December 5th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

December 6th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

December 7th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

December 9th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

December 10th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

Links and Stuff

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Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists

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. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.

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. Beware of chuddery.

Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are fairly brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. The Duran, of which he co-hosts, is where the chuddery really begins to spill out.

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 ~ Now rebranded as Battlefield Insights, they do infrequent posts on the conflict.

https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.

https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.

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 ~ One of the really big pro-Russian (except when they're being pessismistic, which is often) telegram channels focussing on the war. 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. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.

https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine

Any Western media outlet that is even vaguely liberal (and quite a few conservative ones too).

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.

  • SoyViking [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    ⚡️The Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered heavy losses in Bakhmut due to NATO COIN tactics.

    Full article

    Soldiers of the 71st, 58th, and 53rd brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who were captured in early and mid-November near Bakhmut, say that the training course in the UK and on the territory of Ukraine, with the support of instructors from the USA, Canada, and Australia, was not designed for intense battles and harms the Ukrainian infantry .

    Soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine underwent training under the NATO COIN programme (from the English term "counterinsurgency" or "counter-guerrilla warfare"). The COIN program was created to fight "non-state forces" and insurgents and does not assume that the enemy has effective artillery and heavy weapons, which the Russian Armed Forces have in large numbers.

    In addition, the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not conduct a full six-month training course. For assault units, an accelerated course was held in 20 days, and for ordinary infantry, training was completed in two weeks. After the courses, Ukrainian servicemen trained according to COIN standards began to die en masse in battle.

    At first, losses were recorded in the Kherson direction, but now the most massive losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are observed in the Artyomovsky and Krasnolimansky directions, where the forces of the southern grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were transferred.

    Due to the heavy losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Bakhmut in September, October, and November, American instructors were sent to the units of the 30th, 53rd, and 71st brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who were instructed to help with the management of the Ukrainian infantry and reduce the level of losses.

    According to the prisoners, the training of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in COIN tactics, both abroad and at the Yavoriv training ground, was built around actions in small mobile groups. At the same time, the main directions in the preparation and training were manoeuvres on light vehicles (the so-called war of pickups), the assault on buildings, and practising the "filtration" Of the civilian population.

    It's all about the mistakes of American officers when planning counterattacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Bakhmut. This was due precisely to a misunderstanding of the capabilities of the RF Armed Forces and the Wagner PMC, which have a large number of artillery and heavy equipment.

    TLDR: The fabled western training that was supposed to turn the tide of the war by teaching Ukrainian troops to fight like the westoid master race turned out to be half-assed counter-insurgency training which happens to be completely useless against an enemy with heavy artillery, resulting in heavy Ukrainian losses.

    The west seems to have gotten so used to fight people who are too poor to have shoes that they have forgotten about all other types of war.