Given that the map has a tendency to not move for extended periods of time, and this is technically the all-encompassing news thread and not just the Ukraine War thread, I do want to try putting other images for the thread.
I'm undecided about what exactly to put there though. I can think of two ways of doing it: a) doing a similar thing to the general megathread where we pre-plan a topic or concept to display every week and have a small description about it, or b) get an image of an important news event that has happened, maybe over the weekend before the thread switches, and display that instead.
I would appreciate thoughts and feedback.
Regardless, I will continue linking the map in the post text here.
Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.
January 2nd's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
January 3rd's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
January 4th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
January 6th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
January 7th'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.
I keep catching myself thinking "this must be the point where people drop their support" and then it doesn't happen.
Certainly not in the West, I think this is mainly a way of assuring the rest of the world that Ukraine isn't interested in peace and so there can't be a ceasefire or end to the war (I think Erdogan made a statement recently about how there should be a ceasefire there), and also putting pressure on the more nervous western leaders like Macron and Scholz to also realize that.
And it comes at virtually no military cost to Russia anyway, given that it's only 36 hours. And it raises morale both inside Russia and on the front lines, and further entrenches that the Ukrainians and by proxy the West are so uninterested in peace that they won't even make temporary peace on Christmas. I'm unsure how widespread the knowledge of the WW1 Christmas Armistice is in the rest of the world but I'm certainly reminded of it.
It's not even really that clever of a move; Ukraine's leadership is just so incompetent that it handed Russia a W on a silver platter. Think of how many nations out there have as part of their official line on the war something like "We want both sides to come to a ceasefire and a diplomatic solution". Western liberal analysts can bloviate for hours on end about how this is a sign of Russian weakness and how their entire military is about to collapse and Putin is about to fall - and I hope they have fun in the alternate reality they've constructed, and wish them the best in the mental implosion when their reality meets ours once more and Ukraine collapses, whether that's this year or later.
I noticed NPR reporting briefly something to the effect of "President Putin has called for a ceasefire in Ukraine" without mentioning the Ukrainian response or the reason for the proposed ceasefire. Many, perhaps most people in the USA are unaware of Gregorian/Julian calendar differences. It may be possible that the ceasefire proposal could be spun as Putin begging for mercy.
Most Americans can't identify Russia and definitely not Ukraine on a map. 99.9% of Americans at least have no idea that another calendar even exists.
Polands PM is complaining about Ukraine celebrating a guy who genocided Polish people and the Polish PM still supports Ukraine.
My boss finally admitted that Ukraine has a serious Nazi problem and he's a turbolib so maybe it's still possible. But he's also fully bought into the idea that the Russian military is a fully hollowed out paper tiger because of corruption with zero chain of command anywhere so who knows