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.
I'm starting to believe that there is a god out there, but that god is an evil god. That god is a god that not only allowed white supremacy, genocide, and colonialism to reign victorious for centuries, they actively supported them and blessed the perpetrators. They are the same god that decided the Al-Aqsa flood would not dislodge Israel after a year, but Israel-friendly terrorists take over an entire country in less than two weeks. A god that deserves to be overthrown, and their followers punished for their transgressions and crimes against humanity.
so there's a school of christian thought from early christianity that, and I am massively simplifying the history, theology, and metaphysics, basically the god of the old testament who made the world is an evil bastard who made the world and people for his own ego and to torture people; and that the God of the new testament who is tthe Father that sent Jesus and all that is the real all encompasing God above the evil material world. there's also some whole shit about how the evil god, the demiurge, stole some of the magic heaven juice to make the material world and us with it, and we need to escape and rejoin the magic heaven juice we come from. this is a VERY simple summary
This should be a lesson on how our enemies aren’t idiots and are infinitely more adaptable to the changing dynamics of capitalist contradictions than many are giving them credits for.
There has been a lot of emphasis on how the US fumbled in Ukraine, or how Israel has been ineffective against Hamas and Hezbollah in their military operations, maybe because these immediately apparent outcomes, but it is very important to realize that what we are looking at is a full scale hybrid warfare encompassing a globalized network launched against the entire world, where military warfare is simply one of the many vectors, that comprise multi-dimensional attacks from economic, finance, sociopolitical institutions, diplomacy, culture, technology, and various other angles.
Turns out, isolating Iran’s allies is far more effective than invading Iran itself. Who would’ve thought.
Reactionaries are idiots when they have no obvious enemy. But when they see a clear threat they close ranks and that is when they become really dangerous.
i was not even born before the track that we are on was put in motion and i bet that goes for many (all?) people here, and there is very little i can now materially do about any of it. i do not like this answer, and i'm probably way more misanthropic than a lot of people here. you may as well say it was fate