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.
Heard something interesting through some connections.
_
Statement by Borotba (Struggle), a revolutionary Marxist organization banned in Ukraine since 2014: May 9 marks the 78th anniversary of the Day of Victory over Nazi Germany.
Almost a century separates us from those events. However, right now we see what a colossal impact they continue to have on the entire world community.
World War II didn't just start. It didn't come out of nowhere. A tangle of contradictions in international politics led to it, which they didn't try to untie by diplomatic means, but to cut with the help of war.
The reasons that divided the world into supporters of the ideas of Nazism and anti-fascists more than 80 years ago still exist today. Western corporations and finance capital, which for many years armed Hitler, created a combat-ready army in order to send it against those from whom they felt threatened: the Soviet Union.
Now we see exactly the same thing: Western transnational corporations and financial capital over the past 8 years have been very intensively creating an army of Nazis, supporters of white supremacy, in order to direct it against Russia. More than 120,000 well- motivated fighters, pumped up with far-right propaganda, were gathered at the borders of the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics (LPR and DPR), preparing to kill the peaceful civilians of Donbass and Crimea, just like their predecessors in 1941.
However, this was not allowed to happen.
Today, speaking about the process of denazification, it is important to understand the causes that led to the world war 80 years ago, and which still exist in the world.
It is important to realize that in Ukraine, it is not Russia that is fighting against Ukraine, but two political currents fighting: anti-fascists and Nazis. That is why thousands of far-right militants from all over the planet wearing runes and swastikas poured into Ukraine. That is why we see stripes with a hammer and sickle on the soldiers of the Russian special forces, and red flags of Victory on the tanks.
We want to appeal to our brothers and sisters from other countries of the world:
Comrades! Know this! In Ukraine, we are fighting, including against your enemies. Against those who came from your hometowns. Against the Nazis of America and Georgia, against the far right from Poland and Sweden. Against those trained by Spanish and Lithuanian instructors.
We know that the future of all humanity is being decided in Ukraine today!
And we urge you not to be silent!
May 9 is the Day of Victory over fascism! On this day,
we call on everyone to take to the squares of your cities to pay tribute to the anti-fascists of Spain who died in the battles against Franco, the Italian partisans who fought against Mussolini! To the Greek People's Liberation Front (ELAS) fighters, anti-fascists from the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia! To the prisoners of concentration camps and the participants in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising!
We call for rallies in memory of those who did not give up! In memory of Ernst Thälmann, Aris Velouchiotis, Bruno Buozzi, Jean Moulin and millions of others who died at the hands of Nazism!
And we urge you not to be silent!
May 9 is the Day of Victory over fascism! On this day, we call on everyone to take to the squares of your cities to pay tribute to the anti-fascists of Spain who died in the battles against Franco, the Italian partisans who fought against Mussolini! To the Greek People's Liberation Front (ELAS) fighters, anti-fascists from the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia! To the prisoners of concentration camps and the participants in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising!
We call for rallies in memory of those who did not give up! In memory of Ernst Thälmann, Aris Velouchiotis, Bruno Buozzi, Jean Moulin and millions of others who died at the hands of Nazism!
Today, like 80 years ago, the world is divided into two halves: supporters of Nazism and their opponents. We know you are on the right side!
Show it to everyone on May 8 or 9, 2023, by going to the main square of your city with red flags and St. George's ribbons raised high!
We will win!
:bloomer:
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
The "cutting the knot" imagery reminds me of Krushchev's message to JFK during the Cuban missle crisis:
I will admit, I have a bit of a soft spot for Khrushchev. Like, of course he fucked up a lot of things and he deserves a fair share of the blame... but he did some good, too. And I think he sincerely wanted to try and do his part in building socialism. He just... wasn't the man for the job.
Learning more about the Cuban missile crisis definitely made me see him in a bit of a better light. I'm still skeptical though, I want to read more about the secret speech and it's fallout.
deleted by creator
I find him easy to dislike but difficult to hate
he's far from the worst of the Soviet leaders at the very least, but at least Gorby is in hell where he belongs now
He was a counter-revolutionary hack who tried to pressure foreign states into becoming single-output economies, and making them rely entirely on the Soviet Union. Brezhnev broke the Union and international socialism, yes, but Khrushchev set the stage in a major way.
deleted by creator