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.
I still don't understand why the battle for Bakhmut, which is set to be the most important battle of the Donbass War, is delegated to these Wagner Mercs fash. Fine they're finally advancing for real, but this has taken far too long and the optics of it all simply suck. The Popasna - Severodonetsk axis which was similarly fortified by the AFU needed ordinary Russian troops + LPR militiamen in order to acheive a victory, but Bakhmut which is more important is left to Wagner
End of the day Russia is still a neoliberal state and neolibs will do what neolibs do.... privatize
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Wagner mercenaries are experienced veterans. AFAIK they're really good at doing war stuff. Also, nobody cares if some mercenaries gets killed but people night get mad if conscripts starts returning in body bags. If you want to keep morale up at the home front it makes sense to use mercenaries for the toughest battles
I'd heard just the opposite - they're poor kids from bad neighborhoods who are more or less expendable. But then everything about the wagner, ikd, organization? Is very murky.
I've been assuming that nobody who I'm hearing speak knows a damn thing about Wagner, and it has worked so far
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This doesn't really make much sense. Those mercenaries need to be paid, and they need to earn a profit. Their equipment experiences wear and tear too. Unless they are being paid in plunder or equity in Ukraine, it costs more to have Wagner do it than it does to do it yourself
Wagners mercenaries aren't iraq war era blackwater. From what i understand they're very cheap and very expendable.
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If they are really intensifying the war, maybe they want to deflect blame about incoming atrocities onto mercs?
I get the feeling that the Donbass front is such a fucking blown-out warzone that keeping the front there has advantages - the terrain is known and fortified, lower risk to civilian casualties, supply line to the front is well established, etc.
/cope