August 29th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
August 30th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
August 31st's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
No updates on Thursdays.
Alright, I guess it's fucking "SeventyTwoTrillion gets sick all the time" season. It isn't coronavirus again (would be super unlucky if it was, lmao) but I am getting headaches and other symptoms which are not optimal conditions for collecting articles and doing media analysis (AKA shouting at journalists).
Might be a 3-update week, we'll see if I feel any more functional tomorrow. Apologies for people who like the updates. I'll either be back tomorrow or on Monday.
No updates on Sundays. Updates will resume tomorrow, provided that the CIA doesn't point their illness gun at me again.
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.
Factchecking the Factchecker on Chomsky, Russia and Media Access
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, US-based media platforms have made an extraordinary effort to cut Western audiences off from news from a Russian perspective. When social critic Noam Chomsky pointed out how unprecedented this was, Newsweek‘s “factchecker” (7/26/22) declared his criticism “clearly untrue”—a determination that did more to confirm the ideological strictures of US media than to debunk them.
While the BBC and Radio Free America did broadcast in Russia post-WWII and during the Cold War, their frequencies were jammed by the Soviet government for decades. Any access that the Russian public did have was gained in spite of, not thanks to, their government’s efforts.
This is such a weird argument by Newsweek. How is blocking access through the internet to RT not the same as jamming a signal?
When they do it it's censorship, when we do it it's fighting disinformation. Completely different things.
Censorship is just the RKO radio tower beaming out blocker waves, anything else is careful social mitigation of course
"The private companies just did that on their own" - free market coincidence theorists
The censorship is a consequence of your vast and unlimited freedom of course
Latvia is essentially banning the Russian language:
🇱🇻The Latvian government will consider a law on the restriction of the Russian language.
This will be a law that means "the end of bilingualism," the Cabinet of Ministers said at a press conference.
The Russian language will be banned from being used in public space and in the labor market. According to the head of the Ministry of Justice, Bordans, this will "revive" the use of the Latvian language in Latvia. And all possible exceptions will apply only to the use of the languages of the European Union.
The Ministry of Justice expects the adoption of the law by October 1.
- Sputnik on Telegram
37% of the inhabitants of Latvia are native Russian speakers.
China is teaching the Uyghurs Chinese as a second language( while allowing them to use whatever other language they want) and libs call that genocide. While this will be touted as victory to freedom and democracy
Hell libs called it genocide when the Soviets taught Russian as a second language in Latvia
It happened in Canada already. Residential schools. They'd beat you, abuse you, kill you for speaking your indigenous language. 60s scoop, take all the indigenous kids out of their homes and plop em with white families. They don't need to outlaw Dene or Ojibwe, so few are left to speak it and it costs money to learn.
An incomprehensible horror. I don't know how to process anything on these scales.
That’s more than the population of the Baltic and Nordic states combined…
there's a reddit post purporting to show a literal fucking lake the size of like 10% of the country formed from all the rain
I guess the bright side is uhh pakistan probably won't need to go to war with india over the Indus river
I mean is raw water from the indus river usable? Water's water and both sources need treatment to be made drinkable and treating the water from these monsoons is still less expensive in terms of energy/infrastructure than desalination would be
yeah idk enough about this to keep talking so this will be a rare moment where I'll shut up
Sickening how many dipshit Western redditors are soyfacing about how great a statesman Gorby was when his incompetence led to the Soviet Union being asset stripped and it's people left in the cold. Guess succdems gotta succdem.
A lot of them even acknowledge how unpopular he was in the East but then are just like "Oh well I guess they just freaking love authoritarianism(tm) :so-true: "
Lula has suggested that he intends to move closer to China and BRICS if he returns to the presidency.
:lula-bars: :solidarity: :xigma-male:
BREAKING: A person has been arrested after pulling out a weapon on Vice President of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner outside her house.
:cia:
Gorbachev will be laid to rest at the weekend, but no state funeral for former leader, says Russian media
There will be no state funeral for the former president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, a Russian news agency reported on Wednesday. “There are no plans to organise a state funeral for Gorbachev,” sources told the Interfax agency.
Earlier, the Gorbachev Foundation told the same agency that its founder would be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife, Raisa, who died in 1999. Gorbachev died on Tuesday at a central Moscow hospital at the age of 91, after a long illness.
The funeral will take place on Saturday, Russian news agencies reported, citing Gorbachev’s daughter and a spokesperson for his foundation. It is reported that it will take place in the famous Hall of Columns inside Moscow’s House of Unions, the same place where Josef Stalin’s body was put on display following his death in 1953.
:josus-stalin:
The service will be open to the public.
Dozens of high-ranking politicians, poets, royals and intellectuals have been buried at the cemetery since it was established in the 16th century – among them Boris Yeltsin, who was Russia’s first president and Gorbachev’s political rival. Nikita Khrushchev is the only other Soviet leader buried there, with most others having been laid to rest beside the walls of the Kremlin on Red Square.
It is not known whether or not Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin will attend Gorbachev’s funeral.
:putin-wink:
A 2017 poll found that just 15 per cent of Russians held a favourable opinion of the last Soviet leader. And while many in the West gushed over his life’s achievements following the news of his passing, reaction in Russia was more muted.
Pro-Kremlin commentators and politicians criticised his legacy on Russia’s state-owned media.
Gorbachev’s passing was the first item on Russia’s flagship Channel One news bulletin, where a five-minute retrospective emphasised his common touch and desire to improve the Soviet economy. It also suggested that he had lacked decisiveness and had trusted the United States too much.
Another channel, Rossiya 24, relegated the news of his death to third place, reporting it 12 minutes into its morning bulletin after items on an educational forum in Moscow and a planned visit by the UN nuclear watchdog to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant near the front line of fighting between Russia and Ukraine.
lol
You know when you look in your fridge or cupboard for a snack and there's nothing in there? That's kind of today's update. Except somebody also put a bunch of shit in your fridge. Okay, the analogy doesn't really work - what I'm trying to say is that the journalists spent their Sunday and early Monday writing terrible, terrible articles and not actual news.
Summary
News
Both Belgium and Austria are calling for an EU price cap on gas in order to put a pause on the exponentially rising energy prices that the EU is suffering under. Josep Borrell has said that a visa ban for Russia doesn't have sufficient support across Europe to become law. The EU is, however, discussing the training of Ukraine's troops on a more official, bloc-wide basis, rather than spreading it across different countries. Bloomberg has said that Russia could afford a complete halt in gas supplies to the EU, proving Soros wrong. Russia diamonds are continuing to flow out to the global market at nearly pre-sanctions levels. Russia has said that despite the West's insistance that the sanctions have had no impact on food or fertilizer, about 7 to 8 million tonnes of fertilizer and other materials, which could ultimately go on to feed 100 million people, are being blocked at shipping terminals due to sanctions. Russia is resuming local bond sales after a six month pause, and they're planning to launch yuan bond sales too. People in Poland are queuing for days to buy coal and fuel to power their homes, reminding them of the horrors of... shudder... communism. 50,000 Ukrainian refugees in the UK are facing homelessness by the middle of 2023 as the refugee scheme seems to have failed, especially with the cost of living crunch. Energy bills are going to be so high in the UK that 14% of people - and likely more - are planning on spending more time in the office so that they don't have to heat their homes. However, a quarter of people don't plan on heating their homes at all this winter, and 70% said they would use their heating less. Irish farmers are being more-or-less forced to cull their cows to meet methane emissions targets. Dipshits in Serbia have marched with their Bible fanfiction in opposition to a gay pride event that has now been cancelled and will be rescheduled, proving once again that the fall of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia was a disaster for the human race and particularly eastern Europe. Serbia's president has claimed that he has convinced seven unnamed nations to revoke their recognition of Kosovo.
China has deployed 8 ships and 23 aircraft in response to the US sailing ships through the Taiwan Strait, in their monthly Piss China Off mission. Japanese brands are becoming less popular in China for some reason. Japan's rice paddies are drying out, as Japan's food self sufficiency is already the lowest of the major economies. Laos's government has directed its various agencies to address the economic situation, such as by ensuring a consistent supply of fuel, not creating new debts, encouraging foreign investment, and repairing flood-damaged roads and bridges.
Egypt is undergoing electricity rationing as their citizens experience high energy bills and gas shortages, but many complain about frivolous uses of energy, like streetlights still on in the daytime.
Elizabeth Warren is concerned that the Fed is trying to cause a recession to happen, as the Fed directly claims that that is what they are trying to do in order to fix inflation. The largest oil refinery in the Midwest caught fire, with Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin fearing fuel shortages. Cuba and the United States are discussing the rehabilitation of the Matanzas fuel base, in which four of eight large fuel tanks were destroyed by fire.
Colombia and Venezuela have restored full diplomatic relations after they were paused in 2019 after members of the Venezuelan opposition tried to cross the border from Colombia. Jacobin speculates as to whether Bolsonaro, in his ever-increasing desperation, will try to coup Lula after he presumably wins the election.
Conflict
UN inspectors from the IAEA are heading to the nuclear power plant to go check it out. A Ukrainian suicide drone has been shot down over the plant, after it tried to target the spent nuclear fuel storage facility. Russia has urged all nations to pressure Ukraine to stop shelling the plant. Sweden has pledged an additional $46.75 million in assistance to Ukraine. The Pentagon has signed a $182 million deal with Raytheon to produce surface-to-air missiles systems for the Ukrainian military, with an estimated completion date of August 23rd, 2024 (!).
Dipshittery and Good Takes
Putin will never recover from his mistakes in the Ukraine War. Russia is desperately trying to salvage their stalled assault on Ukraine. Politico, once again, is very unsure about who is shelling the nuclear power plant. The Ukrainian military is making some hella technicals, which proves they're winning...? Russia's fresh new army corps that they're sending to Ukraine sucks and is bad. Maximum Boot's latest wisdom is that Trump must be held accountable. Biden's student loan forgiveness is unfair, says local demon in his lair of torment. Biden's student loan forgiveness is destroying the savings made by the climate law thing, says local infant-blood-slurping vampire. Bloomberg says that Europe can't go into this winter with all doom and gloom, like Macron seems to be doing, as if the opinions of the politicians dunking on eachother for being defeatist matters in the fucking slightest. The West needs friendshoring, not reshoring...? I didn't even try and read this one, I'm assuming that it's bad though.
Responsible Statecraft points out a recent article on the Solomon Islands where a dude says that it's actually totally fine to invade the country and violate its sovereignty if it's a coalition of democracies doing it, and points out that the liberal facemask covering up the West's demonic, fascistic, pus-dripping visage is getting awfully threadbare no matter how often they say "rules-based international order" like some kind of Harry Potter spell.
The Southern Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement on Thursday that it will refrain from announcing the names of the villages that were taken during the counteroffensive in the Kherson direction, so that the Russian Armed Forces could not launch a missile attack on them.
Because the Russians have no idea what villages they supposedly lost? This is the dumbest statement from Ukraine by far, and that’s not an easy feat.
:dril:
Poland puts its WW2 losses at $1.3 trillion, demands German reparations Reuters
Well, that's a pretty encouraging statement of EU unity.
