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.
Zionazi Alexandra Szustakiewicz, 64, has been arrested and charged with two counts of hate crime for attacking a couple wearing a Palestine hoodie near Chicago.
Yemen has struck a Turkish container ship for the first time
EDIT: Forgot to add since it’s probably obvious but the ship was sailing to Israelwtf is a bomb cyclone? Honey, a new DLC of Climate Disaster just dropped
Here’s an example of how Russia could retaliate, without technically escalating:
- Deploy unmanned nuclear-powered stealth submarines, armed with conventional weapons
- Transfer satellite control to some group that is hostile to the US
- Hit US assets just about anywhere in the world
I don’t think they will do exactly that, but it shows how serious Biden’s brinkmanship is.
I have to put my trust entirely on Putin and the Russian ruling class to not escalate this to a nuclear war, huh
Why shouldn’t I wish death on all NATO supporters at this point?
Meanwhile, FIFA and UEFA member “israel” killed a fuckton of FIFA-registered palestinian players in Gaza, dismantling a FIFA-regulated tournament in the process as well. You can sit comfortably waiting for them to take action against the zionist entity.
death to “israel”
Back to posting Lokomotiv news with an exciting win vs Vityaz!
Sadly Lokomotiv lost their 11 game winning streak while I haven’t been able to follow them but today’s game was a real nailbiter! Vityaz held the lead until the the third period was almost done but the railwaymen managed to tie it up and win in overtime!
Lokomotiv next plays Torpedo on Saturday, November 23 at 5pm Moscow Standard Time
УРА ЛОКОМОТИВ How it started: I WILL NOT MAKE DEALS WITH COMMUNISTS
How it ended:
The reasoning behind this attack seems to be to force Russia’s hand, lest Putin look weak, and then in turn force Trump’s hand, lest he look weak should he come in and attempt to deescalate after Russia and NATO start actually trading blows without all the subterfuge. It seems like the Biden/Starmer/Macron triumvirate are hoping for a “heads we win, tails you lose” style scenario. A “November Surprise” if you will. I’m not sure if it will play out that way, since a significant portion of Trump’s base don’t want war with Russia and he can probably come in and blame this all on Biden and the Democrats being warmongers.
More information has been released about the Brazilian Federal Police’s Operation against the Brazilian Army and Bolsonaro, Operation Counter Coup. The Federal Police have finally found the deleted files and the files that prove that the coup attempt on January 8th was not something organic (let’s face it, when is a far-right protest organic? These are always financed by the US or rich people). Bolsonaro was being pressured by agribusiness and some politicians to carry out a coup in 2021 (a year before the elections), he organized the coup and changed some things, he had the file in his house, he held meetings in his house.
After Bolsonaro lost the election, there were these camps and protests in front of military bases. It seems that the Federal Police have found evidence that Bolsonaro financed these protests and encampments with public funds. He also planned to kill Lula, the vice-president and Judge Alexandre de Moraes. They tried to do this with poison and even an RPG ambush. The CIA and the US Army pressured them not to do it, saying there would be consequences. Biden was told by some Democrats and advised by the CIA to break off relations and sanction Brazil in the event of a coup, which would also explain why Chile (Boric) and Argentina (Alberto) offered to send troops to help Lula.
In addition to financing these camps and protests. Bolsonaro also financed and organized the January 8 coup attempt, and there is now evidence that military personnel were present at the coup attempt disguised in masks and gloves. This calls into question the narrative that these protests were something that just happened. What’s more, the Brazilian Gusanos are so stupid that even the US opposed this bullshit plan. Another thing I want to talk about is how evil these people really are. One of the reasons they said they were going to do this (they had a whole document) is because Lula was going to use public funds and the government budget to promote progressivism and social programs, and that was unacceptable because it’s left-wing stuff and these people (poor and minorities) don’t deserve it, and it’s a waste of money and power. It seems they also hated Flavio Dino. They complain about Supreme Court Judge Flavio Dino (Former Governor, member of the Communist Party of Brazil until 2022), and continue to nickname him Pardo (which is a term for mixed ethnicity people in Brazil) because? Idk, maybe they are racists?
Bolsonaro’s family’s response to this was “Uh… That’s technically not a crime because it didn’t happen!!!” and ‘It’s not a crime to plan terrorist attacks and wish people dead’. Which is probably one of the worst responses of all time, honestly I have no idea why they can’t just stfu. Bolsonaro didn’t say anything because Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes created a law that prohibits Bolsonaro from talking with some people, making livestreams and giving interviews (which is pretty funny, he literally forced Bolsonaro to stfu). These are the people who tried to arrest a lib youtuber because he called Bolsonaro a genocidal maniac.
Another IOF loser getting sniped:
https://xcancel.com/TVFreePalestine/status/1858322733777428749Lavrov confirms the red line has been crossed, the war has entered a “qualitatively new phase”, and Russia will “react accordingly”.
Isn’t the house voting again on the everyone we disagree with is a terrorist bill today. Will we get to see some bipartisan fascism today…?
Betting pool
- Russia strikes a Polish supply depot near the Ukrainian border
- Decapitation strike that kills Zelenskyy
- Houthis get a carrier killer
- Cuba gets the bomb again
- atmospheric nuke test
- “did I say a red line? It’s more of a red guideline.”
Nothing ever happens
Decapitation strike that kills Zelenskyy
If this happens, I would bet on it being by accident. I would bet good money on Russia trying their best to make sure the current Ukrainian civilian and military leadership senior remains in place, because the senior leadership in place are extremely predictable.
Maybe an unpopular opinion but I think Russia should (and probably will) see it more as a red guideline or at the very least not respond in an equivalent way, just enough to express displeasure.
It’s the right move too IMO because Russia is winning and winning at a pace not yet seen before. To use a sports analogy, what NATO is doing now is the thing where you’re down 2-0 and time is running out; so you start chirping at the other team and playing dirty to get them off their game and maybe get them to draw a foul. Of course the right thing for the team in the lead is to swallow your pride and ignore it; stay on your game because if you do, you win. The only way Russia can lose right now is if NATO gets significantly more involved, and they can’t do that without some sort of fig leaf casus belli. That’s what NATO is trying to do with the DPRK troops thing, but rightly no one is buying it. Russia cannot give NATO anything they can use as a reason to get involved.
Cold winter attacks - I bet they go hard at substations that connect ukraine to the EU grid.
Was listening to this Polish osint guy yesterday throw out some ideas about possible Russian responses to escalation:
- roll out some nuclear tipped Iskander Ms (500-700km range) in Russian territory near Alaska
- have submarines with Bulava ballistic missiles leave the Kola peninsula and shake off US surveillance and start lurking in the ocean
- start doing regular strategic bomber patrols with nuclear tipped ballistic rockets
- give the Houthis Oniks/Bastion (500km range) supersonic anti-ship missiles
Decapitation strike is the most sane variant, which is why they won’t do it. Red guideline is my vote.
(alternatively, bombing embassy, but that would need to be british one, american is too nuts)
also lmao at russia doing their civility bits for 2 yearsRed guidline
Iran could also get the bomb, and/or North Korea could get a miniaturised version of the bomb for use in their Short Range Ballistic Missiles (SRBMs) and for MIRV warheads for their new ICBM with over 15 000km range.
I think Ansar Allah/The Houthis getting advanced anti ship supersonic cruise missiles is the most likely option, Hezbollah got 12 of them at one stage.
PLEASE
It’s a very symmetrical response but it would piss of the Saudi’s
Let’s see if this Russian redline was a bluff or not
