Argentina is an interesting microcosm of the more widespread war that every other currency is waging against the dollar - in this case, the yuan is taking on the dollar in gladiatorial combat.
The Argentinian economy, like many, is fully permeated by the American dollar, but it has its own official currency, the Argentinian peso. This may not be for long: one of the major contenders for the Argentinian presidency has proposed replacing the national currency of Argentina with the dollar, which would therefore mean that an even more substantial part of the economy would be decided, with no input from Argentina, thousands of miles away. This is not unprecedented - Ecuador already does this, as does Zimbabwe, Timor-Leste, Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. The motivation for doing so may also be convincing to Argentinian voters, as the country has faced hyperinflation, ever-increasing benchmark interest rates, and chronic shortages of dollar reserves.
However, the yuan has entered the scene, particularly over the last couple months. The Economy Minister met with Chinese officials in early June to sign a co-operation plan to promote the Belt and Road Initiative. Commercial banks can now open deposit accounts in yuan, and securities can now be issued in the yuan. The Western media, as one might expect, emphasizes how utterly desperate Argentina must be to go to the yuan - the yuan! - to sort out its economic crisis.
Whirlpool Corp, a major American appliances company, has said that it is considering paying with the yuan to import parts for a new factory in Argentina. Over 500 Argentine companies making a plethora of products have requested to pay for imports in yuan.
The share of yuan transactions in Argentina's foreign currency market hit a daily record of 28% in late June, compared to a high of 5% in May.
And last week, Argentina opted to use the yuan to settle part of its debt with the IMF for the first time, and it will be interesting to see if other countries follow their example.
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.
The first update this week is here in the comments.
The second update this week 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.
When I think of weapons like cluster bombs, my mind immediately conjures up images of young children with their limbs blasted off, wailing, screaming. Blood everywhere.
Westerners really would blow up an orphanage full of Ukrainian children to kill a single Russian soldier inside. Then call you a genocide apologist for saying that is insane.
I just don't understand. Are these people born without empathy? Why can they do this and not feel like a monster?
They don't really need a Russian soldier inside or even really nearby to bomb civilians, you know. Lancaster's reports revealed the absolute willingness of the AFU to target civilians in terror bombings.
It sucks how unwilling a lot of people are to even consider that Ukraine deliberately does shit like this, and evidence from people like Lancaster just gets immediately shut down as being "RuZZian tankie fascist disinformazia" or whatever buzzwords they feel like stringing together that day.
We all saw it in the train station in kramatorsk where they shot an anti-personnel tochka-u into a busy civilian train station mid day and blamed the Russians
Or when they dropped flechett artillery rounds on the village Lancaster had just drove through after interviewing an old villager evacuating his injured neighbor that told him they were using white phosphorus on them as well.
Or the many other interviews or ground zero examinations of how Ukrainian armaments have been exclusively targeting civilian centers nonstop since the fascists took power.
To me it's different because at least I can accept they are fooled by lies that it's not Ukraine doing the killing.
There is no mask here, no excuse. They are encouraging it directly now.
When everyone around you is doing something, you usually don’t even really think about it or examine it really. We are the odd few who have been so alienated by western society we are critical of everything instantly, but most normies just accept what the news says and nod along and go on with their day. It’s how the normal German people in 1930-1945 didn’t have moral existential breakdowns every moment when they thought about all the disappearing Jews and disabled people and communists
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They're completely detached from the consequences of their actions. Long story short, they don't have to smell the blood they spill.
Russia wants a buffer zone and NATO wants to surround Russia, in a way both sides want no man’s lands.
Sad fact is neither side are signatories of the mine or cluster bomb conventions, and as a result they both use mines, cluster bombs, and cluster mines against each other.
From my esoteric and specific simulatory knowledge of the kind of soviet and american cluster bombs they are using -- they often have between 96 and 250 1kg or 2.5kg charges, about about 6% of them won't go off - even more if you drop them into a forest or a town, because they get stuck in foliage or gutters and such, and don't arm themselves properly. I think american cluster bombs in vietnam, in forests (remember, everyone is hiding in field windbreak forest lines), had about a 20% failure rate?
Leave the bombs on a shelf for a couple of decades? Maybe we can double the failure rate.
Either way, every set of cluster bombs sent into a forest or a town with shelf-life-expired munitions is leaving behind like 40 submunitions that failed to explode immediately because they didn't impact hard enough, or at the right angle, or the fuse didn't fully set at that moment, just waiting for a deer or a tractor or a child... By the time you've used say, 2000 bombs, you've left tens of thousands of trash-minefields everywhere.
I don't think there's any evidence Russia has used cluster bombs in this war, even the Pentagon doesn't claim they have. Likewise Russia has not used depleted uranium either. Russia is also a signatory to chemical and biological weapons treaties that the west refuse to sign.
Have you considered the possibility that they think being a monster is based?
I think it’s just a ruling class thing — they don’t really think of others as people
All types of bombs should make you feel this way. I’m pretty sure Russia has been using cluster bombs the entire SMO, now the problem may become twice as bad. The whole war is a disaster
Ukranie has been using cluster bombs since before the war started and specifically targets civilians. Its not going to get "twice as bad" its just going to continue being bad.
Asking in good faith do you have any sources on that? Hadn’t heard of Ukraine using cluster bombs before the invasion
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
Edit: From 2014 on Donetsk city.
Thanks I thought it might be around then and there. Very fucked up. Russia has obviously killed far more civilians at this point but I understand the opposite was the case prior to the invasion
Probably, Russia is on the offensive and has a massive firepower advantage, but nobody is tracking how many civilians Ukraine is killing, all civilian deaths are attributed to Russia. Ukraine has killed a lot of "traitors and collaborators" in regions that Russia retreated from, they love shooting artillery into civilian areas despite not having enough of it, they refuse to organize evacuation corridors, and they prefer to fortify civilian buildings without evacuating them. If Ukraine fortifies a hospital into a strongpoint and then Russia bombs it, who should we attribute the civilian deaths to?
Then there are Ukraine's conscripts who are kidnapped off the street, given less than 2 weeks of training, and then sent to die in a trench to Russia artillery. They're not technically civilians but it's a super fucked up situation.
All war is awful but bombs that mostly kill children is a special level of hell world.