Credit to @ThomasMuentzner for the title idea. No, the goddamn city still hasn't been taken, though excitingly, the Russians have moved like three residential blocks up!

December 12th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

December 13th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

December 14th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

December 16th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

I feel pretty ill today so I'm taking the weekend off. Might post some articles here and there.

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.

    • Spectre_of_Z_poster [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Man so much for the US's statements about not sending long range rocket systems to Ukraine. They are just slowly eroding their prior stance.

      In 6 months the US is going to have boots on the ground and a nuke in Ukraine at this rate

        • Spectre_of_Z_poster [they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I suspect this war is going to go the way of the Syrian Civil War (ie last like 10 years and everyone will stop paying attention as their "side" slowly gets choked out of existence)

          I don't think we'll see a single moment of great collapse or victory. People will just look around in a decade and Russia will have de facto control of 80% of Ukraine

            • Spectre_of_Z_poster [they/them]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Yeah true, I guess it would only go that long slow route if US stays out and Russia wins very slowly through attrition. The US is likely going to put direct forces in soon if it's going as bad as some seem to think.

              I've just heard from both camps how this would be over so quickly several times, now I'm skeptical. Evidence seems to suggest this will be a long slow attrition war. Neither side is able to negotiate a ceasefire or end, trust has completely broken down and both sides' minimum demands has no overlap with the others'. Ukraine wants Donbas and Crimea back, which are absolute 0% chance non-starters for the Russians.

              • anoncpc [comrade/them]
                ·
                2 years ago

                Highly doubt it, Surovikin probably gonna grind Ukraine down as much as possible in Bakhmut, and for the US to put force. Well, they already in there as "volunteer", I wonder how many Poles has died until now, probably near 2K?

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I have a feeling that "Russian" attacks on Ukrainian residential buildings are about to increase for some weird reason.

      Why Did American Patriot Missiles Fail To Stop the Houthi's Attacks?

      It’s possible the attacks involved far-flying drones firing small, guided munitions. The Aramco sites are around 800 miles from the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border. Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard Corps in the past has supplied the Houthis with weaponry including drones and components for ballistic missiles.

      But one thing is clear. The attack revealed the limits of Saudi Arabia’s seemingly sophisticated air-defense system. Riyadh in recent years has spent billions of dollars building up six battalions of U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air missiles and associated radars. The Patriots didn’t stop the recent attack.

      And it wasn’t the first time Saudi Arabia’s Patriots have failed. At least five Patriots apparently missed, malfunctioned or otherwise failed when Saudi forces tried to intercept a barrage of rockets targeting Riyadh on March 25, 2018.

      Houthi forces fired at least seven rockets at Saudi Arabia that night. The Saudi military launched Patriot Advanced Capability-2 missiles in an attempt to destroy the Houthi rockets in mid-air. The Saudis claimed seven of the Patriots struck their targets.

      One man reportedly died after being struck by metal fragments. It's unclear whether the fragments came from a malfunctioning Patriot, a successful intercept or a Houthi rockets striking the ground.

      But amateur videos that appeared online in the aftermath of the missile skirmish indicate that many of the Patriots exploded in mid-air or veered off course. The errant missiles invoked memories of similar failures involving American-operated Patriots during the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

      "It's nothing but an unbroken trail of disasters with this weapon system," said Theodore Postol, an MIT physicist and prominent critic of U.S. missile defenses.

      Personally, I think that every day that NATO devotes more of its weapons and stocks of ammo to be destroyed by Russia, but without actually entering the war, is a good day. We're seeing little glimmers here and there of covert NATO involvement (well, covert to us, I imagine the Russians and their intel know all about it) so if it's just another year of NATO never actually going in but both sides pretending that, idk, the pilots or artillery officers that Russia is capturing or killing are totally Ukrainians and definitely not American troops, then that keeps us away from the knife's edge of nuclear war for a while longer. So whatever. Send the Patriots.