October 10th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
October 11th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
October 12th's update is here!. TLDR? Here's the summary!
No updates on Thursdays.
October 15th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Just an update on my situation: I'll almost certainly be moving within the next week or two. The last update for a little while will be next Wednesday, the 19th. I'm going to then take a break to set things up, get to know my surroundings and such. I hope to be ready to start doing this again on the 28th, but I will post that week's megathread on the 24th.
After that, I will hopefully be able to keep doing this more consistently and things will get less busy than they have in recent weeks. I strongly appreciate all the compliments I get and I'm glad to be part of such a great community! :Care-Comrade:
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists, for the “buh Zeleski is a jew?!?!” people.
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.
Today, the new general appointed by Russia a few days ago, Surovikin, continued to inflict cruise missile and ballistic missile strikes onto Ukrainian infrastructure, troops, weapon depots and communications.
The following cities were hit:
Kyiv
Krivoy Rog
Lviv
Kremenchuk
Pavlograd
Rivne
Odessa region
Vinnitsa
Strikes on important objects:
Railway station with an accumulation of new equipment received by Ukraine (Pavlograd)
Shepetovsky railway junction and repair shop in Khmelnytsky region
Ladyzhynska TPP put out of action (Vinnytsia)
CHP power plant in Lviv
Hydro electric power plant in Kyiv
t.me/battleinsights
So basically the war has been rather slow moving becuase putin was basically micro managing the efforts from Moscow. And now they have an actually military leader in charge of the whole operation and for three days now his been in charge and it's a huge turn in strategy.
AFAIK it was Gerasimov, not Putin, though I'm sure Putin has made some decisions here and there (in fact, we know he has because he ordered the potential routing out of the Azov fighters in the Azovstal factory to not proceed)
Mercouris makes a point in his latest videos about how this is not how Russian military command usually works. Usually the general in command is supposed to be close to the front lines, and in this case (and in Syria) certainly inside the country he's ordering attacks on, for that whole heroism thing. Even if it's not a particularly safe strategy, it makes the soldiers and command feel closer together and like they're both taking risks and your commander isn't sitting cosy on some sofa on the other side of the world while drawing up plans for you to assault a position to high risk of your life.
So with Surovikin now there, the soldiers are happier because now they have a real leader in the field with them.
deleted by creator
The crimea attack lined up with when surokvin took over the operation. This probably was coming even with out crimea
It's not just a matter of heroism or morale. Russian doctrine generally doesn't allow for as much initiave on the lower officer level as is more typical in Western armies. You follow orders and once you have completed them you wait for new ones from higher-up. Having generals in the field helps speed up communication.
It's kinda inherent to a largerly conscription-based army: you can't trust conscripts to make decisions they were not sufficiently trained to make.
Putin basically taking off the glove and let the general do whatever he want except for going nuclear now that Ukraine and it boss slapped Russia in the face