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.

  • FALGSConaut [comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    The CBC has decided to be pro-cluster munitions. Highlights from the article include:

    Cluster munitions are responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians and have been banned in more than 120 countries, but military experts say they would be an effective weapon for Ukraine's army against Russian forces, which is why the United States has decided to provide them.

    "There's no question these things are very effective," said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

    "It will be a useful increase in artillery effectiveness," he said. "It's not going to be a game changer, but in the end, it will make Ukraine virtually more effective."

    So these weapons cause untold human suffering for decades to come, and won't be the desisive wunderweapon to win the war, but they're an effective weapon so...

    They pointed to U.S. army data that found that during the Vietnam War, the number of conventional high-explosive 155-mm rounds fired for each enemy soldier killed in combat was 13.6, compared with only 1.7 for cluster munition shells.

    It's cool and good to point to Vietnam war era bodycounts to justify your civilian killing weapons

    But Cancian, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said even if the failure rate is double what U.S. officials are saying, the cluster munitions would still be "pretty damn effective."

    The nub of the Ukrainian argument for using them, he said, is that every day the war goes on, Ukrainian civilians are killed, and they have to weigh that with the risk of dud weapons killing their own population

    We need to salt the earth with explosives that ensure no one will be able to walk across a field in Ukraine without fear of getting blown to pieces to prevent more people from being blown to pieces

    There's more in the article, including a token bit of "what about the bombs that don't explode?" but the grand majority seems like it's trying to justify the use of these horrible weapons

    • solaranus
      ·
      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

      • VILenin [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        When you’re a liberal dancing around the issue because you’re too cowardly to admit that you just want people to suffer

      • PosadistInevitablity [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        The point was to kill as many slavs as possible. Fascism is just when these people take the mask off.

    • emizeko [they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      "It's not going to be a game changer, but in the end, it will make Ukraine virtually more effective."

      what the fuck is virtually supposed to mean here

      • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        It means they cant say for sure because they don't know anything about the situation on the ground but having more ammunition almost always makes an army more effective.

    • Fuckass
      ·
      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

    • ziggurter [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      but they're an effective weapon so...

      *VIRTUALLY effective, I think you mean. That's the best kind of effective.

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      They pointed to U.S. army data that found that during the Vietnam War, the number of conventional high-explosive 155-mm rounds fired for each enemy soldier killed in combat was 13.6, compared with only 1.7 for cluster munition shells.

      I'm sure the American strategy in the Vietnam War was a great success that other militaries ought to copy.