December 26th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 27th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 28th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 30th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
Going out with friends today and tomorrow! Next week and onwards things should return to normal and we can continue drudging through in the second year of this war.
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.
Reports that Turkey have agreed to withdraw from Syria
I’m curious how this intersects with Irans opposition to a corridor between Azerbaijan and Turkiye. Does this rapprochement between Syria and Turkiye signal a weakening of the Syrian/Iran alliance or does this herald Turkey making some rapprochement with Iran over the Azerbaijan question?
Caspian geopolitics are my favorite.
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Please don't use dehumanizing racial slurs. It makes you no better than the racist libs who support Nazi Ukraine.
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Gross generalizations are reactionary. Dehumanization is the first step in normalizing doing inhumane things to humans. Dehumanization is reprehensible no matter what the dehumanized person has done. We need to recognize that even the most "evil" person is still a person so as to remember that we are all capable of decent into inhumanity. It is easy to justify doing inhumane things to non humans and dehumanization is how Nazis justify what they do to other people.
Yes they are involved in horrible actions that results in suffering but using dehumanizing slurs is just bad practice that leads to more injustice. Yes they should be held accountable for their involvement in the war crimes in Syria but they should face Justice not Retribution. They should only be accountable for their actions even if that is not reporting the crimes of their compatriots.
Not all the American soldiers in Syria deserve death. I am sure there are a few who report criminal acts by their compatriots and commanders. Others are acting on orders under protest. That doesn't absolve them completely but it shows they are not inhuman.
People have an inalienable right to resist an invading imperialist power. What good does it do to Syrians that a few yanqui invaders tell their commanders they feel sad about following orders or that they will report war crimes so heinous and politically insignificant that the invading power considers them illegal and might even give their own troops a slap on the wrist for doing them?
When you put on that uniform you shouldn't be surprised if some of the people you're invading put a bullet through it.
No arguments on that but an individual who surrenders at the first opportunity doesn't deserve to die. I'm not saying all or even most soldiers in Syria deserve to live but we all deserve the right to make mistakes and atone for our actions and not be held responsible for the actions of others (provided we did what was in our power to stop those actions). If your communist Utopia doesn't include at least some mercy and forgiveness I don't want a part of it.
Most soldiers are Chuds good only for fertilizing soil but disillusioned soldiers become valuable comrades. If we can't get any military on our side we will never succeed at revolution and you'll be forever waiting for :posad: or :posadist-nuke: and that is just lazy opportunist communism.
If every soldier in Syria is an "orc" where does the line get drawn? are all soldiers involved in any occupation not human? do they regain humanity when they leave Syria, when they take off the uniform? Are cops not human? What about military accountants or Military Police who prosecute fellow soldiers? How does someone who was an "orc" become human again? If they aren't humans are their children humans?
Dehumanization of anyone just makes justifications for inhumane actions and when you've justified murdering a dozen "orcs" because of their clothing instead of their actions justifying killing their children and wives isn't that hard. Killing people shouldn't be easy or casualized. We shouldn't take pleasure in retribution or murder and that is the only purpose of dehumanization.
they kinda do, unless they frag their officers and defect to The Lion. but then they would be ex american soldiers
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Fucking finally, Turks OUT
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I can see a settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan fairly directly to be honest. They each need a corridor and the settlement will be both get their corridor.
But Russia will need to settle things with Iran here. Iran’s opposition to that corridor is the only missing piece here. If that gets squared then you have a stable settlement for that part of the region, and a stable settlement that hinges on good Russian and Turkish relations.
It would be a huge coup for Russia but I don’t see how Iran is going to be cool with it.
Also the Kurds get screwed hard, as is tradition.
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I think Russia will want to be as friendly as possible with Turkiye without pissing off Iran, which means Russia won’t be losing much sleep over Kurdistan IMO.
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Yes what you said is correct but Russia not just a middle man here. Russia is not merely playing the role of umpire here but is structuring the security arrangement of the Caspian basin and the Black Sea here.
Turkiye’s interest can be summarized as they do not want an independent Kurdistan since about a quarter to a third of Turkiye would arguably be Kurdistan so in the interests of structuring a stable peace arrangement I don’t see why the Kurds get much out of this.
If Turkiye is pulling out of Syria then I would assume that Syria (Assad) would be undertaking to limit Kurdish autonomy to limit Kurdish separatism in Turkiye.
Which is interesting since it intersects with Iran and Azerbaijan. Iran is interested because there is a large Azeri minority and Iran wants to prevent Azeri separatism so there’s a kind of symmetry here that might be the basis for a grand settlement for the region, except I struggle to see how the Azeri-Iran hurdle is actually crossed in a secure way.
I mean, thus far the Kurds have allowed America to set up military bases and extract Syrian resources so I don’t see how Russia would be ok with them continuing on that path - especially when doing so would piss off Turkey and Iran
It’s all going to come down to Turkey and Saudi Arabia/the gulf states I think.
Are they going to side with Israel and the west? Then there will likely be more conflict and ongoing war.
Are they going to side with Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and China? Then things will mostly stabilize in the Middle East outside of Israeli aggression and occupation (which still needs to be dealt with).
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