On Tuesday and Wednesday, this year's NATO summit will take place in Vilnius, Lithuania, in a grand meeting of some of the most awful ghouls currently populating the planet
Despite strong efforts and words from Ukraine, membership is still very unlikely to be forthcoming and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Sweden might not get membership for a while either, as Erdogan continues to play both sides off each other, but who can truly say.
All of this is in the wake of Biden announcing the delivery of cluster bombs to Ukraine, as he admits that they are running out of other munitions to send, ensuring that Ukraine, its people, and its children - the ones that remain, anyway - will continue to suffer for many, many generations to come. Cluster bombs have, I believe, already been used in the conflict, but now will presumably be used at a higher rate. The leader of Cambodia, a country that is a major victim of US cluster bombing, has said:
"It will be the worst danger for the Ukrainians for decades or even centuries if those cluster bombs are used," Hun Sen said.
"I know for sure that Cambodia is small and weak, and our voice is weightless, but with our pity towards the people of Ukraine, I call on the U.S. president, the provider, and the Ukrainian president, the recipient, not to use cluster bombs in this war because the real victims will be civilians, especially the Ukrainian ones," he said.
What a perfect exemplification of the conflict as a whole. Millions of Ukrainians will be thrown into the inferno, entirely disposable in the eyes of the West, so long as we burn some Russians in the fire.
The suffering is the point.
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.
Why was Sweden so desperate to get into NATO anyways? They are literally surrounded by NATO countries, there was tangible zero threat to them.
And now they have to waste 2% of their GDP on military spending instead of using it on literally anything else. For what? Where's the benefit?
you're assuming that NATO is a defensive alliance and it's obviously not. It is meant to enforce western global hegemony which Sweden benefits a lot from
Social Democracy moment
"I fucking warned you, dude. I told you, bro." - Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin
Well obviously it isn't what is in Sweden's interests that matters. It is the interests of the Ruling class in Sweden that determines foreign policy. Sweden is one of the worlds largest weapons exporters. They just managed to lock down 2% of the Nations GDP. They are probably also looking at getting a few NATO contracts which will be easier if they are part of the alliance.
For real, they had a nice gig being a "neutral" western nation for several years, and NATO would have always come to their defense anyway despite not officially being a member. It seems like their government has permanently sacrificed that reputation just so they can "send the Russians a message." Now they get to be part of America's little loyal marching band instead (as we lead them over a cliff)
They were never really neutral. They are one of the biggest suporters of terrorism out there.
Probably because bofors is interested in the giant arms testing ground known as ukraine
What's bofors?
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boom gottem
annihilated
There's a joke about Bofors being the only arms manufacturer in the world who uses 100% recycled packaging materials.
lmao
viking arms manufacturer
I was hoping you were going to say "bofor deez nuts" but that's a good answer
And potentially responsible for the assissination of Olof Palme due to him looking into their role in illegal arms sales related to Iran-Contra too if you subscribe to the investigations of Steig Larsson and others.
You say this as though that's not beneficial for the Swedes that made that happen
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Neutrality has worker great for the Swedish bourgeoisie for centuries, allowing them to stay out of destructive wars while also having a sizeable and profitable military industrial complex that was able to trade globally. Paradoxically, not being part of NATO also allowed the Swedish bourgeoisie to justify steep military spending compared to their neighbours ("We're on our own so we need a strong military to defend ourselves!"). Sweden was never a truly neutral country, always biasing their neutrality towards whoever was thought to be most beneficial to their bourgeoisie. When it looked like the Nazis were winning, Sweden sold them iron and allowed them to run military trains to occupied Norway, when it looked like the Nazis were losing Sweden allowed the allies to field partisan armies on Swedish soil. When the cold war started, nobody doubted what side Sweden was on.
Maybe that equation has changed by now, the threat of the Russian bogeyman is making NATO vassals spend money on their militaries like drunk sailors. Meanwhile I can only imagine that American pressure to project an image of a united west has increased. One would also not underestimate the power of western propaganda, when you believe a war between a cartoonishly evil and a cartoonishly good side is going on you want to side with the good guys, leading to pressure within Swedish society for swearing allegiance to NATO.
I wouldn't be too surprised if Swedish military industries gets done lucrative contracts on the books in the coming months or if visible American military presence in Sweden increases.