Map of Russian fortification lines on the Zaporozhye front.
The counteroffensive has begun, after a series of failed Ukrainian attacks in the preceding few days. The axis of attack does appear to be towards Tokmak, which is also the strongest part of the Russian defensive line.
From the late night of June 7th/very early morning of June 8th onwards, Ukraine has been sending waves of forces in to attack Russian defense lines. Ukrainian air defense is barely active if at all, with Russian aviation able to freely attack Ukrainian columns going through minefields. We've seen potential glances of Leopards and various western armored vehicles. Russian morale seems high so far.
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.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
This week's third 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.
Seriously starting to think about what a postwar UKR would be. Divided to some extent for sure, maybe Poland is in the west as a peace keeping force through UN/EU/NATO. Wonder what that would do to the internal political situation, the Poles don't like the Banderite government either but are chuds in their own particular idiom as well. After the war, I wonder if the left will have any prospects after Zelinsky had them all outlawed throughout the course war. Of course there will also be deep hatred of RUS in postwar UKR too, so idk where that leaves this situation. Unless RUS tries to fight other countries in western UKR I don't see UKR not being altered territorially, but I don't think RUS would do that because 1 the nuclear deterrent and 2 they're basing the legality of this war on protecting Russians abroad and protecting their security interests, a demilitarized government, even if occupied by some type of peacekeeping force would seem to be satisfactory and 3 they may not even be capable of it anyway. Of course the parts under RUS control are simply joining with RUS.
Oh yeah also wondering how the UKR will be liking the terms of that IFM loan in a year or so and the political pressure that will make. They've already stripped the state of many assets. Unfortunately I don't think there will be a Marshall plan for UKR
I can't see the Russians allowing a NATO peacekeeping force.
Yeah probably not NATO, but maybe UN or EU even I mean they are the neighboring countries.
I could see UN peacekeepers on heavily negotiated lines considering Russia’s membership in the security council
The Poles take back Lviv?
Um, actually, it's Lwów.
No it’s Lwoah dude
The compromise will be Lemberg
Ukraine will cease as a country, the only thing that is debatable is how much will russia take? Either way, russia is on its way to be a global power once again, as it always was when gaining sovereignty over current day ukrainian-held lands.
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