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.

Being right does not mean winning.
Keep in mind also the Vietminh had the USSR and the starting point of Japanese occupation. Different circumstances.
Also how is mentioning aid to a military badfaith maoist shit? It is the same principle as opposing say giving Israel bulldozers or the Saudis medivac helis. Those aid the war, that is not civilians tech. Again you don't have to agree that they shouldn't, but it is woefully badfaith to act like it is shocking to view that as aid. Most of us here view non-combat roles in the US military to be wrong and part of imperialism. It is silly to say that that changes suddenly if it is the Philippines.
And again, you are saying the CPP handwave concerns over the US? They don't. You seem to be approaching the entire situation with your mind made up. You decided already somehow that Sri Lanka's military deals with China are a Maoist online conspiracy. You didn't look into it, you just assumed. You find reddit Maoists annoying, so you decided that the majority of the CPP's complaints are aimed at China.
Article from May 7th https://philippinerevolution.nu/2025/05/07/escalating-us-preparations-for-imperialist-war-against-china/ March 30th https://philippinerevolution.nu/statements/reject-hegseth-and-the-us-deterrence-strategy-against-china/ November 29th 2024 https://philippinerevolution.nu/statements/compatriots-ndfp-condemns-latest-u-s-schemes-to-drag-the-country-into-war-with-china-and-the-people-into-its-counterinsurgency-attacks/ November 12th 2024 https://philippinerevolution.nu/statements/oppose-us-nato-meddling-in-south-china-sea-affairs/
Childish bullshit about the people being slaughtered being feds is not a goodfaith criticism, nor is "well why haven't you won?". You can't complain about western Maoists being chauvinists and then say blatantly dismissive chauvinistic shit. And yes I linked Reuters because while they have framing bias, you can corroborate from a major news source. Do you want me to find the official Chinese language press statement? You have no interest in facts, you have no interest in investigating. You couldn't even be arsed to google about Sri Lanka's military aid.
Case in point > proposed 800 million dollar dam (was it actually constructed? who fucking knows???)
Who knows? you can fucking look it up. It is still being debated over because it is controversial. As well as being an expensive project. You ask me for information, I provided multiple sources and starting points and you are complaining like a child not wanting to eat veggies. You can find over a dozen articles on that specific story. You are being absurd, the transaction happened, it is not some fantasy created from nothing.
Here is the Philippines government newspaper with a press release on it https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1011860
You are so blatantly in denial. "this never happened" shown a source "well I don't like the source and wont bother corroborating it" also "and if it is true then it was actually not that important and so it doesn't matter". You are not interested in investigating, you only want to speak. Also on that specific story, if you read it you would understand that this was amidst the US cutting off an arms shipment to the Philippines. So the otherwise small donation was more significant than it may seem because it showed in action that China would not require concessions from the Philippines for shipments, something the US was doing cause they always do that. Not out of actual concern, but for the sake of maintaining dependency. China managed a coup de grace with this because while both are acting in their own interests, China armed Duterte without pretending to be concerned about his abuses, whereas the US actively works with his abuses and criminal actions but tries to save face.
Which goes to the thing you are not understanding. No one in the CPP is saying China is the bigger issue, I just gave you several examples from the horses mouth, but hey maybe the Filipinos are actually western Maoists from Austin this whole time, that would make navigating reality a lot easier for you. The reality is that the CPP views both as aggressive and self-interested at the expense of the Philippines, they do NOT view China as the larger or worse threat, but they do consider it to be aiding the government on account of it aiding the government.
Screaming "but the US gives more, and they are losers anyways" is not only childish, it misses the point. The CPP wants China to not arm the Philippines military. This is not contingent on if the US is giving more arms or not, this is not contingent on if you feel China is advancing socialism in its borders or not. There are two concerns here that are opposed, and one is at the expense of the other either way.
I don't really care to moralize about the matter, but I do find it repugnant to so utterly dismiss the Filipino perspective and hint to them being feds or losers who are gonna lose anyways so who really cares, instead of being a materialist and examining China's wants as a power and the Philippine revolution's wants and goals and how those converge and how they clash. You are acting like a liberal who happens to prefer China.
And again these are examples of easy to find shit, that is not the extent of military spending or of aid. I am not your encyclopedia, and I cannot give you both nation's financial records. And even if I could it seemingly would be useless given your attitude towards investigating anything. If you cannot navigate biased sources, then no source is ever gonna be good enough and you will sit in complete ignorance, never prodding, never learning and analyzing