improvements and adjustments to weight and sights and stuff, until we get something closer to laser or energy weapons (though doing that on a large scale is questionable at best - and on a small scale it's basically impossible unless we get really good lightweight batteries or something).
Larger stuff like artillery and airplanes and tanks are when using equipment from, say, the 1970s gets very questionable, though it can also depend on their exact use (e.g. using older tanks for fire support is okay, but you won't win a tank battle with them).
Older equipment may also have reliability/maintenance advantages.
They pretty much gave up on serious use of lasers in combat. Humans move too erratically so they're really only useful for blinding them, and that and using them against bigger stuff like armored vehicles and missiles is really easy to defend against, as mirrors are cheap.