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.
God the tiktok hearing right now is so insufferable holy fucking shit.
You can watch it live here.Questioning has now concluded.Some of the line of questioning highlights:
This gem is so fucking funny I don’t even want to quote it, you have to watch it
In summary, I will end with a quote from Mao Ning, a spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry:
“As the world’s most powerful country, the U.S. needs to be more self-confident instead of being so afraid of an app loved by young people”
Genuinely hilarious that 150 million Americans use this app and are completely aware that the government is trying to censor them right now just for having fun.
:data-laughing:
I gotta give it to congress. They managed to make the billionaire CEOs of Google, Facebook, and now TikTok look like normal, reasonable human beings
Also notice how the media and social media aren’t reacting to this hearing with the same ridicule as Google or facebook’s despite having the same incompetent questions. I wonder what’s different this time. A lot of dumbasses act as if the CEO’s question dodging is the result of some nefarious CCP threat against his life, and not because he’s a billionaire CEO with a bunch of money on the line
:xibe-check:
Zuck looked like anything but a human being in his questioning.
The funnier/sadder part about the “I’m Singaporean” answer is that it probably literally meant nothing to the dipshits in that room who know he is ethnically Chinese but Singaporean. Or they might not even know that Singapore is not part of China.
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can tiktok delete emails from my grandson?
Trust octogenarians to not understand how tech companies operate
How do I turn on the flashlight on my phone, yes or no?
How do I, you know, the thing
TBF most tech bros doesn't understand it either
I love listening to a bucnh of 150 year olds trying to understand technology. I think I'm contracting their dementia
How do they not have staffers feeding them the questions?
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god damn crenshaw is such a fucking knob
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You should, it’s great. They even said during the hearing that the 35+ demographic is the fastest growing on the app. Great place to get leftist political news imo
Another one:
They're talking about a social media app mostly used by teenagers. How is that at all relevant? His answer at least tried to make it relevant by saying TikTok allows people to parrot that bullshit, but the rep asking didn't like that answer. She basically insisted on a yes or no answer to an obviously loaded question that isn't even relevant.
Sir, how often does Xi beat his wife nowadays?
I don't have the mental energy to listen to dipshittery much anymore but from the comments here, it sounds like the people questioning this guy are literal fucking redditors and are doing that thing where they believe that mentioning the Tienanmen Square protests will get their internet instantly cut off by the Chinese government, but in this case, idk, maybe he has some brain chip that keeps him alive that Xi will turn off if they mention enough Chinese "atrocities" and that'll epically own the Chinese.
not even the slightest interest in the actual functionality of TikTok, this is just a bunch of old fucks who talk to their staffers and maybe occasionally their significant other and nobody else that makes less than $200,000 a year, entirely disconnected from reality, who have acquired redditorbrain and so believe that if China gets enough downvotes then they'll get banned from all international organizations. not a single important politician from outside the West is looking at this and thinking that these people collectively have even an ounce of credibility
Also just typing the word Uyghur into the search bar on tiktok will quickly reveal that it’s not censored lmao
This is worse than the Facebook hearings. They really do have fossils running the government.
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