I have returned! Here is July 4th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Here is July 5th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Here is July 6th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Here is July 7th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
No update today, I'm frantically going through all of my previous social media accounts to delete any negative mention of Assad.
Here is July 9th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
No updates on Sundays. Aside from this reminder: Stalin, and the brave Soviet people commanded by him, saved the world from fascism.
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.
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 ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn't really need more, but:
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.
Welcome back king
Let's talk about the recent military gains by Russia and future battles. Now in hindsight and after the liberation of the LPR, it's fair to say that the Battle of Popasna was the most decisive battle of the war so far. The Ukrainian forces experienced a rapid collapse across the whole LPR front directly after losing Popasna. The last coherent defence by Ukrainian forces was in the early stage of the Severodonetsk battle, but the pace of collapse kept quickly accelerating until Lysychansk fell in just a week.
Now it's fully expected by everyone that the DPR will be the next target for liberation. The DPR front is also extremely fortified by Ukrainian forces, so I expect that Russian progress towards Sloviansk and Bakhmut to be slow at first. In the end, I don't see a scenario where the DPR isn't completely liberated, but the only questions are when and with how many losses in personnel.
The stage after the Donbass will be the most interesting though and will test the Russian resolve to incorporate more territory. Most other cities are increasingly hostile to Russian presence the further you go from the Donbass. At the same time, it seems almost irresponsible to not go for Zaporozhye City and possibly even Kharkiv considering Russian gains in both Oblasts already. The geography of Nikolaev Oblast is also perfect for the Russians, the flat grasslands combined with lack of many bigger settlements makes it a very reasonable target and has to be approached if Vlad is thinking about Odessa at some point.
You're analysis is sound. I think the telling thing will be how quickly Seversk falls. If it goes in the next 72 hours the resulting Bakhmut salient would be hard to hold despite the fortifications there. If not, then they may have time to fortify their second line, retreat to it in order, and recover combat ability, though they had to have lost a lot of equipment in the fall.
Also the Russian advances toward Slovansk and on the Southern flank have got to be making the Ukranians nervous. They've got a lot of frontline they are too thinly spread on and the Russians have finally learned to concentrate forces without logistical issues.
Thank you LargePenis