October 31st's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
November 1st's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
November 2nd's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
November 4th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Today's the day I put the extra furniture I need for this place together, so that'll be a bunch of fun. Though I can post some links here and there in the rest breaks.
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.
This will expand if it is allowed.
The presence is essentially a dare, "will you dare to blow up active US troops in order to blow up these stockpiles and supplies that we're giving to Ukraine?"
If you don't take the dare, they put them deeper in the country, and deeper and deeper. Until they are everywhere and you can no longer bomb anything without provoking a war with the US.
Honestly think the Russians should call this one and blow them up. If they don't it's a bigger problem later.
I agree. The only sensible thing for Russia to do would be to hit those warehouses fast and hard, "accidentally" killing westoid troops stationed there. If they blink on this, NATO troops are going to flood the country, becoming very effective human shields and making sure this war can go on forever.
Very much this.
There's also little in the way of real reason for NATO troops to be there in the first place or claim they're not combatants. If they're inspecting weapon caches to make sure they're not falling into the wrong hands there's UN and independent weapons inspectors for that. If they're needed to make sure weapons caches don't fall into the hands of terrorists or organised crime then they shouldn't send some many weapons unconditionally. If they're literally needed to do the logistics of delivering the weapons to the front then they're soldier - in the same a way a military mechanic, or truck driver, or logistics unit would be.
No one should buy the idea that the U.S. cares about the weapons it supplies falling into "the wrong hands" anyway (unless maybe those hands are Russian).
It'll be "fun" when the images drop of U.S. troops handing weapons to men with swastika tattoos.
I mean, I don't and hopefully neither does anyone else paying attention. I was talking about excuses NATO has already given explicitly or implied.
Sure. I wasn't aiming it specifically at you. Sorry if it sounded that way.
Nah, I wasn't trying to be defensive. Probably in my own head about being clear - I've been in the pub for a while. It's all good.
If Russia discourages the US from committing more troops, then there could be a real gap in Ukrainian forces when they run out of soldiers to throw in the grinder.
Right. The problem you're raising here is that as the grinder results in Ukrainian labour being incapable of continuing the war effort then the US troops "not taking part in fighting" could be a backbone to support logistics.
Either way they should blow them up to deter this. I don't see any other options. If the US has troops inside Ukraine on active deployment it's essential to deter it. Waiting too long will result in the "well if you attack OUR troops you'll be starting nuclear war" troll and then they'll be able to put them anywhere they want doing any task that isn't directly fighting.
It's like a "haha no touchy" deployment. Needs to be called out and slapped down. I don't think the US will do anything other than be mad about it. Get out of Ukraine if you don't want to be considered combatants.
Oh boy. Just like the U.S. helping to fuel, deliver, and maintain the equipment used to genocide Yemenis is "not taking an active role" in that war because it's not an U.S. troop who actually pulls the trigger. Rerun after rerun.