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.
Looks like Ukraine's stores are out of salt. The largest salt mining company in Europe is located in... drumroll please... Donetsk.
Also, the Harry Potter audiobooks have now been translated into Ukrainian. Finally, the real resistance can begin. Zelensky is definitely a Gryffindor.
Also, the Harry Potter audiobooks have now been translated into Ukrainian.
Talk about a fucking cognitohazard.
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe.
It is the second biggest country on the continent.
The supply side disruptions we're seeing now are a bit of a foreshadowing of what collapse scenarios look like. When climate change hits so hard that transitions are forced by circumstances rather than rapid planned transitions. When neoliberalization makes everything even more brittle so that flexing labor power is a threat to everyone's life.
I'll admit that after the Ukrainians pushed back in Kharkiv/Kharkov I briefly wondered if I'd been in a bubble and the Russians were actually on the road to loss and disaster just as the mainstream media has been saying for months. But the breakthroughs in Donbass have put that to bed.
We were all being gaslit hard. Most people here resisted it well, although a few posters completely bought the western narratives and doomposted here constantly about Bucha massacre, the Russian “defeat” at Snake Island, etc.
It was, admittedly, a difficult month due to the totality of opinion towards one goal and the lockstep of the media, but we do finally have the validation that it was the strategy all along - to weaken the Ukrainians with artillery barrages and then push. Being right by holding a conviction after a long time of appearing on the surface to be wrong feels better to me than bouncing between different realities to avoid being owned, even if it meant enduring the people saying that Russia was losing, losing, lost, even sometimes, as you say, in this megathread.
The UN says that the world has 10 weeks of wheat reserves left, due to the shortage of fertilizers, the impact of the war on Ukraine, and the extreme droughts and heatwaves being seen in various regions over the world.
Soon the humble Potato will supplant the tyrant known as Wheat and inaugurate an age of spudy goodness
Okay, if a potato blight breaks out what we need to do is we all do petty crimes and get transported to Australia.
I have potato blood in my veins. My life is potato. In your working life and in your living it's always potatoes. I dream of potatoes. When we are going to harvest, in your mind and in your heart you feel that you are going to export the potato, and you are not going to see it anymore. That hurts. The family thinks always from morning to evening about the potatoes.
Just to check - It costs more than one gallon of gasoline to make one gallon of corn ethanol? Am I right on that?
Something like that, always said corn ethanol as a fuel additive was a dumb concept in terms of energy efficiency
Russia has record bumper wheat harvests. If only there was some way to allow them to trade with other markets and exchange their wheat for currency
The editorial board wrote that despite Russia’s struggles to make any meaningful progress in the conflict
Now I might not be one of those fancy blue-check Twitter reporters, Mr. NYT, but I'm looking at the map and I see quite a lot of red territory that I would call "meaningful progress." But what do I know, I don't get my reports directly from the Ukrainian MOD.
:blob-no-thoughts:
Russians lost access to the white privilege as a result of the sanctions by the totally international community.
2023: Despite occupying the entire territory of Ukraine, Russia has failed to make significant progress and especially now that the Ukrainian government has moved to Washington DC, making weapons deliveries much easier.
I'm reading this in the shower but still hooked my thumbs into non-existent suspenders
I'll hook my thumbs into my actually existing suspenders (AES) on your behalf
Ukrainian Presidential advisor Arestovych: "We are in a difficult situation, and it will get worse", "there may be encirclements, abandonment of positions, and heavy casualties", "we are in for a tough month: depression, panic, and mutual accusations in society"
Russian telegram is saying that Arestovych said that Russia has bought off the western media due to the articles slightly critical of whether Ukraine will win. Which, like, I'm not sure if that's even possible with all the sanctions and shit on them, but also, lol. Like, not a single MSM source is saying that Ukraine is gonna lose, the most I've seen is "nobody will win this" which is one of those things where, like, that's true, but one side is gonna be a lot more stable and victorious than the other.
CNN and others have started to call for a ceasefire and for Ukraine to negotiate seriously
“We the defenders of the West are getting backstabbed by the media.”
Have they started accusing the (((media))) or are we not quite at that point in the script yet?
When the head propagandist starts cracking and telling the truth, times indeed look dire ahead for the Ukrainian state
mutual accusations in society
Trying to pre-empively bothsides the upcoming news of more massacres done by retreating nazis, I bet.
Possibly. Recriminations are common when things start going terribly. Unfortunately in Ukraine, the resentments of the most armed faction will be heavily anti-Semitic, anti-Roma, anti-trans and anti-Russian.
It means someone will get accused of being a backstabber. I'm sure all parties will be equally guilty.
There is a very small minority of Italians in Crimea. Feodosia/Feodosiya used to be a Genoese colony called Caffa. It is theorized that the spread of Black Plague into Europe started because the colony was under siege and the fleeing Genoese brought the bacteria to Europe.
Just wanted to share a little known historical fact about the region. Crimea is a region often in the center of history
I'm curious how the Muppet Chef is viewed in your part of the world?
Pakistan is popping off. Khan supporters are setting armored police vehicles on fire apparently.
https://t.me/mangopress/6720
khan has endorsed the rally to march on parliament too, this could get really spicy
Khan is fairly anti-imperialist and China aligned. He was ousted in a color revolution via military and judiciary at the start of this war for leaning towards Russia and China. The new government got to work immediately taking IMF loans and invading Afghanistan and attacking Taliban.
China should move reserves out of US Treasuries, by Asia Times
China has built a foreign exchange-earning economy and accumulated US$3.3 trillion in reserves over the past few decades, but such policies are outdated and need to be adjusted.
Amid the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the United States has punitively frozen $300 billion worth of Russian reserves. The incident shows that it is completely possible for the US to seize China’s overseas assets, particularly forex reserves, if it deems it necessary.
US inflation and foreign debt accumulation will lead to dollar depreciation. China should buy less US Treasury bonds, buy more commodities and strategic materials, and shift away from exports to domestic consumption.
It also should try to fulfill the Sino-US trade agreement as much as possible. It should spend its forex reserves. All these will help promote renminbi internationalization and improve the security of China’s overseas assets.
- Less dollars in American banks
- More real commoditiy reserves
- Less exports
- More internationalisation of non-western currencies
The yankee sanctions tantrum is wrecking the neoliberal globalisation that their empire is built on.
This is what winning looks like?
The Ukrainian army is retreating west from Donbass in a panic!
Watch the media narrative shift within the next few days/weeks from "Ukraine is winning Putin is embaressed" to "Here is how Ukraine can turn things around and why Putin will ultimately lose".
Honestly just happy to see footage of Ukrainians getting the fuck out of there and not dead in a field for once.
Amen, a proxy war between two decaying right-wing shitholes is not worth dying over.
Competing great powers are historically not really better for the periphery than a clear hegemon. Stuff like the struggle for Africa was driven by European competition. Also with a clear hegemon the task of the revolution is somewhat easier. The french revolution stuggled because all other powers of Europe allied against it, the same goes for the Soviets, if there is a clear hegemon a revolution there is a game over.
Sometimes I think some people here would have cheered Kaiser Wilhelm for sticking it to the British Empire.
That's probably not really going to be because of the war, the war will just be a proof of existing underlying material reality
And I'm not sure China is ready. I might be more optimistic if they had had ten more years to build up
Sorry that you're currently dying in this war, I hope you get better
It is a truck full of fascists that spent 8 years of shelling and launching missiles against civilians. If you care about the war ending sooner then you don't want these people to continue to survive and fight.
It's so impossible to predict a recession that there is an entire field of economics called nowcasting which tries to predict if we're currently in a recession with poor results. If they can't do that then they certainly can't forecast into the future.
Looks like Russia is being very firm on their hold on Kherson and Zaporozhye, claiming that they will never return to being Ukrainian. Every month that Zelensky and his US handlers dismiss peace, Ukraine permanently loses more territory. And yet they still continue to insist that for peace talks to commence, Russia must retreat to pre-war positions, which is beyond absurd.
All this Zaporozhye talk makes it almost certain that next major op for Russian forces will be Zaporozhye City itself after the Donbass op is done. The integration project is already firmly set in motion and the only remaining step before completing the project is the city itself. I wonder though which Oblast will be in line for integration after Kherson and Zaporozhye, Nikolaev seems the most logical to me
If they go as far as Odessa then they'd probably be taking Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk as well to make it Novorossiya proper.
The dumbest thing imaginable would be to cut shipments to Europe to a level where it's not sufficient to keep Europe running, but also not sufficient to feed the US economy, resulting in the collapse of both. I lathe it so.
It’s called bipartisan compromise sweaty. We get the world destruction of liberal neocon global imperialism, and the selfish ally betraying aspects of the reactionary isolationist right. It’s a win-win reach across the aisle deal
I mean I dunno maybe since we have shitlibs in charge instead of hogs they'll actually keep the fuel drain outwards going and absolutely fuck the domestic situation.
Yeah but that situation inevitably leads to domestic protectionism and the hogs getting in and clawing it back. Dialectic baby
The US is in a great position to heavily tax energy exports without influencing the market. They could use the tax revenue to directly assist people who need it the most but still have the rich and companies pay market rate. I know they won't but I can dream of a time where the US thinks about social welfare.
Americans won't do anything about it. So the govt will continue to ship it over seas.
We have a baby formula shortage and people are just sucking it up like good live stock
