No update today.
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.
If this is at all extrapolatable to the wider Ukrainian forces - and who can truly say either way, though it makes sense to me that morale would be bad for Ukraine - it really adds a disturbing edge to the oft-repeated "strong resistance" of the Ukrainian troops. While the media lauds their bravery and toughness against the oncoming Russians, in reality, they have a gun jammed into the back of their heads at all times. They have no choice to be a "strong resistance" if they don't want to end up needlessly killed by neo-Nazi bullets.
Many wars are hostage situations for the working class who fight them for their bourgeoisie, but this one really takes that concept to a whole new level. At least if Russia was being particularly brutal with them or their POWs or the civilians of Ukraine then there might be a solid reason why the command thought they mustn't give an inch of ground, but they're being a lot more careful with them than most other armies, though of course not perfect.
It is a morbid, monstrous plan to slowly turn tens of thousands of young, innocent folks to corpses, buying more time as ordered from Washington. In front of our eyes, sometimes virtually recorded.
It's similar to pointless mass murder of Japanese soldiers [by their own government] in WW2 which was lost years before the first nuke dropped, and Hirohito & his men even waited till the second one; in case anyone wonders "when will it stop?".