With it being overwhelmingly likely that Ukraine will receive Germany's Leopard tanks (whether from Germany itself or Poland), German tanks once again roll into battle against Russian forces after nearly a century.

Can the Leopard succeed against the Russian army where it failed in Syria? We'll find out soon enough.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.

January 23rd's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

January 25th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

January 27th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

January 28th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

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.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      The U.S. Treasury Department has granted a license to Trinidad and Tobago to develop a major gas field located in Venezuelan territorial waters, a senior Biden administration official said on Tuesday, marking a further easing of some sanctions on Venezuela.

      The license, issued at Trinidad's request and intended to enhance Caribbean regional energy security, means the island nation can resume doing business related to the Dragon gas field with Venezuela's heavily sanctioned state-run oil company PDVSA, the senior U.S. official told Reuters.

      Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, the official said that "the Maduro regime will not be permitted to receive any cash payments from this project" and that all remaining U.S. sanctions would be unchanged and still be enforced.

      lmao wtf? so to cut through the bullshit, the United States is seizing Venezuela's territorial waters using Trinidad as a proxy? and what if Venezuela doesn't agree to this?

      • notceps [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        This would be the perfect time for a country like Brazil, Russia or China to come in with an actual offer.

        • BowlingForDeez [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Brazil and Argentina already invited Vuvuzela into their new Latam currency project.

      • mkultrawide [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        This isn't a license for Trinidad to violate Venezuelan territorial waters, it's a license for them to work with PDVSA. I don't know how that works when payments can't be sent to Venezuela, though. It's the same sort of license they gave Chevron.

        • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I don’t know how that works when payments can’t be sent to Venezuela

          This was mainly my point. If Guaido was still around then I imagine the rationale would be "Trinidad can work with PDVSA in Venezuela's gasfield, then the profits will be sent to Guaido's party, the True Ruling Party of Venezuela, as they are the government we recognize being in charge of the country" which would be an obvious cashgrab at the expense of Maduro.

          With that arrangement not around anymore, if Venezuela can't receive the money from their own natural resources then that's just good old fashioned plundering with some flimsy jargon surrounding it, which implies a loss of sovereignty over that territory. The profits will presumably go somewhere, and that somewhere usually ends up being the United States.

          • mkultrawide [any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            The money from the Chevron deal goes towards paying debt that PDVSA owed to Chevron, IIRC. I wonder if it also owes money to whatever they are calling Petrotrin now. I also don't expect the Chevron deal to continue once that debt is paid off.

            I think Chevron also started sending Venezuela oil they can use/refine as part of the deal, but don't quote me on that.

            • LaughingLion [any, any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              This is how the mafia works except the amount you pay back through your favors will never ever pay off the debt.,

              • mkultrawide [any]
                ·
                2 years ago

                Joe Biden misremembering The Sopranos Bust Out storyline as his morning briefing.

        • World_Wario_II [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          So where do the payments and profits go? Why would PDVSA bother to agree with this if they didn’t receive anything for it?

          • mkultrawide [any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            The money from this will likely go to paying the debts that they can't currently pay due to being locked out of the financial system. In the deal with Chevron, the money goes to debts that PDVSA has with Chevron, plus I think they might be getting oil that they can refine from Chevron. I'm not sure what their deal is with whatever Petrotrin is called now, but they might have debts with them, too, since that field has been in development for a decade.

        • kristina [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Who's got the GI Joe's in a fishermen's union :maduro-salute:

      • World_Wario_II [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        lol. Easing of sanctions for me but not for thee. We will end the embargo so we can trade again, but you get nothing out of the exchange.

    • World_Wario_II [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      They just straight up stole the currency reserves of Afghanistan and Russia as well. Just blatant theft.