No update today or tomorrow.
Links and Stuff
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.
Yesterday's discussion post.
Intelslava:
Achieving peace in Ukraine is impossible without the elimination of the current Kyiv regime, controlled from the outside - LNR Ambassador to Russia.
Authorities of Kherson region will turn to the President of Russia with a request to include the region into Russia - deputy head of the military-civilian administration of the region. The deadlines have been announced: by the end of the year, the Kherson region will pass under the legislation of Russian federation
I guess this will lengthen the war, maybe it will take a year or more as western analysts claim if Russia is just gonna start carving bits off now. And there's no way that Ukraine will agree to also losing Kherson - they were already adamantly against losing Crimea, Donetsk, and Lugansk, and they were virtually never gonna go back to being Ukrainian. Looks like diplomacy is over and it's military all the way unless Zelensky is Minecrafted and somebody with more sense takes his place and surrenders to Russia.
I wouldn't jump to that conclusion Ukraine still not negotiating in good faith, the last hopeful attempt in Turkey was beginning to show some progress and then the UK/US NATO intervened and told Zelensky to walk back on his compromises.
I think the length of the war is up to the US to decide. Certainly the current massive expenditure can't continue for long, all of this is being done at the expense of EU, how long until Europeans start getting angry?
We saw the whole "war in Europe" rhetoric white people suffering oh no. But European history is also full of conflict between Germany/France/UK/Austria/Spain/Portugal/Netherlands all historically fought each other at some point, you know competing colonial/imperialist interests.
Then I don't see how Biden can justify another Iraq/Afghanistan level of spending in the middle of a recession. I believe if the US gave their blessing we could have peace within a week of negotiations.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
It can last a very, very long time. Since WWII one of the most powerful liberal brainworms in Europe has been "America good". Directly challenging American interests would run counter to everything they believe in.
Of course there will be a point at which pure ideology can no longer distract from material reality but that point is far, far away. It's a hell of a lot farther away than freeze peach, almost as far out as private property.
Don't believe me, just watch.
deleted by creator
Ukrainian Pravda reported it themselves
deleted by creator
They'll use some faux Keynseian logic. More weapons building to boost the economy.
AFAIK Kherson is not predominantly Russian and a Russian administration there would be more likely to meet resistance than in the Donbass. Could this talk about Kherson joining the Russian Federation be meant more to apply pressure on the Kiev government, scaring them to negotiate before they lose the southern half of the country, rather than a Russian desire to take over Kherson?
Russia seems to know this; again from Intelslava: "Kherson region decided not to hold a referendum on joining the Russian Federation, the region will try to become part of Russia without this procedure - the authorities of the region"
deleted by creator
They don't give a shit about optics anymore. The masks have come off on both sides of this war.
deleted by creator
Like, do they ever give a shite about optic. When Ukraine army launched Tockha U targeting Kherson, it’s already game over for that region and city
Why should they when the west calls them literally Hitler no matter what they do?
sorry Putin, sis, this is a bad look 💅
lol guess they gave up on pretending
Ukraine better surrender soon if they don’t want to lose Odessa region and Zaporizhzhia region…
The longer Zelenskyy plays this game, the more Ukraine is going to disintegrate
deleted by creator
Makes sense, Russia is already occupying most of it. I wonder once Phase 2 is done and the entire Donbass is under DPR/LPR control, then whether a hypothetical Phase 3 will begin which will finish off Zaporozhie and perhaps Mykolaiv and Odessa?
deleted by creator
Are you surprised? Putin already warn Kiev government about losing more territory from the first negotiations? It’s the US and UK keep pumping in money, make surprise visit tell Elensky to continue this charade to last Ukrainian.
deleted by creator
We all wish that comrade, but in the end, fist speak louder than word, unfortunately.
Yeah, I was originally thinking about 6 months or so (so, 3-4 more months) to get the entire Donbass, though I've seen some ideas floated around that once Russia gets a few breakthroughs in the front, and Ukraine is sufficiently weakened, then they can start rolling up Ukraine's forces all the way to the Dniper river. So that would presumably shorten the operation and that we're just in the slow phase before the pressure is too much and it all crumples at "once" (still weeks to months).
But if Russia decides to take more, I could see this taking a year or longer. Especially depending on how much weaponry Ukraine is stockpiling in their cities and fortifications away from the front (more safe), versus taking it to the front (less safe). Of course, all the weaponry in the world won't help you without enough men to use it.
Yeah. Though speculating on alternative realities is basically non-falsifiable whatever you predict so, for me at least, it's only interesting as a theoretical exercise, not to pass judgement on what you think Ukraine and Russia would have done in a parallel universe. Though I'm very confident in saying that the wrong side won the Cold War if you care about things like the betterment and stability of humanity.
deleted by creator
I give literally 0 shits about fascist NATO Ukraine losing Russian speaking territory to Russia.
deleted by creator
Odessa and Nykolaev is also in phase 2, tbf