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

Want to contribute?

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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.

  • wrecker_vs_dracula [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I'm crossposting a comment I made on a low-visibility post because I think it may be of interest to the denizens of this thread:

    So here’s a note on 2022 wheat prices and the Russo-Ukrainian War. I don’t have a link for this because it’s something I’ve had to piece together myself through reading and talking with agronomists and farmers.

    The overwhelming majority of wheat produced on the Ukraine is hard red winter wheat (HRW). Something like 80%. This kind of wheat is high in gluten and is considered the best for making bread. On an average year Ukrainian HRW production will be roughly double USA HRW production. As a side note, HRW is also popular in areas of the USA settled by Volga Germans -probably not a coincidence. In 2022 overall wheat production in the USA actually increased over the previous year, but there was one variety that saw what can be considered a failure: HRW. US HRW production fell by 29% in 2022 from the previous year, with some states seeing as high as a 40% drop. This is compounded by a trend of smaller and smaller total planted area in the USA for HRW, which reached a 100 year low in 2021 and has dropped from there. The falling rate of HRW production in the USA is climate related. Last year drought conditions were the major cause of the USA HRW crop failure.

    This isn’t to say that the Russo-Ukrainian war isn’t the largest cause of high HRW prices globally. It probably is. But the USA crop failure is also a huge contributing factor. I have not seen this reported anywhere outside of trade rags and USDA reports. The improved overall wheat yield in the USA over 2021 obscures the HRW failure. HRW is a separate commodity from other wheat varieties. For example, the soft white wheat (SW) that is grown in the Pacific Northwest and California cannot be used for bread making. SW by the way saw a bumper crop last year. The prices are connected somewhat by feed use, but I have been unable to figure out to what extent. Please educate me if you know something about that.

      • wrecker_vs_dracula [comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I'm sorry I don't know a whole lot about that except that farmers in my area were complaining about much higher fertilizer prices last year, especially phosphates. Here is a fairly recent article from Standard and Poor with lots of no-nonsense facts and figures:

        https://web.archive.org/web/20221021033500/https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/research/articles/220912-the-russia-ukraine-war-is-reshaping-the-fertilizer-industry-12484018

        I'm not anticipating any kind of global food shortage next year. Inputs are becoming more expensive, but this seems more like inflationary pressure than actual shortages. I'm not an agronomist though, just a guy that works in an ag-adjacent business who follows commodity prices.