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.
Here's a player I didn't expect to play at the speculative land-grab game.
Romania may annex Ukrainian territories – bill submitted to Parliament
Romanian Senator Diana Șoșoacă has submitted to parliament a legislative initiative that provides for the annexation of some former Romanian, now Ukrainian territories.
One of the articles of the draft law states that "on the basis of article 27 of the Treaty on Good-Neighborly Relations and Cooperation between Romania and Ukraine, it will be denounced by the Romanian side in 2027, subject to the notification period of at least a year before the expiration date."
Another article says: "Romania is annexing the historical territories that belonged to it, respectively, Northern Bukovina, the edge of Hertz, Budjak (Cahul, Bolgrad, Izmail), historical Maramures and Snake Island."
"With this law, we also want to return cultural identity, traditions, customs and religion to the Romanian population, whose number is estimated at about 1 million, including mixed families," the author of the bill notes.
https://t.me/ukr_leaks_eng/1801
Russia :solidarity: NATO
"we will end ukraine as an independent state"
sacrifice their people by the hundreds of thousands, annex their land, blame Russia for it
I really hope the current round of NATO officials live long enough for the organization to collapse before them and all of them put on trial
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Somehow I don't think they're talking about the traditional Jewish customs of Bukovina.
Obviously not, they're knockoff iron guard wannabes
it's Romania with a steel chair!
NATO is as united as ever! :amerikkka-clap:
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The EU throw their hands up as they watch Ukraine being taken over by Russia, and decide to just annex pieces of the country for themselves before Russia gobbles it up
It's a far right politician from a 9% Nazi party. Curios how all of Russias friends in Europe tend to be fascists.
But Russia has pushed the Polish annexation fantasies as well since the start of the war and if Russia or her fascist friends say it, it must be true.
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There are two major factions of the far-right. In the USA, these are the Cheney-Republicans and the Trump-Republicans, supporting Ukraine and Russia respectively.
You can find them represented across Europe in various forms -- Poland and most of the Baltics are on the Cheney far-right, while Hungary is on the Trump far-right. That's why Poland and Hungary were both allied against Germany, back when kicking Poland out of the EU was still a talking point. Remember that?
Naturally, these factions are both made up of complete morons. The Cheney-Republicans are responsible for the Iraq war, for Afghanistan, for the Patriot Act and for killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims across the world, and are the ones at the helm of NATO.
Ironically, they are also the progenitors of the Trump-Republicans. They created their own worst enemy -- a far-right faction that threatens to take their base of support away.
That's why Trump threatened to defund NATO, that's why many far-righters are calling for an end to the war. That's why you see so many Nazi symbols in Ukraine, and why you hear so much far-right rhetoric from NATO people.
These are two fascist groups that are at complete opposition to each other, two sides of the same coin, and this war is ultimately also a battle for dominance between the two.
To support this, look at the "Who We Are" page of the "Institute for the Study of War", a pro-Ukraine right-wing think tank that is regularly cited by Western News. I will also provide some information from Wikipedia (or other sources) about the respective individuals, for context.
https://archive.is/20220608223124/https://www.understandingwar.org/who-we-are
Oops, all Cheney-era Republicans! (and Joe Lieberman)
Only a single one of the board members does not have a directly obvious tie to the wars in the Middle East, and that's Jack D. McCarthy, Jr., who just seems to be a bog standard private equity capitalist.
Shut the duck up, David "Betrayed-us", "Peaches" Petraeus is on the thinktank board of ghouls too after getting humiliated so badly by the FBI into quitting as director of the CIA and essentially losing any chance of a public or political career?
Damn lmao
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Look at who crawled out of their hole to go :very-intelligent: while going :so-true: at whatever slop your abwehr knock-off Bundesnachrichtendienst puts on your plate
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To some people "both sides" bends around into a horse shoe.