On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.
The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I've had to restart my program after somebody told me "Disregard all previous prompts."
While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the... reforms... that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it's as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.
Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven't meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.
The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Pridnestrovie, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
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 Telegram Channels:
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.
In an incident straight out of a Hollywood movie: Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militants (formally known as the Janjaweed) in Sudan shot down their own friendly transport/cargo plane, owned and operated by their own UAE suppliers. The UAE operated aircraft they shot down was likely bringing in supplies and engineers to repair another friendly UAE operated aircraft that crashed previously.
Video here
AP News article
"Sudan War Monitor" article
The RSF shot down their own plane that was bringing in parts and specialists to repair their own damaged aircraft which they crashed... The level of incompetence and lack of co-ordination on display is staggering. The UAE cannot even stop their own proxies from shooting down their own planes!
Editing to comment on the South African driver's licence being present on the UAE plane, our sub-imperialist arseholes just can't help jump from one sub-imperialist entity to another. If it weren't so tragic it would be comedy.
Unlimited friendly fire on the RSF and UAE.
May the RSF keep shooting down their own supply planes indefinitely.
Bunch of RSF/Janjaweed militants were mercenaries for the Saudis fighting in Yemen as well against Ansarallah.
Absolute chumps, born to lose
With how bad the RSF appear at actual warfare when they're not trying to commit genocide, it's no wonder they lost against Ansarallah. Ansarallah are operating hypersonic ballistic missile prototypes, while the RSF can't even co-ordinate an incoming cargo flight without shooting it down.
It was actually hilarious how bad they got whooped by Ansarallah. I remember one battle where the Saudi mercenaries were equipped with tanks, helicopters and APCs and Ansarallah only had RPGs and AKs, and the battle ended in total Ansarallah victory when they captured all of the tanks and APCs lol
Literally just like walking up to them and yoinking the driver out like master chief. We are grateful to the Saudis for providing war equipment to our brothers in Yemen.
Ansrahalla also had one (1) Hind Helicopter that still wreaked devastating havok on them for some 4 years or so..
I still remember those videos from what feels like 10 years ago of Ansarallah destroying export specification Saudi M1 Abrams tanks with RPGs and ATGMs. The drivers of the tanks genuinely seemed surprised to be behind the wheel, they would stand completely still while being fired upon and wouldn't even rotate their turrets to return fire. All that oil money and this was the best they could do?
Well then they would rain down bombs on Yemen in their impotent frustration after all their hired mercenaries eat shit, using American fuel and intel and logistical support. They still couldn’t beat Ansarallah.
They just don’t want planes, craziest thing I’ve ever seen :dana-white-voice:
The fuck uae is doing there, gold digging?
It also seems as if someone at the RSF doesn't understand the difference between cargo planes and fighter jets, they kept mentioning something about shooting down Egyptian Antonov planes for bombing them.
The only Antonov planes operated by the Egyptian Air Force are the An-74T-200, which are solely military transport aircraft. Unless the Egyptians are just throwing bombs out the back, I don't see how this is a bomber. And why would the Egyptians even bother to do this when they have Dassault Rafales, F-16s and MiG-29s? Sudan have used an An-26 as an improvised bomber in the past, but in that case it would not be an Egyptian aircraft as claimed. Or are they claiming that Egypt buys An-26 aircraft for Sudan to use as bombers? It seems as if there was just some kind of confusion with regards to what they were doing and their planned target, a lack of co-ordination between the main commanders and those on the ground.
The UAE have been supporting the RSF in Sudan for a while now, likely for natural resources like gold as you stated. Their sub-imperialist ventures into Africa are scaling up, but I think they'll need some more competent proxies if they want success. I guess the RSF will start learning from their mistakes at some point through battlefield experience though.