Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are to meet over the next couple days in Moscow, with this being Xi's first international visit since being elected for his third term. Many things will be discussed there: trade between the two countries; the construction of infrastructure to facilitate that trade; the SCO; BRICS; the EAEU; and, of course, the Ukraine conflict. Russian officials have responded positively to China's 12 Points for Peace, which is not a specific peace plan for the conflict but rather a proposed set of guidelines that this conflict and future ones should follow to reduce war throughout the world. Additionally, Xi will likely talk to Zelensky, as Ukraine does not (yet) have nearly the same level of distrust and hatred towards China as the rest of the West - though one can only guess what this will accomplish.
This happens in the backdrop of Russia taking down a Reaper drone flown by the United States, with transponders off, off the coast of Crimea. If this was to gauge Russia's reaction, then America has its answer - it can choose to learn the lesson or not. This incident, and the ICC putting out an unenforcable arrest warrant for Putin (unless he wants to go to Europe or America I suppose), demonstrate the continued, tired attempts by the West to ostracize and isolate Russia and show its weakness to all. But putting the slow progress in the conflict zone aside - as the Russian economy continues to recover, and diplomatic and economic relations outside the West only improve, Russia has little to fear.
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.
March 20th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
March 21st's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
March 22nd's update is here in the comments.
March 25th's update is 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 decent analysis. Avoid the comment section.
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 relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the warzone.
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 ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist (but still quite reactionary in terms of gender and sexuality and race, so beware). If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Another big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia's army.
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
Almost every Western media outlet.
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.
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That reminds me, what is china doing that produces less high level defectors compared to the USSR? Back then you had generals, spies and spy directors, engineers, and soldiers hopping into the western embassies and turn over material or just straight up lie
In China most of the ‘defectors’ have just been high level officials who wrote a biography back in the Mao days and maybe some disgruntled businessmen. I highly doubt China’s security and propaganda apparatus are any more “brutal” than the Soviets, so surely people just like china enough to stay loyal to them
I feel like a lot of it comes down to money. China has a strong economy and their people experience a better standard of living than the Soviet Union was ever able to provide. On top of that, Chinese citizens have access to blue jeans and other foreign products that were harder to get in the Soviet Union.
China found the perfect ratio of Gucci hand bags to Marxist theory to retain citizens
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The fantasy given by the US is 'come for treats and good life; be apolotical and assimilate'. 1) more meaningful visibility to 'how the sausage is made' and cultural exchange via the internet since that period. More importantly 2) most USSR cadre (who defected) were white and would not have to deal with racism. Kind of hard for a fairly-comfortable beaurocrat in the PRC to say 'the increase in my quality of life by defecting to the US and giving up easy access to my family and culture is worth the increase of treats' when that is already a hard sell AND you have to contend with racism
People don't need to defect to the US when they can get into university instead.
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Haven't a bunch of them also been moving back to China in recent years? Ever since Trump began his trade war, and then the pandemic (with its rise in hate crimes against everyone suspected of being chinese) I feel like I've been hearing people talk about moving out of the West because they feel unsafe. Obviously some people also moved because of Zero-Covid, which they found to be too restrictive, but I don't know enough.
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Homesickness is a real psychological trauma, for which there is no cure apparently. If your country can offer you a job and decent living standards, why would you subject yourself to massive amount of stress and alienation which comes with immigration, not to mention 'defectors'?
Back in socialist Yugoslavia, people used to temporarily go abroad to Germany, Austria etc. just so they could earn enough money to buy themselves luxurious family houses and cars, they otherwise couldn't afford back home and then returned, because life was otherwise very enjoyable in socialism. Of course, that was before the neoliberal capitalism and austerity policies everywhere. Now you earn next to nothing working physical and similar low-qualified jobs in western Europe "indigenous" western Europeans don't want to do, and the price of everything, especially homes, has gone up immensely, everywhere.