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

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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.

  • PosadistInevitablity [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I now firmly believe that Western cope over the Soviet Union beating back the Nazis is contributing to the west thinking this war is winnable.

    “The soviets only won because of our material. This time Ukraine is the one with our support.”

    As if somehow foreign aid could win a war. It helps, but it’s not even close to a determinative factor. Countries willing to donate enough to the cause to win are parties to the war. If you aren’t willing to be party to the war, you wouldn’t send enough to win. The distinction barely exists at that point.

    Anti materialist nonsense propaganda has once again become a rake the imperialists have stepped on.

    • kleeon [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      The soviets only won because of our material

      Soviets won the battle of Moscow long before lend-lease began arriving

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Is there anything that can be cited for this? I'm not calling you out here, it would be useful for me.

        • Parzivus [any]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Wikipedia has a pretty good quote from an American historian:

          Although Soviet accounts have routinely belittled the significance of Lend-Lease in the sustainment of the Soviet war effort, the overall importance of the assistance cannot be understated. Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make the difference between defeat and victory in 1941–1942; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet people and to the iron nerve of Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates. As the war continued, however, the United States and Great Britain provided many of the implements of war and strategic raw materials necessary for Soviet victory. Without Lend-Lease food, clothing, and raw materials (especially metals), the Soviet economy would have been even more heavily burdened by the war effort. Perhaps most directly, without Lend-Lease trucks, rail engines, and railroad cars, every Soviet offensive would have stalled at an earlier stage, outrunning its logistical tail in a matter of days. In turn, this would have allowed the German commanders to escape at least some encirclements, while forcing the Red Army to prepare and conduct many more deliberate penetration attacks in order to advance the same distance. Left to their own devices, Stalin and his commanders might have taken twelve to eighteen months longer to finish off the Wehrmacht; the ultimate result would probably have been the same, except that Soviet soldiers could have waded at France's Atlantic beaches.

          It is worth noting that a great deal of the aid was non-lethal (food, raw materials, trains, etc), which greatly alleviated the suffering of the Soviet populace.
          As a side note, Stalin himself was of the opinion that without the Allies contribution as a whole, both lend lease and their militaries actually fighting the Nazis, that Russia would have lost the war. Many Soviet commanders like Zhukov were of similar opinions.

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

            Correct. Lend-lease was an important part of the war efforts. People have to remember that Ukraine, famously known as the breadbasket of Europe for the sheer agricultural output it has, was captured and controlled by the nazis with their ukrainian pig-dog puppets. American material aid helped feed the Soviet people and helped accelerate the rebuilding/relocating of the Soviet factories during the early stages of the Fascist invasion.

            It does need to be stated that it is not as overblown as western propagandists try to make it seem, nor as non-existent as the more historically ignorant tankie memers depict it as. It was a combined war effort where all - a case can be argued against the perfidious Anglo-Saxons imo - did their best to defeat the axis pact.

        • kleeon [he/him, he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          sorry, I can't find the article right now because it was a long time ago. If I remember correctly, before and during the battle of Moscow(end of '41) it was mostly financial aid and the actual military aid began arriving around spring '42

    • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Someone posted a side-by-side comparison Naked Capitalism did that compares hubristic early Nazi quotes about how easily they would smash the Russian “resource colony” to the east and modern NATO quotes gleefully talking about how easily Russia will be crushed. It’s remarkable how eerily similar the chauvinist mindsets are in their arrogance