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.
CNN - Accident or sabotage? American and European officials disagree as key undersea cables are cut
My “sometimes two undersea cables just do that simultaneously” t-shirt has a lot of people asking questions answered by my shirt.
The two cables – the BCS East-West connecting Lithuanian and Sweden and the C-Lion1 linking Finland with Germany – were suddenly disrupted on Sunday and Monday.
European leaders were quick to voice their suspicions. Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that “nobody believes that these cables were accidentally severed.”
The foreign ministers of Finland and Germany said in a joint statement that they were “deeply concerned” about the incident and raised the possibility that it was part of a “hybrid warfare,” specifically mentioning Russia in their statement.
But two US officials familiar with the initial assessment of the incident told CNN on Tuesday the damage was not believed to be deliberate activity by Russia or any other nation.
Instead, the two officials told CNN they believed it likely caused by an anchor drag from a passing vessel. Such accidents have happened in the past, although not in a quick succession like the two on Sunday and Monday.
They fucking did it to them again.
In Finland news:
They are now trying to blame China for the cable damage.
Hilariously at the same time there is reporting that Finnish boomers love Temu.
Anyone remember Hex Atlas?
https://hexbear.net/post/2124249
It was a thing in this forum… about 8 months ago.
Hasan x Kojima is happening in January
Four to seven Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers have conducted launch manouvers for long range cruise missiles, according to Russian aligned sources on telegram. No Tu-160s this time, unlike the last attack on November 17th. That’s anywhere from 16-56 cruise missiles depending on how many bombers launched, and how many missiles each were carrying.
US Is Now Calling González the President-Elect of Venezuela
The Biden administration is beginning to refer to Edmundo González Urrutia as Venezuela’s president-elect, a senior administration official said, its strongest acknowledgment yet that that the opposition candidate won July’s presidential election.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told partners about the decision in a meeting yesterday at the Group of 20 meetings in Rio de Janeiro, the official said. While the US and other countries have previously concluded that González had more votes than incumbent strongman Nicolás Maduro, the Biden administration hasn’t gone as far as using the term “president-elect” until now.
The move is designed to increase pressure on Maduro, who has claimed he won the election without providing proof. Referring to González as president-elect doesn’t mean that the US will eventually call the opposition figure the “rightful president” after inauguration day Jan. 10, when Maduro expects to be sworn in. That term that was applied unsuccessfully to another opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, in a failed attempt to remove Maduro from power under the previous Trump administration.
President-elect Donald Trump is set to return to office in the US on Jan. 20.
Alleged video of Stormshadow strike inside Russian territory
Genocide Joe authorized
to use anti personel land mines.US shuts Kyiv embassy due to ‘potential significant air attack’
The Italian and Greek embassies said they had also closed their doors after the unusual U.S. warning, while the French embassy remained open but urged its citizens to be cautious.
https://www.reuters.com/world/kremlin-says-russia-us-hotline-deflate-crisis-not-use-2024-11-20/
So which country actually decided to stop using this hotline, and why is that not mentioned anywhere in the article?
https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/5bc1702c-bca3-4d87-8935-54d1b6f0c2f0.jpeg
Mozambique has an “authoritarian” Government now according to Wikipedia. SUS. Who edited it.
FRELIMO has controlled the country since its independence and they are only calling it authoritarian now?
Bangladesh reenactment soon? Where you have a somewhat unpopular incumbent Government that doesn’t completely submit itself to Western capital but still implements some of the neoliberal policies making people angry.
West then uses that anger to get their puppet in power.
i signed up for another reddit account after getting a 2nd ip ban (doesn’t do shit btw) and was shocked by how much CIA propaganda there was on the frontpage even though i chose vietnam and standup comedy as things i wanted to see (i picked random topics)
Ali Mortada summarizing the attack in Tel Aviv. Bonus footage of some settler getting run over by another settler:
https://xcancel.com/aliimortada/status/1858840797275193550
