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 do they need a forward observation post that far away from their first line of defense? Especially in an era where you have satellites that can track large enemy movements and artillery to bombard them. You can't even get through their minefields without completely blowing your position, why should they risk having anybody within range or mistakenly wandering in a minefield. People are like, "Stupid Russia doesn't even know where their own minefields are." and I'm like, if you aren't looking to do an offensive in the area, there is literally no better opsec than not knowing where the fuck you put shit, If you don't know, the enemy can't know, and will inevitably kill themselves trying to play minesweeper in front of your lines. It fucking sucks for who ever has to clean up the mess, but it's tactically sound.
It's always very funny when the same people who laugh at Russia's incompetence or the cowardice of the average Russian soldier then end up doing absolutely dumbass shit like driving into minefields while you or your fellow soldiers are poorly trained for this situation, or going out onto random islands in Kherson for either no reason or to lay supplies for future offensive pushes with zero cover, or thinking you're some supersoldier simply because you were born in America and not Ukraine.
a real "fuck around and find out" kinda thing when you suddenly realize why Russian soldiers aren't trampling out over minefields to get to your vulnerable position, 5 seconds before the artillery shell or mine or helicopter kills you. the damage that war movies and state propaganda in general have done to the psyche of the more deranged Western soldiers - thinking that you're this unique, invincible, brave, soon-to-be war hero who goes out and does badass things like going out into minefields under cover of darkness to rescue your fallen comrades, or getting to a dangerous position to call an airstrike on the enemy forces - is both tragic and, in this case, great for Russia and eventually China.
if the US armed forces ever go out to face Russia or China, there's gonna be a few weeks of "WE'LL PUT A BOOT IN YOUR ASS IT'S THE AMERICAN WAY" and then a month later, after a thousand clones of the guys in this article die stupidly while thinking this is just gonna be another Iraq or Afghanistan where they can eat Burger King while murdering innocent children and being revered by people back home for it, there's gonna be a mixture of mass shock and copium about how those coward, timid soldiers on the other side wouldn't even come out and give them a warrior's death in a 1v1 duel and instead bombarded them with missiles and artillery and planes.