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.
Oh I love my western left international solidarity
The International Solidarity in question: Vienna: KPÖ alliance attacks Palestine bloc at rally
Sounds like the Palestine block managed to take it over at least which is awesome.
What's up with the KPO, though? Are they like that shitty MAGA Communist Party of America?
The Communist in Germany and Austria got all murdered by the Fascist . Since then there are no communist anymore .. But Privledge Children of the Academia Class still exist , they use the Word nowadays to advance their notions of Elitism and distance themself from "Common People" .
Its not like Maga. Its a completly Homegrown Madness ..
The fascist Continuiationstates of Austria and BRD where still Frontlinestates against the UDSSR (austria neutrality did not extend to the culture war ) for 45 years after the War. So they could not "Regret" towards them , nor could they "regret" towards Homosexuality or Gypsis , nor could it "Honor" the Communist that resisted .. etc.. It was literally still a Frontlinestate / Attackdog against the east. .. It only could "Regret" towards a Appartheitsstaate currently engaged in Landtheft.
And so they did .. And they did so for 45 years and then just continued until now...
Its basiclly the Remnants of an Old ass Psy Op , whos toxic remains still poisen the world...
The Psy-Op also rules in your brain.. It is generally aknowledged "Notion" in the World knowadays that germany "Deeply Regrets" , and this is then "Prooven" by showing You how germany is "oh so willing to give Land it never owned - to People it does not want to live in Germany" ...
And if you do that .. in germany , If you Proclaim
"Oh ,. Sorry .. Take some land that isnt ours to give and move there ! "
your Basiclly a "Good Person" for other german Academia Children. Its what they have been trained to Aknowledge as "Decent" / "Aufarbeitung".
This is a point that may be missed by some outside of Germany. As the Nazis rose to power, if you were a known communist you were absolutely fucked. At best, if you were well known and liked in your community you may have just been imprisoned (I think this is what happened to Honecker?). But most likely yeah, you were just straight up murdered. This is the challenge the GDR faced, so many good communists were just gone.
I highly recommend William Sheridan’s The Nazi Seizure of Power if you can find a copy. It’s literally a day-by-day account of an anonymized German town during the rise of the Nazis. Fantastic read, you really get a sense of how the Nazis slowly strangled German society like an anaconda.
Hopefully future communists can learn from that. The US is probably not above doing the same thing as it continues to get fascist and socialism gets more popular there.
Antideutsche leanings. They were actually the ones that had that breakthrough mayoral victory in Austria's second largest city.
Yeah they seemed cool in Graz but those Western Marxist brainworms were latent it seems
They're just a bunch of liberals.
They didn't take it over they just did the protest on their own while the other 3 orgs did a separate one as well. Seems like the idea of the whole deal was for all of them to protest together (which does mean they have to agree on what symbols to allow)
Pretty sure the ACP big ups the Palestinian resistance whenever they have the chance. Not wanting certain symbols at a protest, especially when you're trying to get Amnesty International (lol) on board, is just a matter of not wanting the media hyper-focus on a minority of people to represent the whole protest
I’m not exactly sure what happened at that demo but of course there are people unhappy with the KPÖ. The party has a lot of non-communists and even some Antideutsche, many of them come in through the KSV Lili as students. I know the KPÖ is bad on Palestine but from my own experience meeting people in it there are also a lot of very solid people. I have been in meetings where toward the end people shouted death to the IDF. And honestly there is no other party in Austria that even comes close to what the KPÖ has said about the genocide. For some groups inside it this started right from the beginning, in Graz they refused to wave the Israeli flag on October 8 and that even got them disinvited from the Holocaust remembrance event. The federal KPÖ is getting pushed in the right direction, they are not there yet, but for anyone with a strong pro Palestine position working outside the party in the KJÖ or directly in Palestine organizations this is already a big step. There is even someone in the leadership who once claimed there is no apartheid in Israel because he was in Tel Aviv and it was nice there, which is just ridiculous. It is a shame what state the communist movement in Austria is in but right now it is still the best foundation you can work with and something you can shape and use as a tool for building a better system here.
You gotta be careful with KGK though. They’re Trotskyists and they never write anything good about communists. On the other hand, other Trotskyist groups like Der Funke try to take over the demos for themselves. Everyone’s annoyed by their stupid banners and their overpriced paper they try to shove at everyone. They’re just lame, unwanted sidekicks walking around. They say a lot of things right, but as always, it’s never really about the actual cause for them.
That said, the official KPÖ line on Palestine is still a disgrace. Long live Palestine, death and hell for Israel.
Hell yeah
God damn that sounds exactly like the Trots here, word for word. Are they always so fucking annoying?