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

Want to contribute?

RSS Feed

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.

  • Teekeeus [comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    South Korea ponders the high cost of being America’s friend

    Last time it was the Netherlands and Japan, now it’s South Korea and soon it’s going to be the whole of the G7 rich countries. Being a US ally at a time when geopolitics is leaning heavily on trade policy certainly keeps you on your toes. It’s also quite galling when Washington expects you to take economic hits for geopolitical gains when it’s not always willing to do the same itself.

    This week the Financial Times revealed that the US is pushing Korea’s semiconductor manufacturers (principally Samsung and SK Hynix) not to fill any gap in supply to China if the US chips company Micron is excluded from Chinese markets on national security grounds.

    Because of their military uses — and more generally to limit China’s technological advance — semiconductors are one of the main pressure points for the US’s campaign on security and trade. This year Washington succeeded in pressing the Netherlands and Japan into agreeing tougher export controls on chip exports to China.

    Washington’s implicit threat is to allow the expiry of waivers granted to Korean companies after the US last October imposed broad controls on trade in chips and chip equipment with China. The US can, in theory, use its extraterritorial sanctioning powers moderated by loopholes to fine-tune coercion over not just adversaries but allies.

    Korea might also suspect the US warning has more to do with profits at Micron than national security. The Netherlands was irritated when ASML, its world-leading chip machine manufacturing company, was restricted from exporting kit to China in 2019 only to find American companies filling the gap with semiconductors they had made themselves.

    The US hasn’t managed to assemble a gang of diehard supporters on whose political allegiance it can depend. It faces a spectrum of more or less friendly nations doing case-by-case trade-offs about which of Washington’s initiatives they want to support, decisions in which commercial considerations will inevitably play a part. It’s an awkward situation for a president who has just declared his intention to stand for re-election on a platform of creating jobs at home rather than sending them abroad.

    • CarmineCatboy [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      tfw the US doesn't seem to realize that south korea's actual form of government is called samsung

      • Alaskaball [comrade/them]M
        ·
        1 year ago

        Some people may think this is a joke, but you'd be hard-pressed to find something in Korea that wasn't touched by a techno-feudal Chaebol.

        Example: Lotte Corp. If you go to Korea, you can stay in a Lotte hotel, go out to Lotteria for a Lotte burger, visit the Lotte World theme park, leave and go to a Lotte owned "Korea Seven" that's essentially a jazzed up 7-11 to grab some booze and food for your those times you don't want to eat out, arrive back at your hotel and use your Lotte brand electric kettle to boil your Lotte brand bottled water so you can have some Lotte owned Nongshim spicy ramyun and down it with some Lotte owned Seoljungmae Plus plum liquor... and so on and so forth.

        And that's only one of the Chaebol's of Korea.