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
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.
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The only elections I really care about are those outside the imperial core. The ones inside are essentially not worth your attention span. As you say, even if the earthly avatar of pure communism descended from the heavens wielding a hammer in one hand and a sickle in the other, if he decides to run in an election then it doesn't make a difference. There's a hundred different hurdles to jump over, and not even getting in office stops the hurdles from coming.
And this even applies to people who fundamentally agree with capitalist logic and don't want anything to do with socialism but would just allow workers to go on strike, so anybody with real socialist or communist ideas or plans is automatically out of the running. A quick phone call and they'll change the election requirements or disqualify you. Jump over that hurdle and they'll shut down voting booths in your strongholds and do widespread voter fraud. Get past that somehow and they'll just sigh and give the intelligence agencies their orders and you'll be dead in a week.
That being said, can elections inside the imperial core be entertaining as hell? Absolutely. If the circus is in town, you might as well go see the clowns. Just don't expect anything but things to get worse.
My ultimate hope is that somehow a left-wing resistance can build itself under the pressure of the necessity of survival as we enter this period of hardship that then leads on to fascism, particularly in Europe. But that requires the people who are going to be crushed in the current and future strike and union crackdowns by the state to become more radicalized by that, rather than submitting to defeat out of atomization, and that's no sure thing. And basic survival conditions can really go either way - with a left-wing force already present, they can lead to revolutions, but without one, they just lead to misery, mass migrations, and mass death.