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.
Idk whats the point of this comment
For one these platforms were already in development before the ukraine war happened and China's armor platforms needed next gen production. Were they supposed to scrap them because drones? And on that matter its literally China, its absurd to think they are lagging behind in military drone tech, doctorine and applications, let alone productions. If drones is the name of the game, worrying that its chinas platforms that will get shredded by drones more so than their adverseries by chinese drones is a bit alternate reallity stuff. These paltforms arent even obsolete or anything. Thats a simplistic understanding of whet the ukraine war shows, a war that still sees them used en mass and nato proccuring new ones at increased rates.
China is also expanding as an arms exporter and a lot of countries need cheaper modern armor platforms.
China also massively invests in anti-drone, EW etc platforms and doctorine and we have little idea where these stand relatively.
Most importantly these platforms represent a very small focus and investment for the PLA. Ground forces are the bottom of the barrel in terms of R&D and platform development and introduction. PLAAR, PLAN, PLARF are getting all the important new toys en mass on a world leading build up and manufacturing scale. Even among these photos from stuff getting into Beijing in the last couple of days for the parade the tanks and armor are secondary news. There were like 6 not seen before types anti-ship and cruise missiles. New UACVs and CCAs, huge ICBMs and UUVs. New air defense systems without official designation.
There are gonna be dozens of missile, AD, Air and ground platforms in the parade the world hasnt officialy seen before, some no one had an idea they existed. You should be impressed cause you are getting everything you are asking for in your comment and more from PLA development and buildup. Sure we can be doomers here until China commissions the USS Enterprise or smth but other than that there is absolutely no reason to be a cynical even in stuff like this come on
Yes, sunk cost fiascos are not justified because new discrediting developments happened after the project started, that's the definition of dogmatic rigidity in war planning and defense development
The point wasn't that China wouldn't or doesn't have drones, the point is those IFVs are going to get shredded by enemy drones, regardless of China's capacity in other weapon types
Yeah, the dipshits of NATO are blind to the incredible casualty rates of their IFVs and refuse to adjust, the Russians also experienced severe IFV losses early in the war to Ukrainian drones and ATGMs, before they learnt to hold them back or phase them out in favor of long-range artillery and overwhelming drone coverage
It's a useless export and could lead to mal-development among the inventories of vulnerable nations who when faced with western aggression would see these oversized infantry taxis destroyed easily
That's not a justification for the project, it's still wasted resources
I'm not dismissing the entire Chinese defense industry, I'm trashing a single badly thought out project, even the Chinese will occasionally make mistakes concerning weapon development, tho the fact this project got the greenlight, proves there's some serious rigidity and ignorance among top brass concerning modern developments in armored warfare