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.
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.
I can keep track of both Ukraine (and NATO more generally) and Putin.
Okay? And that makes the Russian government's anti-communist actions better how, exactly?
What action do you think he or his government has taken to 'rehabilitate Stalin'? Also, what does this 'rehabilitation of Stalin' entails? Also, how does this negate the promotion of fascists - including ones that worked for the NSDAP in Germany - in educational materials and other media?
You are trying to assert that you have read his mind and know what he intends to do and why in this regard while ignoring his and his government's actual actions. There is zero evidence that he has had a change of heart.
He did, but he nevertheless continued it. He still maintains a semi-peripheral state, he still maintains the robbery of the working class, and he will neither try to restore planned economy, nor will he allow anybody else to do so.
You are defending a person who was in various positions of power during the 1990s and who was already working with and for anti-communists at the time from the accusation of him being a butcher of the Soviet Union, and are trying to paint him as having changed his mind and trying to do something unspecified that is good with no apparent evidence to back that up.
Please stop engaging in attempts of mind reading. I have noticed that you do so fairly frequently, and I would like to point out that you do not have a good basis for making claims like these.
I do have apply such standards to the rest of the Global South. I do levy various criticisms - including ones like these - at the relevant leaders.
This is very funny to read. By your standards, Putin is a Western liberal, both geographically and in terms of his allegiance.
Do you actually think that I live in any of the NATO countries?
No disagreements here. You don’t have to read minds or anything because it is the material outcome that matters. It doesn’t matter what Putin thinks, or that he is a bad guy, or that he is anti-communist. From a historical perspective, his actions are what matter. Putin was acting according to the historical conditions at the time, and to pretend otherwise is to fall for the Great Man Theory idealism divorced from the material conditions of Russia in the 1990s.
Again, easy to say when you are not in charge of 100s of millions of people with a country on the brink of economic destruction. And as I’ve said before, this is also why Western leftists always fail to understand the struggles of the Global South. Even attempts to ease geopolitical tensions are being accused as compradors when there are no clear options and alternatives for them. To be clear, compradors do exist among Global South countries but most of the times, they are the consequences of Western imperialism that had eliminated left wing movements within those countries. So don’t expect all anti-imperialist forces in the Global South to be left wing, simply because they have been mostly neutralized on that front.
This is a blatant attempt to sweep under the rug that he has been taking anti-communist and anti-working-class action by presenting him as merely being an anti-communist by belief.
Yes. So, stop defending him.
You are, again, trying to pretend as if his actions were not anti-communist and anti-worker. Like, yes, he and all the other compradors acted according to their conditions to make themselves beneficiaries of capitalism and colonialism. Nobody has ever denied that he was somehow acting against said conditions.
I'm not sure what your argument here was supposed to be, frankly.
Firstly, great man theory is neither idealist nor anti-idealist. Those beliefs are not dependent on whether or not one labels some/all non-material objects as 'extant' or that those object have some sort of primacy over material objects.
Secondly, you are again trying to portray him as being opposed to what was being done in the 1990s when he was literally both on the side of those who were the most at fault for that, and he was in positions of power at the time. You keep trying to present Putin as being secretly against all of that, but you are yet to present any evidence for him being and/or acting so.
Nope, I am saying Putin was constrained by the historical conditions of the time.
This was the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed, when the Asian Financial Crisis had crippled much of the Asian economies (which ended with the default of Russia in 1998, just before Putin came to power), not the early 20th century with revolutionary fervor all across Europe, nor the post-war period of decolonization and emancipation of former colonies.
Again, without approaching this from a historical materialist perspective, Western leftists always fail to understand the struggles of the Global South.
Not sure why him being 'constrained' matters in this context, when he was a pro-NATO anti-communist to begin with. What was he 'constrained' from doing that is relevant to this topic?
How is this relevant to this conversation? Either you are claiming that he secretly wanted to aid communists and/ or workers, probably including by engaging in decolonisation and or undoing the capitalist restoration, or what you just said is completely irrelevant.
Good thing I am not a 'Western' leftist.
You are yet to bring up anything relevant to your claim that it is not fair to call a person who held some of the most powerful positions in the state at the time a 'butcher of the Soviet Union'.