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Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.

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.

The Country of the Week is still Palestine, though we will switch next week to a new country.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The weekly (biweekly?) update is here.

Links and Stuff

The bulletins site is down.

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists

Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can.

Resources For Understanding The War

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.

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 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

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.

  • Kaplya
    ·
    1 year ago

    Large scale nationalization is happening all across Russia. Saw this on telegram and decided to look them up:

    The court returned the Dalnegorsk GOK to the state, September 27, 2023

    Dalnegorsky GOK is the only producer of boric acid in Russia. According to the authorities, the enterprise is one of the leading industrial enterprises in Primorye. In the first half of the year, more than 480,000 tons of ore were mined here, which is 36% more than in the same period in 2022.

    The Prosecutor General's Office filed a lawsuit against the Fininvest company to declare the results of the privatization on August 2 illegal. On August 8, at the request of the prosecutor's office, 100% of the shares in the authorized capital of Dalnegorsky GOK LLC were seized as part of interim measures.

    The main stake in Perm-based Metafrax Chemicals will be transferred to Russia, September 8, 2023

    The Arbitration Court of the Perm Territory satisfied the demands of the Prosecutor General's Office to seize in favor of the state the main stake in the Perm enterprise Metafrax Chemicals, which was privatized in the 90s, producing methanol, said regional arbitration judge Tatyana Morozova.

    The defendant pointed out the incomparability of the Soviet plant, the cost of which was estimated at 370 million rubles before the denomination, with the modern complex in Gubakha, its price is 116 billion rubles: “the objects are incommensurable in quality and cost terms.” The defendant drew attention to the statute of limitations: the prosecutor’s office had the opportunity to declare the illegality of “privatization” from 1994 to the 2000s. “The state has been saying for 30 years that everything is fine. Well, you can’t say after 30 years that the cow has fed up the bull,” the defender of the Metaholding company concluded his speech.

    NOOO YOU CAN’T JUST SEIZE THE PLANT THAT I BOUGHT OFF CHEAP WHEN THE USSR FELL, YOU NEVER SAID IT WAS ILLEGAL BEFORE AND NOW THAT IT’S VALUED AT HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF RUBLES, YOU JUST CAME IN AND TOOK IT AWAY!!!

    putin-wink

    The Federal Property Management Agency became the owner of 100% of Volzhsky Orgsintez, September 21, 2023 (Volzhsky Orgsintez is one of the largest chemical factories in Europe)

    Information about the new owner was entered on September 20. Previously, 100% of the shares of Volzhsky Orgsintez belonged to Alexander Sobolevsky.

    In August, the Arbitration Court of the Volgograd Region satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office against Sobolevsky to claim 100% of the company's shares in favor of the state. In favor of the state, ordinary shares of the joint-stock company with a par value of 0.2 rubles each in the amount of 2,344,925 were to be credited.

    The contract for the sale of the bankrupt Perm defense plant was terminated, August 22, 2023

    The agreement was concluded on May 22, 2023, the transaction amount was 725 million rubles. The new owner of the defense enterprise announced plans to modernize the plant's production . The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation challenged the results of the auction by filing a corresponding application with the court as part of the bankruptcy case. The courts of first and appellate instances rejected the claims. As a result, the contract between the defense plant and the Moscow company was terminated pre-trial.

    Concern "Pokrovsky" confiscated for corruption proceeds of its beneficiary, October 25, 2023

    At the suit of Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Tkachev, the property of Andrei Korovayko, Arkady Chebanov, as well as related structures of the Pokrovsky concern, one of the large agro-industrial holdings in Russia, was confiscated. In total, 94 enterprises with a total value of 100 billion rubles were donated to the state. The case concerns shares and shares of JSC Concern Pokrovsky, agricultural firms Rus, Dolzhanskaya, Urozhaynaya, Rassvet, Mostovskaya, Rodina, the Kanevskoy meat and poultry plant, and the Pavlovsky meat processing plant. and "Tikhoretsky", Kanevsky, Timashevsky and Kurganinsky sugar factories, Albashsky, Stepnyansky and Staroshcherbinovsky elevators, as well as numerous trading and service companies.

    ——

    At first I thought this smells like election season, but the weird part is that none of these moves were advertised loudly. Dozens of news like these are silently happening in the background.

    Russia is such a weird country. It’s almost as if two separate factions are running the country.

    You have on the one side the willingness to nationalize industries under state control, and on the other side you have the libs preparing for privatization of state assets to patch up the budget deficit.

    You have a government that is willing to spend a huge amount of money to keep the economy going, and on the other side you have the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank that doing everything they can to reverse all these efforts by raising interest rates at the snap of a finger.

    It’s such a weird country I don’t even know what’s going on anymore.

    • Catradora_Stalinism [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Putin

      the Soviet comeback was a joke

      putin no it was a joke

      nationalization gives more power to the workers, as they are a part of the state, you're asking for stronger unions and thus stronger leftism

      Putin i hate you let me just hate you

      putin you're not supposed to press the button

      I know its probably just going to be cursed in the weird Russian Federation fashion, but theres a non zero chance for a stronger left rise.

      I love that whenever a government has to do anything productive, they end up realizing the commies were right

      • Kaplya
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think Putin is the coward centrist who couldn’t quite decide which way to go. There is the Mishustin-Belousov government that has a lot of socdem-like policies including deficit spending and nationalization etc., then you have the Siluanov-Nabiullina liberal faction who uses their financial instruments to undermine those efforts and pushing for privatization.

        Having followed closely the Russian economy news for almost 2 years, it’s like going through rollercoaster on a daily basis. You can’t predict whether it’s good or bad news today, and I don’t even pretend to know what’s happening anymore.

        The country is on the verge of an ideological split: it’s like “we like liberal capitalism, but without nationalization we can’t win the war!”

        Anyhow, these efforts are good for socialists and labor activists because the state can no longer play the role of a neoliberal resource colony by selling raw materials to Western countries, they now have to rely on their own workers to build up their industries.

        • Trudge [Comrade]@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          1 year ago

          It's a bit of a long shot, but I hope China does tech transfers to Russia instead of just buying up raw materials.

          I thought that Russia completely liberalized after 30 years, but I'm happy that I was proven wrong.

          • Kaplya
            ·
            1 year ago

            I hate to give Putin the credit here but he did stop the bleed and even renationalized certain key sectors, but that’s not saying much because so much had been privatized in the 1990s and there is still a lot of lingering corruption under Putin.

            On the other hand, Ukraine is what Russia would have looked like if the privatization never stopped. Which is sad to think about considering that the Ukraine SSR had some of the world’s leading aviation, space, shipbuilding and various heavy industries. All those are gone now.

      • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Russia has nationalized a lot under Putin. You're thinking of Yeltsin that sold things off.

    • trot [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Meanwhile, the largest thermal power provider in St Petersburg (currently valued at 60 billion rubles) has been set to be privatized in 2024: https://www.dp.ru/a/2023/09/20/zaks-peterburga-prinjal-zakon

      • Kaplya
        ·
        1 year ago

        This is an interesting case because it seems it will be sold 100% to the city of St. Petersburg, I guess the local government?

        Anyway it is true that as I complained it seemed as though two separate groups of people are running the show. The libs are pushing hard for privatization right now.

        • trot [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          This is an interesting case because it seems it will be sold 100% to the city of St. Petersburg, I guess the local government?

          Which begs the question of why the formality was necessary. I predict the local government-owned shares are eventually going to be quietly sold off.

    • GaveUp [she/her]
      ·
      1 year ago

      So scared that when Putin leaves office a further right winger will enter and privatize everything again