Image is of Putin and Scholz sitting on opposite ends of a frighteningly long table back in 2022. Folks, the table is gonna get ten feet longer.
The latest round of US-Russian diplomacy is taking place on August 15th in Alaska, where Putin and Trump are meeting in-person to maybe try and bring an end to this godforsaken conflict. While I don't want to totally discount the possibility that they may come to an agreement - you truly never know! - there's a lot stacked against this encounter yielding much of anything.
Russia appears to have demanded a land swap; that Ukraine fully withdraw from Kherson and Zaporozhye oblasts (in exchange for unspecified Russian gains, but probably parts of Sumy and Kharkov) as a precondition for a ceasefire that could perhaps lead to a permanent resolution of the conflict, and Ukraine seems completely unwilling to do anything of the sort, saying that even if they wanted to, the process of just giving up a couple oblasts would take significant time and require referendums. I say that Russia has appeared to demand it, because there's been a lot of confusion - probably in bad faith - about what Russian diplomats and Putin himself have said and what the demands even are. There are some who speculate that Trump will sell out Ukraine and blame Zelensky for refusing to agree with Russian demands, and there are others who say that this just the latest of many examples of the US and Russia meeting up with such fundamental differences that a deal is impossible, and that Trump fully expects to put sanctions on Russia after Putin declines some harebrained American scheme.
Anyway. After the summit, in late August, Putin is due to arrive for a visit to India, at Modi's invitation. Previously, I was unsure exactly what India would do in response to American sanctions pressure, and now we appear to be receiving an answer, as Modi has made public statements that suggest that he is only getting closer to Russia. Fascinatingly, Modi will soon make his first visit to China in seven years at the annual SCO summit at the end of August, and Putin will be heading to China too on September 3rd. There is an increasing amount of dismissal about the potential of BRICS (especially one that contains India), and that dismissal is certainly rather justified, but I am still deeply curious about what developments may occur as the global south braces to face the remaining ~85% of Trump's presidency.
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Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
The potential historical irony of Putin getting ambushed and arrested in Alaska is simply too delicious to ignore
One of the butchers of the Soviet Union and the undisputed master of oligarchic Russia getting undone by the same ideology and moronic instinct that led him to betray the socialist project: Trusting the west for the sake of global neoliberalism
I genuinely hope Trump is deranged enough to pull it off and Putin is foolish enough to actually fly to Alaska, the damage to western credibility would be enormous and the blow to the neolib faction of Russian elites would be final
Come on you bloated Orange fuck, do something actaully funny
You’re thinking about Gorbachev and Yeltsin. When Putin took over, Russia was already a complete mess, having defaulted in the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998. There wasn’t much he could do except to hold an uneasy coalition with the oligarchs while still asserting enough sovereignty to prevent a total collapse of the nation. Remember, Russia literally just defaulted the year prior (the ruble fell from 0.6 RUB/USD in 1990 to 6000 RUB/USD in 1998 forcing Russia to default). He was there to clean up Yeltsin’s mess.
Putin did stop the plunder (to a great extent but not completely) by the oligarchs and Russia’s GDP grew 10 times under his watch from 1999-2009 until the global financial crisis ravaged the global economy, then followed by the Western sanctions during the Ukrainian civil war in 2014 and the US shale revolution in the mid-2010s to kill off the oil producing economies of Russia, Iran and Venezuela. Russia’s had a very difficult time under continuous assault from Western imperialist powers especially in the last 15 years.
Regarding Alaska, as I’ve said before, nobody is ever going to arrest the head of a nuclear armed state. That simply doesn’t happen.
Putin was an anti-communist who worked for Yeltsin, and his government has been taking action such as the recent push for the glorification of Ivan Ilyin.
Look, there’s no love for Putin here. But you want anti-communism - look at Ukraine. That’s anti-communism with a systematic attempt to deface and reject all the Soviet legacy in the country.
At the very least, Putin rehabilitated Stalin. We know so much about Stalin in recent years only because of this rehabilitation effort. You can be cynical about Putin using Stalin’s name to revive the nostalgia for a great power, but it’s still an attempt to correct history instead of negating and wiping off the legacy of the Soviet Union like Ukraine did.
And let’s not pretend like Putin didn’t slow the plunder. Russia would have turned into Ukraine without him. I’m not glorifying Putin, but that’s a fact we have to accept. Putin is a mediocre leader hanging on the precipice of the entire nation collapsing when he took power. He is no Stalin, and he would not have been capable of turning it around without even more bloodshed and a high chance of failure. For him, it’s about the survival of the Russian civilization. One wrong move and the entire society collapses.
And try applying this same “anti-communist” standard to the rest of the Global South and you’d have to condemn a lot of anti-imperialist parties and leaders across the world.
It is easy to critique from the comfort of your armchair as Western leftists, but I’d like to see how if the left took power in the West, they’d have to deal with the reactionary forces with so much at stake.
Huh, it's almost like that's my point or something, one could even say there was sort of continuation of a "shared project" maybe even a political operation by the oligarchs to guarantee a "succession" of their new state, under careful analysis one could even assume the phrase "One of" could imply multiple actors with a shared history, well it's one for the noggin
Easy to say when you’re not in charge of the life and death of hundreds of million of people on the brink of destruction.
It’s the same Western leftists who keep “blaming” Iran for being stupid and a lib for negotiating with the Western powers.
Easy to say from the comfort of your armchair, because for Western leftists, it’s all black and white. China bad. China good. Russia bad. Russia good. There is no room for nuanced and complex scenarios. No attempt to understand the complex historical trajectory that led to where we are today.
Pure ahistorical and non-materialist view of the world for pretending that the world during that era was the same revolutionary era of the early 20th century, not one that just experienced the collapse of the USSR with all the suffering, impoverishment and defeat running on survival mode.
Meanwhile, the same Western leftists keep telling us why they cannot do armed struggles right now because the time is not right yet, there’s no support yet lol.
First of all I'm not gonna be lectured on Iran "blaming" when I was the only one telling you flip-flopping mfs to stop dooming during the opening hours of the 12-day war, I didn't see you backing me up while I dealt with all the doomer takes, so zip it
lmao I've had people in this thread assert Putin was "just an innocent professor before he bravely took charge of the country and brought the oligarchs under control", GET A GRIP, you Z-posters have face-planted into a bizarre version of Great Man Theory concerning Putin, and you want to talk about ahistorical and non-materialist?
No, you're being ridiculous and the whole lot of you need to go out and touch grass, unironic pro-Putin posting, unbelievable
Look, nobody is pro-Putin here (maybe some others are, not me), but to deny taking into account historical conditions is precisely why Western leftists always fail to understand the struggles of the Global South.
What is incredibly ironic is that the same Western leftists so much cheering for the brave defiance against imperialist from the armed struggles in the Global South (or conversely, condemning them for not doing enough) also conveniently give out dozens of reasons as to why they themselves cannot do so within the Imperial Core.
Is it fair to call him that? I thought he was just a guy who trained under Andropov and only became relevant AFTER the ussr was already properly butchered
He's a convinced neoliberal ideologue, you dont get like that thru osmosis while simply living in the Soviet Union
Even if he was just a foot soldier among the traitors, he was a certified member
Actually I think you do, certainly in the late period when people stopped believing in socialism and those ideologies started being ok to share publicly as a solution to every problem the country had
Putin was like the first person to call for a global de-dollarization after the Ukraine war started. He may have been a neoliberal, but it shows that he is also willing to switch position when the circumstances have changed.
Unfortunately Russia’s economy is too weak to do this alone, and after China doubled down on defending dollar hegemony and the neoliberal order instead of challenging it, Russia has been on its own for a while now.
And he spent thirty years before that trying to integrate with the west and before 2007 JOIN FUCKIN NATO. And what's this "may have been" have you heard him during the last three years when he brings up the economy, he's an ultra free market lib who sided with the central bank and thinks the market is under-represented in Russian arms manufacturing, he's a dumbass
Look, every major economy in the 2000s tried to court the US, even if they are not genuine in having a friendship. China does even more of that lol.
Remember China was nowhere near as strong as it is today. Russia would be alone against the US if it were to do that.
Which doesn't really do much to diminish the criticism.
Putin is not some sort of a secret communist. Him being in favour of dedollarisation now is overwhelmingly likely a consequence of the bid of joining NATO failing.
Russia should get critical support for opposing NATO, not a blanket support for everything that it does.
What are these "critical support"s and "blanket support"s that you mention? What does this look like? Is it a difference in rhetoric? Can you show some examples of this "blanket support"? The more I encounter these terms, the more I come to the conclusion that it's not a meaningful distinction.
I don't support Russia's anti-communist actions but support their anti-Nato actions. But right now, I can do nothing in regards to their anti-communism, but can have impacts on how western countries respond to their anti-Nato stuff.
Defending (presumably on the basis of Russia currently being in opposition to NATO) an anti-communists that have been taking action to erode working-class people's living standards and, well, taking action to make sure that communists do not have power.
If you were supporting Russia's anti-communist actions, that would be what I would describe 'blanket support'.
"defending". Do you mean in rhetoric? To be clear, I think the person you responded to is just factually wrong about Putin's history. But what difference does it make at this moment between 1. supporting Putin but noting his historical mistakes and 2. Supporting Putin and not noting his historical mistakes. And is that also the difference between "critical" and "blanket" support? Is it lying which shifts it into "blanket" support? I'm just skeptical that anyone actually ever does this "blanket" support. That means that all support is critical, some just also hedge the ability to later say 'i told you so' if it goes wrong
I never talk about him as an anti-communist because right now he's been forced into fighting on the progressive side of history. If the point is that he will make mistakes that we must account for, then I'm good for that. But I still just don't see how that's different than any other support that's ever given
Not sure why you put the word in quotation marks, and I'm not sure what you are confused about. Have you looked at this thread?
'Mistakes' are something unintentional. Putin's government's anti-communist actions are not unintentional, nor are they being noted.
There are also other people in this thread in addition to xiaohongshu who are doing that.
If you think that this stuff doesn't matter in some sense, and that that is a cause to not speak about it, then I would argue that you should apply the same standards to speaking in favour of Putin and his government without any sort of acknowledgement of their bad actions.
Again, not sure what you are confused about. Supporting Russia's anti-NATO actions is fine. Supporting Russia's actions against communists, as well as attacking those who criticise those actions is not.
That's the generous interpretation of defense of anti-communist actions by polities and people that are presently opposed to NATO. A less generous interpretation would be that relevant people support some, but not all of the Russian government's anti-communist (and other bad) actions in an incoherent manner.
There are people in this thread who are defending Putin's anti-communist actions from criticism.
Pushing people like ones who literally worked for Goebbels into school programs and elsewhere as somebody to agree with is not a 'mistake'.
My point exactly and look where that led, in what universe is this a coherent defense of Putin?
And they should stop before the bombs drop
It is alone against the US, unless you count North Korea, funny how it all came full circle, but without the socialism or a unified Eastern Europe
Almost like the capitulationist bullshit that toppled the Soviet Union doesn't work in the long term and you end up at war anyway
The Soviet Union and the east bloc rotted from the inside out. Or where did you think all the millions and millions of registered members of various communist organizations went? To Space?
Every communist party needs to closely study the rot that killed the USSR. If our revolutions can fall after generations, no victory is truly secure until every last capitalist everywhere is dead.
Uhhhh yeah, and Putin was part of that rot
The democrats are true revolutionaries while President Putin is "a butcher".
Shameless Yankee drivel
Where and when the fuck did I say that? Do you know alot of democrats who grieve the fall of the Soviet Union?Aare you so hopped up on Z-posting that the fall of the Union was actually GOOD and modern Russia is an improvement, is this the kind of nonsense we're gonna start peddling now?
Mamdani
If the US kidnapped the Russian president then the world will be brought to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. Only a myopic hater of humanity would celebrate such a thing.
Yeah doom, doom, doom, cool story but I got a better one.....the US forever damages its credibility and Russia finds a better leader who doesn't wait thirty years to figure the west is trying to destroy his country
Doom? No,that's just common sense, how in god's name do you think jailing the head of state, much less a nuclear power would end in anything else than a immediate declaration of war?
Ukraine with western aid literally bombed the Kremlin, arresting Putin is not gonna trigger nuclear holocaust, the Russians will certainly respond somehow dramatically, or maybe not and it causes a nationalist uproar in Russia that eventually blows over, or Russia bombs a US base somewhere in a limited strike
Either way it's within the realm of possibility and the results will weaken capital globally, so it's a likely net positive
You really want a world where a precedent for just straight up jailing the head of state of the worlds largest nuclear armed state is created? Really?
Where diplomacy between powers is even more fraught? Think really carefully if you want the implications beyond the immediate reaction or you'd rather things be as they are.
You have no idea what you’re saying about Russia, again
Yankee regime change narratives.
It was the US that destroyed the Soviet Union. When Putin came to power the CIA held key positions in the Russian government, that is no longer the case.
Regardless of your opinions, Vladimir Putin is one of the most popular leaders on the planet and even imperialists admit he maintains an approval rating above 80%. Many people hold the position that he helped pull Russia from the depths of being destroyed into a strong force again.
Yankee left ought mind their tongues. There is a way of talking about these leaders without repeating nazi drivel.
Putin is a weakling, a neoliberal, a traitor and a right-wing bigot
He doesn't have the balls to hand the US empire a defeat, which is why he waited for twenty years until an army of 700,000 neo-nazis massed on his border to do anything, because he thought the Germans of all people had convinced the US to play nice with Russia, and even after the war began all he's done is get in the military's way, ordering bullshit faints, backing the central bank in cratering Russian economic growth, mandating undermanned and understaffed units to save money, to say nothing of that fuckin fiasco with the mercenary army
He's a CIA creation and a burden on Russia, success has come because of western incompetence and Russian institutions slowly working around Putin's limits through trial and error
Lol we really are falling into the "putler11!!" mantra. Putin didnt destroy the soviet union, he rose in response to the horrible conditions of 90s Russia, he reigned in some of the violence, seperatism, oligarchic plundering and decay.
It's almost like I SAID "ONE OF THE BUTCHERS" reading comprehensions is important
Spare me the delusional nationalism, he took over from a bunch of drunks with the blessings of the west to stabilize the Russian market after they defaulted in 1997, he didn't "reign in" oligarchic plundering or decay, he institutionalized it and set guard rails that gave the oligarchy social staying power
One of the butchers still means he had a part in destroying it. Stop this lib reading comprehensions bs and go back to reddit, if you want to fight strawmen.
Yes he did reign in the oligarchs, I never claimed he ended wealth inequality or did even a dent in their amassment of wealth. You dont even live anywhere near that region, spew lib garbage with the bigges of mouths, you don't even understand the conditions of your own country (wanting to reform the democrats lol) and now you want to be the authority figure on russia? Please what is so revolutionary about buying into the empire's narratives?
Get Fuckin Real he was head of Saint Peterburg's Committee for External Relations in the early 90s, his job was literally to sell Soviet state assets to foreign investors or to the new oligarchic government in Moscow
The man began his "political" career as a liaison for western investors looking to rob the country blind
SO YES! Literally, ONE OF THE BUTCHERS
Then Russia would respond ranging from assassinating Trump to bombing US cities to nuking the US, and the US would respond to that by nuking Russia.
Most likely the meeting would be a complete nothingburger like every single speech or conference that Putin is involved in.
Yea idk why Putin "trusts" him after going after countries for importing Russian oil.
Putin is a spurned lover of the west, even the whisper of détente sends him into a euphoric neolib state of mind
I'll just make two points about how I genuinely don't get the panic about Putin meeting Trump.
First If there is anything Trump respects at all is both money and authority. You just have to look at the silly praises he has given to both Putin and Xi in the past.
Putin on the other hand seems to have a genuine superiority complex as being a more competent "real politik" leader than his western counterparts, on that I have to agree its a somewhat fair assessment too. But even then I don't think Putin despises the west at all, neither he despises Trump, right wing tendencies they both share and a common hatred for "liberals".
So I can't realy see how much of a real danger this is.
Second is keep in mind Trump's military moves were pretty fucking obvious, like almost deliberately obvious e.g the air deployments to the ME before bombing Iran.
If Trump realy actualy plans to do anything, surely they understand the military consequences, but we heard nothing so far its just business as usual genocide goes on, Ukraine goes on well for Russia etc...