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.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-putin-alaska-summit-news-08-14-25#cmeb5wyom002u3b6n100bdybi
Russia is sending basically their entire top government leadership to the meeting at a military base in Alaska. The amount of trust being placed in the US, of all countries...
It's a show of confidence more than trust. Essentially saying they know they can't be fucked with. Now, is Trump rational enough to use his brain?
Its not trust its a threat. Russia would continue just fine without these leaders lets not be silly. They surely plan for if these individuals are kidnapped or assasinated. Modern governments dont work just because a few guys.
But if the Americans want to arrest or harm the president then they have to attack the entire delegation. Russia has essentially raised the stakes for the US if it tries to do anything.
I think its really smart tbh.
I assume Russia is making calculations based on behind the scenes diplomatic haggling while setting this up. Wouldn’t be surprised if they made the US side well aware of what would happen if they did anything sussy.
On top of that it may be also be a sign that Russian intelligence already knows what the US intentions are considering how shitty US opsec has been and much of a big mouth trump has I think they would know by now if trump planned to red wedding Russian leadership
They could have a "rogue pro-Ukrainian" plant a bomb or take pot shots from a nearby mountain or some shit, and "condemn" it while denying any involvement.
I seriously doubt they will do this, but it is a real possibility. The US has a proven track record of wiping their ass with international norms.
If the US-NATO does something foolish then the consequences will profoundly change the landscape of our world and the political momentum inside Russia will shift enormously. It's reasonable to conclude that Russians will be in the streets calling for vengeance if President Putin is harmed in any way.
I also think this would also push the world significantly closer to deployment of nuclear weapons of one kind or another and I sincerely hope with all of my being that nothing of the sort happens.
I think it would be really healthy for leftists to step back for a minute and not immediately presume everything confirms their (orientalist) suspicions about the governments in non-imperialist and anti-imperialist countries.
They left Medvedev in charge of the red button. Americans will not dare do anything now.
spoiler
But seriously never trust americans, this is incredibly foolish. Just invite trumpo to russia you morons and lay down the red carpet to make him feel like a special boy if you want to play to his ego, dont willingly enter the belly of the beast.Would Redditors still claim that Trump is a Russian asset if they merked the entire delegation including Putin?
tbf, when's the last time a modern nation slaughtered a diplomatic delegation? It wouldn't accomplish much beyond inflaming massive national anger towards the USA; there's always ambitious people ready and willing to replace past leadership. Kiev would also probably get nuked or something in retaliation
That's basically how the killing of Soleimani went - He was invited to Iraq to speak with Iraqi officials and the US assassinated him.
Shaheeds Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al Muhandis were soldiers not politicians.
Trump is the Commander of the Armed Forces, is he fair game too? Lmao
Arbitrary executions for everyone
Last year, when Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh.
This is legitimately fuckin dumb, pulling this move two months after the US and friends murdered numerous high ranking government officials of your nominal ally, and you want to tempt fate?
Well either way, this summit will be a crucial litmus test that can allow us to properly gauge just how far along the fascistic drain the US empire is, it will provide a valuable means to calibrate a dozen different analyses concerning US imperialism, the most important of which is to identify exactly which strain of white supremacy is really in charge of the US empire at the moment
Sov wealth fund and the finance minister ? What are they planning?
They have been floating various economic cooperation deals. The US has their sights set on the Arctic specifically. Same reason Trump wants to annex Greenland.