Get it? The Sturmabteilung?
Anyway, Ukraine will probably launch its counteroffensive soon. Maybe this week. Maybe next week. Eventually, for sure. Probably. So I'm taking the week off to prepare for it. Your regularly scheduled programming will be back on May 1st.
Image is of dragon's teeth fortifications in Ukraine, from the wikipedia article.
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.
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.
oh not anyone specific, I was just highlighting my thoughts on the subject. I see a small, but growing, contingent of hexbears giving me the same vibes as kautsky as I read critiques of it. Chinese Hegemony will not truly be very peaceful, just barely less so. Russia is an emerging Imperialist power as well.
Thi article give a good summary close to the critiques I make:
although I would have liked to have found more, my google search engine isn't bringing up Socialist news networks unless I specifically search for them.
America's decline is good, but anti imperialism will eventually have to cover the broad spectrum of the imperialism of all the highly competitive empires. we are nearing a similar time as that of WW1 and its post. NATO is a far more reactionary imperialist force, but BRICS is an economic response of other Capitalists Nations (or countries with similar aims of economic growth through capitalist means, as with china) as a counter force. It is only anti-imperialist in the sense that it combats the current world order.
although critiques are welcome, I want to better my understanding.
Do you believe China is imperialist? China does practice capitalism, but on the leash of the CPC.
Not in the sense of full wealth extraction or colonialism, no. They are still in some way imperialist due to their capitalist practices overseas, as such is inevitable. It also makes trade with explicitly dictatorial nations or fascist ones like Myanmar and Israel. Of course I'm not going to lie and say that they are using fake methods of debt trap diplomacy and whatnot, but their economic influence and foreign capital exploitation is imperialist. I would have almost no qualms whatsoever if it was just the Chinese state doing these programs, with no profit interest. Capitalists are on a leash, but the farther away, the more they tug on it. I also question the state of the worker's rights in these expenditures, as the workers rights in places like SE Asia, South America, and Africa are left something to be desired (mostly due to the efforts of US imperialism). If the workers don't take part in deciding for themselves, and if the companies break strikes and discriminate against labor efforts, it is definitely an imperialist effort.
Internally, the CPC has almost solved its contradictions, and is showing to be on the road to committing to their original socialist cause. Overseas are usually just capitalist entities of the PRC, with some State oversight (but, again, capitalists are going to capitalist no matter what).
China is an entirely unique nation unlike anything that has come before it (in terms of socialism), so it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
That sounds like capitalism, but that doesn't in and of itself imply imperialism. Seems to me that China would need to be engaging in unequal exchange with other countries, and enforcing that unequal exchange through coercive (often violent) means to be considered imperialist.
I totally agree, but I think what is really what should be pointed out is the possibility for new revolutions to happen. For instance the United States only joined the imperialist division of the world in the 1890s after causing the cassus belli for war against Spain's colonies where the monopoly capitalists also began to create mergers with the existing imperialists.
Contrary to popular belief, I think that we are actually going to see a more violent world as emerging imperialist powers necessitate violence in order to establish theirselves within the division of the world.
The old world is on its way out and every can breath a sigh of relief, but I think what can be misconstrued as naivety in looking forward towards the new world (even to people themselves) is a real needed effort to look at what the emerging forces are and where class conflict can be fully resolved in the meantime.