back in my map era, we're ukrainemaxxing right now
Declarations of the imminent doom of Ukraine are a news megathread specialty, and this is not what I am doing here - mostly because I'm convinced that whenever we do so, the war extends another three months to spite us. Ukraine has been in an essentially apocalyptic crisis for over a year now after the failure of the 2023 counteroffensive, unable to make any substantial progress and resigned to merely being a persistent nuisance (and arms market!) as NATO fights to the last Ukrainian. In this context, predicting a terminal point is difficult, as things seem to always be going so badly that it's hard to understand how and why they fight on. In every way, Ukraine is a truly shattered country, barely held together by the sheer combined force of Western hegemony. And that hegemony is weakening.
I therefore won't be giving any predictions of a timeframe for a Ukrainian defeat, but the coming presidency of Trump is a big question mark for the conflict. Trump has talked about how he wishes for the war to end and for a deal to be made with Putin, but Trump also tends to change his mind on an issue at least three or four times before actually making a decision, simply adopting the position of who talked to him last. And, of course, his ability to end the war might be curtailed by a military-industrial complex (and various intelligence agencies) that want to keep the money flowing.
The alignment of the US election with the accelerating rate of Russian gains is pretty interesting, with talk of both escalation and de-escalation coinciding - the former from Biden, and the latter from Trump. Russia very recently performed perhaps the single largest aerial attack of Ukraine of the entire war, striking targets across the whole country with missiles and drones from various platforms. In response, the US is talking about allowing Ukraine to hit long-range targets in Russia (but the strategic value of this, at this point, seems pretty minimal).
Additionally, Russia has made genuine progress in terms of land acquisition. We aren't talking about endless and meaningless battles over empty fields anymore. Some of the big Ukrainian strongholds that we've been spending the last couple years speculating over - Chasiv Yar, Kupiansk, Orikhiv - are now being approached and entered by Russian forces. The map is actually changing now, though it's hard to tell as Ukraine is so goddamn big.
Attrition has finally paid off for Russia. An entire generation of Ukrainians has been fed into the meat grinder. Recovery will take, at minimum, decades - more realistically, the country might be permanently ruined, until that global communist revolution comes around at least. And they could have just made a fucking deal a month into the war.
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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.
Gallup: Half of Ukrainians Want Quick, Negotiated End to War
https://news.gallup.com/poll/653495/half-ukrainians-quick-negotiated-end-war.aspx
Interesting polling, particularly how much it's swung since 2022/3.
Good thing Ukraine is a liberal democracy where the will of the people will be heard.
Though democracy is, of course, on hold until AFTER the conflict with Russia ends. We super promise to give it back then
Another sign that the vocal Ukrainian voices you hear on social media don’t represent the majority. Doubt most of those people even live in the country.
Something particularly ghoulish about the richer class of Ukrainians fleeing the country and then cheering on the war from the safety of Germany, UK and Poland while their poor countrymen silently get ground into paste
The most vocal ukranian I know left after 2014, to live with their wealthy parents in Spain and Amsterdam. Don’t ask how they got their wealth or why their grandparents have such a burning hatred of Russians/communists
Diaspora should have to shut the fuck up about their old home country’s politics the moment they move out of the country. Embrace your new home already and stop fucking up a country you don’t even live in
That takes all the fun out of being in a diaspora!!!
The reality on the ground is that a lot of people, especially on the Russian side of the Dnieper, are probably weighing their options carefully and thinking about whether or not it’s worth risking your life or future for the country of Ukraine. Ukraine has refused to hold elections, banned popular political parties, is snatching people off the street to fight, has probably sent some of your friends/family to die, is notoriously corrupt, is offering you very little prospect of a fruitful future economically when it will have to recover from the conflict, and at its best will probably not have more to offer than just living in Russia would.
Gee i wonder what their opinion would be? Lol so the real numbers are likely even higher for a surrender. Also, i rolled my eyes at the article making sure to use the phrase "full-scale invasion" twice, fuckin dorks
Did Ukrainians not get the memo? "We will fight to the last Ukrainian?"
It's not going to be sustainable if the population feels this way. To continue the war someone else will need to be sent in, or it will be ended.
Imagine how delusional the population of this country is when 48% think they can get Crimea back still.
I wonder how safe people would be if they answered yes to territorial concessions. This is a country that is already kidnapping men off the streets and sending them to their deaths.
yeah a lot of them probably don't believe a pollster is truly anonymous, i'd be afraid of saying anything if I lived there. Head down.
And 52% of those people have a realistic view that territorial concessions will be necessary!
It's a start.
Ukraine : I consent Russia: I consent
The Fourth Reich : Is there somebody you forgot to ask?
"Scratch that. Sorry. I'm going to actually get you to use the weapons we gave you to escalate an extreme amount. But hey they probably wont nuke you and if they do it'll make everyone mad at them.. maybe"
And it's going to get a whole lot worse now that Russia is targeting their power grid again. There will be no men available to deal with civil unrest.