Image is of the American military during their occupation of Haiti at the beginning of the 20th century, taken from this NYT article from 2022: Invade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged.
In the aftermath of the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in 2021 and his replacement by Western comprador Ariel Henry, the situation in Haiti is the most dire it has been in decades - by some metrics, even worse than the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake (CW: rape, violence including against children). Millions do not have enough food. Outbreaks of disease are rampant. The government - such that it still exists, which is becoming increasingly debatable - has only a minority control over the capital city, with some estimates putting the influence of armed groups at 80%.
America's search for somebody, anybody, to intervene in Haiti has ended, with Kenya answering the call. President Ruto has announced that he will send 1000 police officers to Haiti. Kenya's Foreign Minister has tried to sell this intervention as pan-Africanism. Other Caribbean states, like the Bahamas and Antigua and Barbuda, have offered to send police officers too.
I can't really say it any better than the Black Alliance for Peace's own statement:
Kenya has offered to deploy a contingent of 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police, ostensibly to “restore order” in the Caribbean republic. Yet, their proposal is nothing more than military occupation by another name; an occupation of Haiti by an African country is not Pan-Africanism, but Western imperialism in Black face. By agreeing to send troops into Haiti, the Kenyan government is assisting in undermining the sovereignty and self-determination of Haitian people, while serving the neocolonial interests of the United States, the Core Group, and the United Nations.
There is an urgent need for clarity on the issue of occupation in Haiti. As described in a recent statement on Haiti and Colonialism, Haiti is under ongoing occupation. No call for foreign intervention into Haiti from the administration of appointed Prime Minister Ariel Henry can be considered legitimate, because the Henry administration itself is illegitimate. BAP has repeatedly pointed out that Haiti’s crisis is a crisis of imperialism. Haiti’s current unpopular and unelected government is propped up only by Haiti’s de facto imperial rulers: the unseemly confederacy of the Core Group countries and organizations, as well as BINUH (the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti), and a loose alliance of foreign corporations and local elites.
Henry and the UN have made a mockery of sovereignty by mouthing the slogan “Haitian solutions to Haitian problems,” yet finding the only solution in violence through foreign military intervention. After repeated failed attempts to organize an occupying force to protect their interests and impose their will on the Haitian people (including appeals to the multinational organization, the Caribbean Community [CARICOM] for troops), they have now found a willing accomplice in Kenya, an east African country with its own set of internal problems.
Indeed, what’s in it for Kenya? An opportunity to both train and enhance the salaries of local police forces and garner a patina of prestige, or at least bootlicking approval, from the West. And for Haiti? White blows from a Black hand and a further erosion of their sovereignty.
And, by the way, here's the Black Alliance for Peace's statement calling for no intervention by ECOWAS in Niger, calling the organization a Western comprador organization similar to CARICOM's role in Haiti.
Welcome to our friends throughout the Lemmyverse!
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
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 might not happen because I'm busy dunking.
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.
Question that randomly popped into my head that it'd be cool if someone could shed more light on. I saw a clip of Putin a few weeks ago (can't find it now) where he basically said that Russia pulling out of near Kiev was a good will gesture after Zelensky signed a draft peace document. Is that in any way based in reality?
Here was our discussion about it a couple months back during the Wagner mutiny (god, how time flies!)
so basically:
Yes, the peace document exists, and the words going around at that time suggested that the Russians were willing to give some pretty favourable terms to Ukraine. Notably, the dialogue at the time suggested only that Russia would keep Crimea (pretty much a given) and that the Donbass republics would be granted political autonomy or be allowed to make their own countries, I forget which. Not that the Donbass republics would join Russia. Especially not that Kherson and Zaporzhye would too. Other than that, Ukraine couldn't join NATO, and probably some other minor bits and pieces. I think the notable piece that we didn't know is that the peace deal might have actually been in effect - de facto, if not de jure. As in, Ukraine didn't say "Remove your troops and we'll consider negotiating", but instead "Okay, we've made a peace deal with you, now remove our troops and we'll uphold our part of the deal" and then broke the deal.
It is inconceivable that Russia imagined that they could take - and hold - the capital city of Ukraine with 30,000 troops, even well-trained ones. It might have happened, sure, if the Ukrainian army broke and ran (and for a while they did), but betting 30,000 troops on that possibility seems pretty unlikely given Putin's proclivity to shepherd his resources and aim for the long term.
In that case, what were the troops doing up there? We as a group of commenters variously agree and disagree on this. Generally there's two hypotheses floating around: it could have been to put a ton of pressure on Ukraine to negotiate so that the war didn't stretch on (lol), or, It could have been to force Ukraine to move troops away from the Donbass, as they were shelling their cities more and more. It could also have been both. Or perhaps neither, and Russia really did think they could take Kiev.
Why did the troops leave? We also agree and disagree. Again, there's two camps here: either it was because Russia was getting thrashed with high casualty rates (relatively speaking to the rates which came after, but big arrows cost a lot of lives as Ukraine has repeatedly discovered) and couldn't maintain the force up there for much longer due to the supply routes being too long, or, it could have been as Putin tells it - as part of the peace deal, which Ukraine then proceeded to break when Russia was out of range again. We - or at least, I - have spent a long time mocking the idea that it was actually a goodwill gesture because the on-the-ground constraints seemed to be what was governing the retreat (it was still definitely a retreat though, Ukraine did not militarily push Russia back no matter what they might say. Same with Kherson and sorta same with Kharkiv - Ukraine pushed Russia back a fair amount but a large portion of the territory was just given up. it's rather a trend with Russia to, well, let's be nice and say "advance in the opposite direction", still surprised they haven't yet done so in Zaporozhye), and basically I thought Putin was a naive dipshit, but now it's much more murky.
Yes. But also I think he was correct up until Boris showed up and changed everything.
Thank you!
Yeah. They were doing peace talks in turkey and had a signed draft. Russia started to pull back and then Bojo showed up. Deal got nuked and a few days later they were all claiming Russia genocide Butcha even though there was a video of Ukrops walking around executing people for not wearing a blue arm band.
Thank you! It's sad and dumb how close we could have been to the war being over
Although I guess Ukraine could have just bought time to build up their military for a couple of years.
it's pretty cope to say with retrospect that the russian army was legitimately in a position to threaten kiev though. bojo definitely scuppered the peace don't get me wrong, just that had the war continued they would've needed to pull out of kiev regardless so it wasn't a true goodwill gesture.
It is not so much whether Russia can threaten Kyiv or not, but the mere presence of a large Russian army in the area is enough for you to divert significant portion of your forces away from other fronts to defend the capital city.
There was the infamous 40-mile convoy sitting there just doing nothing. If Russia had not pulled back, then you will be forced to defend the area in case there are sudden movements from the Russian side, which means your fighting strength is lowered elsewhere with less chances of achieving military successes on the other fronts.
This shit happens in every single mechanized war and means absolutely nothing except that frontline fighting takes up an insane amount of ammo that logistics planners constantly underestimate for some reason.
Even the text book blitzkrieger Guderian had his 40 mile convoy moment outside Sedan in 1940. It's basically WW2 canon that had the Allies found and bombed the largest traffic jam in history up to that point, France wouldn't have fallen like it did,like half the German armor was in that convoy.
If you prefer a more recent US example, there was a lot of vehicles stuck outside Nasiriyah in 2003. Happens all the time and it's infuriating how everybody had their dumb take on that stupid convoy.
Oh I agree, the point is that the convoy suddenly “disappeared” just around the time Russia claimed to have pulled out from Kyiv. Now if you’re Ukrainian military, would you want to risk having such array of military equipments being so close to Kyiv?
My comment was overly confrontative, I apologize. Thought about deleting it, thanks for not replying in such a manner!
No worries
i mean you can certainly post-hoc say that the thrust had utility as a diversionary thrust but like their intention was 100% to do a fast decapitation strike and when that failed they pivoted to using it as a feint. both can be true imo.
Of course both can be true, but there is nothing to “cope” about as you commented above.
We may never know the full details obviously, but from what can be reconstructed from openly published information: Ukraine mobilized significant force towards the eastern front (Donbass), Ukraine increased shelling of the area by 10 times and the signs of an impeding invasion - the question is: how do you divert that force away from the eastern front?
The fact is that the Kyiv axis did divert significant force away from the Donbass front and allowed the Russians to establish their foothold from the south in Kherson, then in Melitopol and eventually towards Mariupol.
I’ll give you another example: during the 1942 Soviet counter-offensive in Stalingrad, the offensives were carried out simultaneously along two axes: the Rzhev axis (Operation Mars) in the north and the Stalingrad axis (Operation Uranus) in the south.
To ensure the success in Stalingrad, Stalin leaked the Rzhev offensive plan to the Germans, which led to substantial amount of German army being diverted away from Stalingrad and towards Rzhev. The Rzhev offensive failed, but Paulus’s 6th Army was annihilated in Stalingrad. (Because Stalin did not tell Zhukov about the leak, for Stalin, Rzhev was a feint, but for Zhukov it was a real operation fully intended to crush the Germans - both can be true because of this)
Sure, it would have been nice to have the Rzhev axis succeed too, but is it “cope” just because the Rzhev offensive failed even when you have achieved strategic victory of the overall campaign?
They might not have been able take over Kiev but they were more than capable of threatening Kiev. They were only 31 km away. They could easily have set themselves up to bombard Kiev the way the Ukrops fire mines over Donetsk.
If they had dug in Ukraine would have had to send troops to push them out and the Russians could have taken way more on the southern front. It would have probably lead to significantly higher losses for Russia.
Who knows if hard aggression like that would have lost support for Russia from the international community or gotten NATO involved more directly but Kiev was definitely under threat.
you're speaking in terms of future hypotheticals (that i agree with) but i'm talking about what was happening when the SMO started and whilst the logistical issues were largely overblown and used as a stupid cudgel to attack russian military competence i also don't think its unreasonable to say that the force they had gathered was not sufficient to do the task because it was done on such short notice.
I want to take this opportunity to drop in this article from last year in the Marine Corps Gazette (not my copy lol) by 'Marinus', supposedly the pseudonym of Paul Van Riper, a retired general of certain notoriety.
spoiler for images
Basically, the smartest guy in the US military thinks the main reason for the thrust was to pin troops around Kiev, and if there was a 10% chance of just ending the war then and there, even better. Likewise, the pullback happened after the other axes had set up anyway, so if it increased the chance of peace by 5% to say it's a goodwill gesture then you might as well.
Also, the Russian military clearly knows what it's doing and can easily run circles around NATO 'doctrine', the author is pretty much doomposting by the end.
The fact that column only had a few tens of thousands of soldiers for taking Kyiv makes it seem like a feint.
But the fact the most elite of Russian forces were burned by trying to seize Hostomel makes it seem like a failed campaign.
Ultimately I don’t know where I land but also I think the question isn’t really very important at this stage.
Interesting read, thanks