On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.
The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I've had to restart my program after somebody told me "Disregard all previous prompts."
While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the... reforms... that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it's as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.
Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven't meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.
The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Pridnestrovie, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. 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.
Another question I have in mind (not that you have to answer it, I am just openly speculating), what has been Iran's response to all of this? How are they factoring in all of this, along with their promise of a new "surprise" weapon/system they have in store for the entity should they attack?
The suprise weapon is likely a satellite weapon like Russia already has, or a non nuclear ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapon. When Brigadier General Ebrahim Rostami mentioned Iran's suprise weapon, it was in the context of Iran's missile forces carrying out simulated exercises striking Israel's Dimona reactor. To me that would suggest some kind of EMP weapon, to take out Israel's electricity generation capacity. A ballistic missile armed with an EMP warhead could fit the bill.
How has Iran been reacting? By trying to establish deterrence using its ballistic missile capabilities. An attack on Israel using over a thousand ballistic missiles could be devastating. Imagine the attack aimed at Nevatim were 40 missiles likely got through, and imagine that attack being aimed at a soft target such as a power plant, water or sanitation infrastructure, oil infrastructure, etc. And imagine a dozen targets are hit in this manner. It would be devastating.
Would an Iranian response in that manner basically kill Israel as a viable state? I imagine living in a non functional city,that is constantly under threat of being attacked with missiles,with none of the resilience that the populations you bombed had would lead to a mass migration, probably either by boat or through comprador Arab states like Jordan to get to an airport and get out of dodge. Is that a reasonable assumption?
Yeah but Israel also has deterrence to try stop Iran from conducting such a response/attack, in the nuclear deterrent. The initial leaked documents mentioned nuclear armed Jericho II Medium Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBMs) being dispersed in a defensive manner from October 1st onwards. Then there's the Jericho III Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), which was calculated by a US congressional review in 2004 to have a potential range (when on a depressed trajectory and with a smaller warhead, or warheads as it's MIRV capable) of over 11 000km, enough to strike most of mainland North America.
Well,in that case only the US could finally mop up whatever remains,soft coup the government and withdraw all it's assets, including the nukes
Or we all get cooked, figuratively and literally
Luckily for everyone that does not want to die in nuclear hellfire, the second batch of leaked documents are very likely fake. I've updated my initial post.
Ah,well,that's comforting?,I guess?
It's comforting that it's fake as it was a crazy attack plan, but Israel could still launch a large scale attack regardless. So we're still stuck in a similar situation of waiting to see exactly when and what Israel will strike, and what the Iranian response would be.
But yes, we should celebrate that that mad attack plan was likely fake.
Are you saying the icbms would be used on targets outside of Western Asia, while the MRBMs are intended for western asian targets?
Not necessarily, I'm just saying that Israel has the capability to strike almost anywhere in the world if they wanted to. A lot of people make the mistake of looking at the publicised range of Israeli ICBMs (around 4000-6000km) and then conclude that Israel does not have the capability to strike Oceana, South America or North America. That is likely an incorrect conclusion given what we know about Israeli missile tests, and statements from the US and Israel. And this isn't even mentioning the hypothesised Jericho IV.
The Jericho III ICBM could also be used over a shorter distance, with a larger warhead or more independent re-entry vehicles, and to impact the target with more energy/speed. More speed is also helpful in avoiding missile defences. However, the legitimate leaked documents only mentioned the Jericho II MRBMs and not the Jericho III ICBM
Just going to say initially: the second batch of leaked documents are very likely fake, I've edited my initial post to state that.
An EMP weapon would fry the electronics of everything within range, but since the planned Israeli attack is to be carried out by aircraft. I can't see Iran trying to hit aeroplanes in the air with an EMP weapon. Non nuclear EMP weapons have a much smaller effective radius. So I think it's likely use could be as a response, if such a weapon exists.
~~they have some deals with russia about s-400 and su-35 and su-30 I think.~~ yea they are far from confirmed
This deals are kind of a meme by now since Iran still has never received deliveries of these weapon systems years after it was said Russia is providing them
From what I've seen online, it mainly consists of "military analysts" and people like Scott Ritter trying to will them into existence. I haven't seen any actual evidence of such weapons deals.