back in my map era, we're ukrainemaxxing right now
Declarations of the imminent doom of Ukraine are a news megathread specialty, and this is not what I am doing here - mostly because I'm convinced that whenever we do so, the war extends another three months to spite us. Ukraine has been in an essentially apocalyptic crisis for over a year now after the failure of the 2023 counteroffensive, unable to make any substantial progress and resigned to merely being a persistent nuisance (and arms market!) as NATO fights to the last Ukrainian. In this context, predicting a terminal point is difficult, as things seem to always be going so badly that it's hard to understand how and why they fight on. In every way, Ukraine is a truly shattered country, barely held together by the sheer combined force of Western hegemony. And that hegemony is weakening.
I therefore won't be giving any predictions of a timeframe for a Ukrainian defeat, but the coming presidency of Trump is a big question mark for the conflict. Trump has talked about how he wishes for the war to end and for a deal to be made with Putin, but Trump also tends to change his mind on an issue at least three or four times before actually making a decision, simply adopting the position of who talked to him last. And, of course, his ability to end the war might be curtailed by a military-industrial complex (and various intelligence agencies) that want to keep the money flowing.
The alignment of the US election with the accelerating rate of Russian gains is pretty interesting, with talk of both escalation and de-escalation coinciding - the former from Biden, and the latter from Trump. Russia very recently performed perhaps the single largest aerial attack of Ukraine of the entire war, striking targets across the whole country with missiles and drones from various platforms. In response, the US is talking about allowing Ukraine to hit long-range targets in Russia (but the strategic value of this, at this point, seems pretty minimal).
Additionally, Russia has made genuine progress in terms of land acquisition. We aren't talking about endless and meaningless battles over empty fields anymore. Some of the big Ukrainian strongholds that we've been spending the last couple years speculating over - Chasiv Yar, Kupiansk, Orikhiv - are now being approached and entered by Russian forces. The map is actually changing now, though it's hard to tell as Ukraine is so goddamn big.
Attrition has finally paid off for Russia. An entire generation of Ukrainians has been fed into the meat grinder. Recovery will take, at minimum, decades - more realistically, the country might be permanently ruined, until that global communist revolution comes around at least. And they could have just made a fucking deal a month into the war.
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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.
list of those indicted by the federal police for violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, criminal organization and coup d'état:
Ailton Gonçalves Moraes Barros (retired army captain accused of brokering illegal data entry on Covid-19 vaccination cards)
Alexandre Castilho Bitencourt da Silva (army colonel and one of the authors of the coup document “Letter to the Army Commander from Senior Active Officers and the Brazilian Army)
Alexandre Ramagem (federal deputy, former director-general of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin, Brazil's CIA) and Federal Police (Brazil's FBI) delegate, attempted to be Rio de Janeiro's Mayor, but lost to popular pro-Lula Liberal Eduardo Paes, who won the elections with 60% of the votes)
Almir Garnier Santos (reserve admiral and former commander of the Navy, very pro-coup, most radical)
Amauri Feres Saad (a lawyer cited by the CPI (Parliamentary Committee of Investigation) on Coup Acts as the “intellectual mentor” of the draft of the coup found with Anderson Torres)
Anderson Torres (former Minister of Justice of Bolsonaro's goverment and later of the Federal District of Brasilia, Capital of Brazil, was hiding in the US)
Anderson Lima de Moura (an army colonel and one of the authors of the coup document “Letter to the Commander of the Army from Senior Officers of the Active and Brazilian Army”)
Angelo Martins Denicoli (a major in the army reserve who held a management position in the Ministry of Health under Eduardo Pazuello's administration, the same administration that led to many people dying of Covid)
Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira (former Minister of the Institutional Security Cabinet (Brazil's secret service) and Army Reserve General, known for his war crimes in Haiti)
Bernardo Romão Correa Netto (a colonel accused of being part of a group responsible for inciting the military to adhere to a strategy of military intervention to prevent Lula's inauguration.)
Carlos Cesar Moretzsohn Rocha (an engineer hired by the PL (Liberal Party, Bolsonaro's Party) to question the vulnerability of electronic ballot boxes during the 2022 elections. An engineer who claims to be the 'inventor' of the electronic voting machine.)
Carlos Giovani Delevati Pasini (an army colonel suspected of having participated in the drafting of the “Letter to the Army Commander from Senior Officers of the Active and Brazilian Army”.)
Cleverson Ney Magalhães (Army reserve colonel and former officer of the Land Operations Command)
Estevam Cals Theophilo Gaspar de Oliveira (reserve general and former head of the Army's Land Operations Command)
Fabrício Moreira de Bastos (army colonel and allegedly involved in a coup letter)
Filipe Garcia Martins (former advisor to the Presidency of the Republic who took part in the meeting that dealt with the coup draft, known white supremacist)
Fernando Cerimedo (Argentine businessman who made a live broadcast questioning the security of the electronic ballot boxes during the 2022 elections)
I think this dude is a Milei supporter now?
Giancarlo Gomes Rodrigues (an army lieutenant and one of those responsible for the clandestine monitoring of political opponents)
Guilherme Marques de Almeida (lieutenant colonel and former commander of the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion in Goiânia who fainted when the knocked on his door)
Ironic, lol
Hélio Ferreira Lima (a lieutenant colonel in the army identified in message exchanges with Bolsonaro's former aide Mauro Barbosa Cid)
Jair Bolsonaro (former president of the Republic, former deputy, former councilman of Rio de Janeiro and captain of the Army Reserve)
José Eduardo de Oliveira e Silva (priest of the Osasco diocese)
Imagine being this fucking stupid lol
Laercio Vergililo (a reserve general involved in an alleged coup plot)
Marcelo Bormevet (federal police officer suspected of being part of the illegal espionage scheme known as “parallel Abin (Brazil's CIA, Bolsonaro attempted to create his own CIA to spy on the Deferal Police)”)
Marcelo Costa Câmara ( reserve colonel and former advisor to ex-president Jair Bolsonaro)
Mario Fernandes (former number 2 in the General Secretariat of the Presidency, reserve general and Bolsonaro's trusted man. He is suspected of participating in a group that planned the deaths of Lula, Alckmin and Moraes)
Mauro Cid, former presidential aide, lieutenant colonel in the army (removed from office)
Nilton Diniz Rodrigues (Army general suspected of taking part in coup plot)
Paulo Renato de Oliveira Figueiredo Filho (businessman and grandson of former dictator João Figueiredo)
Literal failson
Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira (former defense minister, reserve general and former army commander)
Rafael Martins de Oliveira (lieutenant colonel and member of the 'black kids' group)
Ronald Ferreira de Araujo Junior (Army lieutenant colonel)
Sergio Ricardo Cavaliere de Medeiros (lieutenant colonel who was part of the “nucleus of disinformation and attacks on the electoral system”)
Tércio Arnaud Tomaz (former advisor to Bolsonaro and considered one of the pillars of the so-called “hate cabinet”, owner of the facebook page “Bolsonaro Opressor” who gained visibility. He used it to attack, through memes, the opponents of the then federal deputy, as well as praising Bolsonaro.)
Valdemar Costa Neto (president of PL (Liberal Party), the party for which Jair Bolsonaro and Braga Netto contested the 2022 elections)
Walter Souza Braga Netto (former Minister of Defense and candidate for Bolsonaro's vice-president in 2022, army reserve general)
It seems like this "Letter to the Army Commander from Senior Officers of the Active and Brazilian Army” is the coup draft they would have read after they took over the goverment.
No way, Lula is purging the military? What timeline it is? A legendary first succdem ever who read a history book?
Lula had already changed, in 2022, the head of the military to a close friend of former president FHC (neolib, but known for budget cuts on the army, probably bc he was exiled during the Dictatorship). The new head seems more like a lib with military brainworms that wants close relations with China, and BRICS, and obeys all of Lula's orders.
This is more the Supreme Court going after people who commited really serious crimes. Now, Lula is the only person that could pardon these people (which the Supreme Court could veto anyway), but he won't do that, Lula is too busy with China. Funny enough, Bolsonaro was literally begging Lula to pardon him some weeks ago. Like, Bolsonaro is in this weird situation where he can't do certain types of interview, livestreams or talk with certain people (The Supreme Court forced him to stfu), so he had to buy space on newspapers to complain about stuff and ask Lula for a pardon.