Bulletins and News Discussion from December 2nd to December 8th, 2024 - May A Hundred Hazel Flowers Bloom - COTW: Russia
Image is of one of the six salvos of the Oreshnik missile striking Ukraine.
The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that appears to split into six groups of six submunitions as it strikes its target, giving it the appearance of a hazel flower. It can travel at ten times the speed of sound, and cannot be intercepted by any known Western air defense system, and thus Russia can strike and conventionally destroy any target anywhere in Europe within 20 minutes. Two weeks ago, Russia used the Oreshnik to strike the Yuzhmash factory in Ukraine, particularly its underground facilities, in which ballistic missiles are produced.
Despite the destruction caused by the missile, and its demonstration of Russian missile supremacy over the imperial core, various warmongering Western countries have advocated for further reprisals against Russia, with Ukraine authorized by the US to continue strikes. Additionally, the recent upsurge of the fighting in Syria is no doubt connected to trying to stretch Russia thin, as well as attempting to isolate Hezbollah and Palestine from Iran; how successful this will have ended up being will depend on the outcome of the Russia and Syrian counteroffensive. Looking at recent military history, it will take many months for the Russians and Syrians to retake a city that was lost in about 48 hours.
Even in the worst case scenario for Hezbollah, it's notable that Ansarallah has had major success despite being physically cut off from the rest of the Resistance and under a blockade, and it has defeated the US Navy in its attempts to open up the strait. Israel has confirmed now that their army cannot even make significant territorial gains versus a post-Nasrallah, post-pager terrorist attack Hezbollah holding back its missile strike capabilities. In 2006, it also could not defeat a much less well-armed Hezbollah and was forced to retreat from Lebanon.
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.
Dear God I am so tired of being surrounded by zionist jews that use antisemetism or other facets of their identities such as being poc or lgbt to just be islamophobic or pro-genocide. Do they not realize even public perception of the people in the west has become more pro-palestine than pro-israel, small as it may be? When this all boils over do they not understand just how much ammo they're giving to antisemites and neonazis? By pretending there's no genocide, twisting facts and straight up lying do they think just whining is gonna convince people of the inevitable? I wish my biggest fucking issue in life was being upset that my tl was filled with "obvious antisemites" aka people talking about the gaza genocide. I'm just so fucking over it they're everywhere, may God help the non-zionist jews who have to deal with these people and what the fall-out of this genocide will bring. I'm so fucking tired of anti-arab rethoric and the clear apathy towards arab lives, not even children are spared from their evil. And ofc Palestine is not enough, they had to get their hands in Lebanon and Syria but somehow "Israel" is the victims. Cause apparently colonization and genocide it's ok if they do it. Rant over, I just ran into some victim playing zionists who are otherwise "progressive" and lost it. I'm so done, it sometimes feel like running into one of these people makes me forget that most of the world (not politicians, but people-wise, especially non-westerns) arent zionists or pro-Israel and it ruins my day, I gotta remind myself.
At the end of the day, American Zionist Jews (and American Zionist non-Jews, and for that matter, most Americans) are settlers and act accordingly. They see their material interests aligned with the settler colonial project in the Americas and, by extension, Palestine. This ideology makes the world a very dangerous place, including for the people who espouse it.
Yeah, most of those people I encountered in this incident were USian or "israeli", though the main guy was originally from Chile who moved to "israel" aka wasn't even born an occupier but made the active choice to be and acts like a victim. Communism and anti-imperealism really are the only ways to save the world and humanity.
I saw in my feed a week or two ago someone said that the Rabbi at their synagogue has stopped wearing and using the star of david entirely (and encouraged others to do the same) because Israel has soiled its image so irreparably.