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Well, Prigozhin gets to live in Belarus instead of being on the wrong end of an Iskander, Wagner forces (in Ukraine at least) will probably get integrated into the Russian military, and SHOOOOIIGUUU and GEERRASSIMOOVV get to keep their jobs. Putin looks like a weak leader but at least things are intact. Also, the front in Ukraine hasn't broken down or anything.
I imagine a ton of things have happened behind the scenes that we either will never know about or will only slowly come to know about in the future.
About as happy an ending to the Wagner saga as we could hope for given the nature and historical horror stories of mercs. Or is it the end...? (Yes. Hopefully.)
And I have it on good authority that Stalin is currently looking down on this situation from heaven and incessantly swearing at these motherfuckers for what they've done to his country.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.
This week's first and only update is here, because I am on my regularly scheduled week-long break that I forgot about until now given all that's going on. Next update will be next Wednesday.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
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. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have decent analysis. Avoid the comment section.
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. Beware of chuddery.
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 journalist reporting in the warzone.
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 ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist (but still quite reactionary in terms of gender and sexuality and race, so beware). 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 ~ Another 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's army.
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
God damn it. The Wagner coup was a psyop to make me forget that I take a week off every two months and this week was meant to be that week.
To be honest, many media outlets not in the West were somewhat preoccupied with the coup and the statements made by others observing it, so there's less real news to report today anyway. I've put together something from what I've bothered to sift through.
There won't be another one until Wednesday next week. But there's some stuff I've gotta do anyway that's bulletins-adjacent, so it all lines up quite nicely.
Mini-update for June 26th
European consumer groups are urging the public to stop buying pasta from large manufacturers in Italy and France due to unjustified price hikes (the same old story of "the war in Ukraine has made it very hard for us" while not actually making it hard for them at all).RT
Most EU hydrogen projects risk prolonging the use of fossil fuels and do not commit to using green hydrogen, surprising nobody.DeSmog
United Kingdom: Only 6% of citizens believe that the UK political system does not need reforming, while 89% support constitutional reform (31% believe that "complete reform" is needed).Euractiv
Greece: The current conservative PM Mitsotakis has won the second round of the election with the largest margin of victory in over five decades.AlMayadeen
Serbia: Vucic believes that foreign intelligence played a role in the Wagner attempted coup and has complimented Putin's ability to stop it.RT
Moldova: Industrial output contracted by 10% year-on-year in April and was as deep as a 27% plunge in core manufacturing, the lowest it's been since 2016 (excluding the 2020 lockdown).BNE
Turkey: The 21st annual Istanbul Pride parade was held yesterday, defying a ban on it; police erected barriers and people were detained by police.MEE
Saudi Arabia: Saudi Aramco and France's TotalEnergies have signed a deal worth $11 billion to build a new petrochemicals complex at the SATORP refinery in Saudi Arabia.Cradle
Iraq: Resistance factions have issued an ultimatum to the government demanding action against US violations in the country, and failure to do so will result in a reaction against the government.Cradle
Iran: The government has upgraded tourism and trade ties with the UAE.Cradle Iran is also sealing deals with Saudi Arabia on developing special economic zones.AlMayadeen The exiled Iranian opposition group, the MKO, is being supported by Mike Pence in his presidential campaign. The political wing of the MKO is the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which has long received backing from the US.AlMayadeen
Russia: The Russian chapter of the WWF has cut ties with WWF International after the country listed the WWF as an "undesirable organization", which is equivalent to a ban.CCN
Uzbekistan: Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power has signed a contract with Energy China Group Corporation for a solar photovoltaic plant in the Tashkent region.BNE
*DPRK: Chinese tourists are taking more and more trips to the border with the DPRK as an alternative to visiting the country itself (as the DPRK is one of the only based countries left with coronavirus border control measures), which the West is crying and pissing itself about because it could give the DPRK foreign money to build their nukes.ANN
Philippines: The World Bank has approved a $110 million loan to finance boosting education.TeleSUR
Vietnam: The country's tech manufacturing production is slowing down after a flurry of activity last year, with 45,000 electronics workers now out of jobs and many of those still employed with reduced hours and pay.RoW
New Zealand: A business delegation is following the PM off to China.GlobalTimes
Egypt: Indian PM Modi is on a visit to Egypt after meeting with Biden in Washington, the first visit to Egypt by an Indian PM since 1997, in order to strengthen ties.AfricaNews
Niger: The government is ditching its old national anthem and getting a new one in order to get rid of relics of French colonization.AlMayadeen
Sierra Leone: The results from the Sierra Leone election will be due in a week, with incumbent president Julius Maada Bio seeking a second and final term against Samura Kamara; the winner must receive 55% of the vote or a second round will occur.TeleSUR Police have fired tear gas at opposition supporters in Freetown and the opposition leader has said that bullets had been fired at his HQ.AfricaNews
Mali: Malians have approved the draft of the new constitution submitted by the military government with 97% of the vote, with 39% turnout and accusations of irregularities. Critics say that the new constitution is made to keep the colonels in power beyond the 2024 presidential elections.[AfricaNews
Angola: There's an article by SCMP on the state of play in Angola between China and the West which is fairly interesting. Over a quarter of Chinese African financing has gone to Angola since 2000. The leader since 2017 has been trying to diversify away from China and lean more towards the United States, but the leader before him was, it seems from a cursory glance, one of those who was on the USSR's side and then when it fell were basically forced to give up and turn into a social democracy. I really need to read up on 20th century African history tbh. SCMP
Barbados: The PM is on an official visit to China, and has talked with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, and are talking about co-operation and the BRI and so on.TeleSUR
United States: Texas is entering the third week of its heatwave, where temperatures upwards of 110 degrees Fahrenheit are being observed, and power cuts are occurring due to excessive power use from air conditioning (and probably much more importantly because the grid fucking sucks and will never be fixed unless it's profitable enough).AlMayadeen FAIR takes on the NYT assertion that Millennials are moving to the right, which was itself a counter to a Financial Times article claiming that, surprisingly, Millennials are not moving to the right. Weirdly enough, it might actually have some kind of basis in material reality and it's not a mystical spell that makes you become more of a dipshit as you get older.FAIR
Venezuela's Maduro and Nicaragua's Ortega have issued a communique showing support to Putin and condemning the Wagner coup.TeleSUR
Argentina: The UK has replied to the latest things about the Falkland Islands by saying that there is no interest from the people to be incorporated into Argentina, that the UK doesn't have the mandate to negotiate with Argentina on their behalf, and has said that there will be no dialogue on sovereignty until the Islanders wish it.MercoPress
Peru: President Boluarte's approval rating has reached its lowest level yet, with 80% disapproval and 12% approval.TeleSUR
Vijay Prashad's latest newsletter is here - this time, it focuses on Europe and whether they can break free from the Atlantic Alliance (probably not, though Macron is certainly a curious figure).MR
Michael Roberts talks about the 2023 Ukraine Recovery Conference, which probably has one of the largest ghoul-per-square-foot readings ever seen in human history.MichaelRoberts
And, as always,
I Love My Trans Comrades!