Image is of coup supporters in Niamey, waving the flag of Niger and Russia.
While the coup in Niger is an obvious reason for this megathread's subject, the inspiration to focus here rather than somewhere else in the world this week came from @solaranus@hexbear.net's comment here.
Anyway, as a quick introduction to Niger - the country won independence from the French in 1960 and has since been in an alternating cycle of military governments and more democratic arrangements. In 2010, a junta took over the country from the military junta already ruling it, and then successfully transitioned the country to democracy within a year. President Issoufou was elected and then re-elected in 2016. President Bazoum was democratically elected in 2021, and has just been overthrown last week. General Tchiani looks to be the new head of state.
Like many countries that were previously colonies, outright colonialism by its imperial country has been replaced by neocolonialism by that same country. France issues their currency, thus allowing France to do what the US does with its dollar around the world but in miniature. The country is incredibly poor, surviving on subsidence agriculture, with much of its exports being minerals like gold and uranium, which many children under the age of 14 are employed in extracting. Also like other previously French colonies, the new guys in charge appear to be flipping them the bird, with Burkina Faso and Mali relatively recently asking them to fuck off. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that this is happening as internal dissent inside France itself continues to boil. Given the Russian flags being waved and Putin's promises to supply free grain to some African countries (and though Niger isn't mentioned, Burkina Faso and Mali notably are), one imagines that Russia also might have a hand in things.
Burkina Faso's president, Traore, has been talking with Mali and Guinea, and now Niger - all ruled by military governments - and asking if they're interested in federation, with Mali showing some interest. Traore follows in the tradition of Thomas Sankara, and has appointed a Prime Minister who is similarly aligned. Traore has recently met with a Chinese representative and has firmly aligned himself with Russia, saying that Burkina Faso has "one and the same outlook" on building a new world order, saying:
"Russia made great sacrifices to liberate Europe and the world from Nazism during World War II. We have the same history,"
"We are the forgotten peoples of the world. And we are here now to talk about the future of our countries, about how things will be tomorrow in the world that we are seeking to build, and in which there will be no interference in our internal affairs,"
"However, a slave who does not fight [for his freedom] is not worthy of any indulgence. The heads of African states should not behave like puppets in the hands of the imperialists. We must ensure that our countries are self-sufficient, including as regards food supplies, and can meet all of the needs of our peoples. Glory and respect to our peoples; victory to our peoples! Homeland or death!"
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
No update on Wednesday because I am still busy.
Friday's update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
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 and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
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 all socially reactionary. 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 ~ A 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. Produces interesting and useful maps.
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.
Joint statement from Mali and Burkina Faso:
“Any military intervention against Niger would amount to a declaration of war against Burkina_Faso and Mali. ”
“Any military intervention in Niger would result in the withdrawal of Burkina Faso and Mali from ECOWAS."
Comrades, things are happening. A united anti-colonial front is something that people of Africa couldn't even imagine 5 years ago. Algeria, Libya and Guinea also seem on board. Algeria in particular seem very invested in this. This struggle is a clear one for us leftists, where the lines between colonial evil and anti-colonial struggle are non-negotiable. People with African origin in France itself should also be prepared, the pressure against them will increase if this situation escalates.
https://maia.crimew.gay/posts/meet-the-shitpoasters/
Dump of email addresses that had LinkedIn addresses associated with their emails that were registered on Poast, the fascist fediverse instance.
i will leave proper in depth analysis of this data to extremism researchers and journalists, but a few interesting people i can find at a glance are:
- the developer of rtorrent
- at least 4 google employees
- at least 1 amazon employee
- at least 1 microsoft employee
- at least 1 apple employee
- the CISO of tezos foundation
- numerous people in the US military
- a self proclaimed "national socialist" who's a professor at gardner-webb university
- just sooo many people in the tech industry
Considering making this its own post. It's juicy af.
EDIT: So many cops.
Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Show
EDIT: AHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAA
EDIT2: This one might be less funny than I thought. He "covers the far right" according to his twitter. So he might have a valid excuse.
Awoo, while I believe that these fascists should lose their jobs, they won't unless their employer knows about it and takes action. You and I and others here should make a concerted effort to go through the list and report these people to their employers. Are you up for it?
Yeah I saw that one with glee and then saw the two direct messages associated with the account - one telling someone to eat shit, and the other:
<2021-05-20T14:11:03.000Z> defmyrealname21: Hi Mr. Benjamin Welton, This is Chris Mathias. I'm a reporter at HuffPost. I know that you run this account. I also know that you are behind the Spooky Nationalist account on Twitter; the Spooky Nationalist Substack; The Lovecraftian Conservative website; and that you are the author of a book published by Antelope Hill. I know all of your pseudonyms, including Sinclair Jenkins, Elias Kingston, and Jake Bowyer. And I know that using these pseudonyms you've written for various white nationalist publications, including American Renaissance and VDare. Throughout your writing, and on your new podcast, you have expressed your belief in fascism and white nationalism.I know that you are currently a teacher at Star Academy in Watertown. I am writing a story about why it's concerning that you, a white nationalist, are teaching children.Any comment on your white nationalism? Any comment on all the things you've written? Any comment on your job as a teacher?
you should make it its own post. thats not islandic worker strikes !
Girl, this is one of the most beautifully funniest things I've read all year
How fucking dumb do you have to be to sign up for a Nazi account with your LinkedIn email
Clickbait Youtube videos in 2025 be like: American soldier stuns PLA platoon by surrendering in perfect Mandarin
Since we are federated time to do this:
I'll scream it again the US alone has so far given 100bn USD to Ukraine, it'd take 37bn USD a year to end world hunger. I'm also sure that if you are a ghoul and don't care about that 100bn in investments would have a far bigger return on investment if they I dunno fixed their failing infrasctructure, used it to offer free healthcare, free education or literally anything.
The news megathread is simply too powerful for liberals. It's like shining a blinding light into the eyes of a monster in a dark cave. Turns out all you need to do to piss them off to the point of instant defederation is to be against fascism, and be on the side of most of the world's population - the "jungle", compared to their "garden" - who aren't sanctioning Russia, nor filled with a frantic hatred of China.
also, a semi-unrelated thought I had while in the shower: it would be pretty great if the next couple decades had Russia and China doing a kind of good cop bad cop thing, where China is the "good cop" helping develop countries and Russia is the "bad cop" using its military under the guise of mercenary groups to help overthrow their liberal or comprador governments in favor of anti-western and socialist governments
I've been restraining myself from making a tasteless joke about the war ever since it started and I need to get it off my chest before we federate, or else I'll be sitting on it forever
Smh can't believe all these guys are out there fighting over "Donbas," but there's nobody fighting over MY dumb ass
Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians).
lmao WaPo article just saying the quiet part out loud.
lmao when westerners fleece their African client states to such an extent that they can't perform military services for you without collapsing or triggering a civil war
The practical downside of neocolonialism when you underfund and underdevelop a state's capacity to the point a few thousand coup soldiers, a Russian mercenary army and a threat from the decently sized Algerian military can undo decades of French and state department planning
Western imperialism failing cause it can't internalize the inevitable complexity crises and system collapses it generates is just pure
That's a big gamble unless the dude has daddy Vlad green light and backing since there's giant yank base there. Putin also said that he gonna do something in Syria, so let's see. lol
Do not look at the reddit threads on Niger's coup, even more revolting than normal
