Thread image created by yours truly, depicting Iran and Pakistan very impolitely not asking whether America, on the other side of the planet, is okay with them transporting gas around.
The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline has long been obstructed by American involvement in the region. Iran completed its section of the pipeline quite quickly, but Pakistan has been unable to finish its construction for a decade due to the fear of falling afoul of American sanctions on Iran. The United States has repeatedly tried to pressure Pakistan to give up the project and obtain gas from other countries instead. Recent articles on the state of the pipeline are contradictory, with some stating that Iran or Pakistan have given up on the pipeline while American sanctions persist. Pakistani officials reject this framing, saying that they are still working with Iran to try and get the project completed somehow. Nonetheless, Iran is becoming increasingly frustrated and is threatening a legal battle and a demand for reparations.
Meanwhile, back in Niger, the $13 billion under-construction pipeline connecting Nigeria and other West African countries to Spain and Italy will likely face delays due to the sanctions applied by the West and ECOWAS on Niger. Those following the European gas fiasco will be aware that while Spain and Italy have been impacted by the energy crisis, they have been very busy making deals with African countries to replace their Russian gas, and thus stand a better chance than Germany of making it through the crisis with their industries somewhat intact. The coup has thrown a wrench into their plans, though they can still obtain some gas from northern African countries.
And, last but not least, America tried for years to stop the construction of the Nord Stream pipelines between Germany and Russia, which culminated in them deciding to blow them up late last year.
All in all - the United States really does not like it when countries build up energy infrastructure and gain some independence from them.
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 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.
I'll point out once again Ukraine and western military officials still fundamentaly refuse or worst are incapable of understanding what happened last year with the Kherson retreat by Russia, they still are incapable of understanding that Russia retreated due to their own mistakes in basicaly not having enough manpower. Here too Russia faces the same criticism we give to Ukraine, why should they expect to win a war against an enemy with currently 2 or even 3x the number of front line soldiers? They did just that and paid the price, but they learned in the end.
On the other hand Ukraine did not learn anything, in fact all the Kherson retreat achieved for them was to feed some nationalist nazi mythical nonsense, you can draw WW2 parallels too about Germany's "projections" for defeating the USSR.
It wasn't some nonsense about Ukraine "making gains" or successfully pushing anything anywhere. But you can see how once again I go back to a point I make before Ukraine is unable to make the correct decision due to an ideological commitment.
Its not the fact that the enemy retreated, no we pushed them back.
Its not the fact that Russia had pitifuly low numbers during the start of the SMO, reportedly only 150k or so, no its we killed all the Russians.
Leading to this hilarious and disastrous offensive which boils down to a culmination of all of that. They realy believe, as a country with a pitifuly smaller military, having already lost the entirety of the pre-war equipment they had (tanks, aircraft etc) and down to relying entirely on western shit that they would actualy kill and push back the basicaly majority of the former USSR army backed by a nation 3x their size.
I mean, if Ukraine didn't put pressure on Kherson the Russians would have happily stayed. Russia made mistakes and Ukraine capitalised on them. 'You only won because I wasn't really trying' is a weak excuse. It takes two to tango.
Not that I don't agree with your analysis overall. But I don't think you have to be completely blinded by ideology to come to see that you have made gains when you were able to stretch Russia's resources (which are highly constrained politically), and to try to recreate that in the future. Even if you know the chances of succes are low, are you not going to try given that you have just received a bunch of weapons and training?
You are correct Ukraine was there and they were trying, but I guess my overall point was more closer to "hey we got a lucky break in Kherson and we should consolidated defenses behind the Dniper to stop another Russian offensive and maybe rebuild our army in the long run".
Instead the conclusion from Kherson was "herp derp Slava Ukraini goes brrrr all we need is some good western shit and we'll be in Crimea within 6 months." Literaly unironicaly that is what they said/thought.
This is the perfect example.
The problem with ideology from the Ukrainian side is that it makes evaluating the same event and reaching different conclusions.
From the Ukrainian perspective Bakhmut was supposed to be a fortress, Zelensky literaly went there to personaly give medals. They look at the fact it took 8 months and think it was a brave and heroic defense.
From the Russian perspective Bakhmut was a literal meat grinder where they would just hope to kill as many Ukrainians as possible. They look at the fact it took 8 months and just laugh at the amount of bodies and new graveyards Ukraine had to build.