Image is of President Vladimir Putin, with his cook Prigozhin, though he is more famous for other things.
I’m assuming we all know what a “Russia” and a “Putin” is, so I’m skipping the background section.
On March 15th, Putin handily won the presidential election. This is perhaps one of the least surprising things to happen in the last couple years, and all claims and debates about electoral corruption are missing the point (in this particular election at least). The reason why Putin won is not fascist brainwashing or Putin having a high Persuasion/Intimidation DC, and it’s not even really about the laws that make opposing the Ukraine War illegal. Wages are up significantly, unemployment is at record lows (for the post-USSR period, of course), as is poverty, and the ruble is about as stable as it could be given what the West has tried to do to it. The government has been forced to massively intervene in the economy to keep things afloat, buying up properties that have been ditched by foreign and domestic billionaires, though obviously Russia’s wealthy are still plenty powerful. Inflation is up, but wages are comfortably outpacing it. And the Communist Party remains a relic of a bygone era, disconnected from the young people who might hypothetically propel a revolution.
Russia is still in the transition from switching to a Western-oriented export economy to an Eastern-oriented one. Nonetheless, Russia is now China’s single largest oil supplier (unseating Saudi Arabia), delivering half of all their oil to China, and trade between the two countries has massively increased. Where Western brands have retreated from Russia (and not many actually have), more Russia-friendly corporations, and Russian businesses themselves, have filled the gaps.
By going through the news, I’ve seen a lot of economies that are not doing well at all. Most countries seem to be in that category. Either they have general growth but a deeply struggling populace, or the government is trying to keep the population afloat but running up huge debts in the process, or the government is failing on both counts. Russia is one of the few countries on the planet that I can confidently state is actually doing quite well objectively, which means it’s doing extremely well relatively. Considering the Western economists regularly delivering portents of doom in early 2022, and salivating over how they were going to divide the country following the inevitable economic collapse, this is a hilarious state of affairs.
In the long term, their predictions may come true. It is entirely possible that a post-war Russia will slump, returning to neoliberal policies and continuing their nonsensical allergy to budget deficits. Russia might not be a mere gas station, but a substantial amount of the economy is made up of fossil fuel exports, which might be troublesome in a greener future, especially as China, their main oil market, is one of the few countries on the planet that seems serious about renewable/nuclear energy. And the limited labour force means that long-term growth is inherently limited without some creative measures, even with the potential influx of whatever remains of the population and territory that Russia seizes in Ukraine. Perhaps it is in this crucible of disillusionment and hardship, after seeing that good things are indeed possible if the government wishes them to be so, that a socialist Russia could rise again. But we aren’t there yet, and the growth continues for now.
Apologies for the lack of updates (again!), I’ve been going through book titles again for the reading list (I’ve probably got a thousand or more to get through) and also trying to touch grass more. I’m not very good at balancing things out, I tend to do the hyperfocus-on-one-thing-until-it’s-done approach.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Russia! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
Be sure to check out HexAtlas
Developed by comrade @hex_atlas@hexbear.net
Broke: the Russian government is illegitimate because Putin wins 85% of the vote and has no serious challenger
Woke: the Russian government is illegitimate because a supermajority of citizens and a majority of republics voted to retain the Soviet Union and its dissolution was an illegal act counter to the will of the people
Official death toll in Moscow rises to
115(update 143) https://ria.ru/20240323/terakt-1935274924.htmlTerrorists were trying to escape over the border to Ukraine and had connections to Ukrainian sources
Image of the white Renault that four of the terrorists tried to get away in
So where’s the international show of support for the Russian people in the aftermath of this attack? Have we lit up buildings with the Russian flag? Where’s the “je suis Russia”?
It is believed more than half of Brits have been exposed to conspiracy theories about Princess Kate.
Payton said the Russians have likely helped to fuel the cruel online storm which has been circulating around the Royal Family in recent weeks.
The Sun last week called on the world to “Lay Off Kate” after she was criticised for editing her Mother’s Day family photo - before vile fake tales started spreading.
Why is the royal family allowing Russian propaganda to dominate the news cycle when Kate could just like hold up todays newspaper?
What the zionist monsters are doing to the Palestinians at al-Shifa hospital is incomprehensibly evil and deranged. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/03/24/722398/Hamas-slams-shameful-intl--silence-on-Gaza’s-al-Shifa-Hospital-raid,-failure-to-stop-Zionists’-war-machine
The primary weapon of the imperialists is psychological warfare and terrorism. In their eyes, the more extreme and publicly gruesome their crimes, the more likelihood they can force Hamas into surrender. As we can see the hasbara psywar narrative is already transforming into blaming the resistance for not accepting a “ceasefire” when the zionists are being so incomprehensible brutal. Blaming Russia and China for “stopping ceasefire.”
These monstrous crimes will only get more extreme and more outrageous until the imperialists are militarily and economically forced to accept defeat.
Whatever happened to the “historic icj decision” that everyone was so excited about? What a sick joke. A charade.
What the heck is a “ceasefire” anyways in this war between the forces of liberation & justice and the forces of extermination???
TOPPLE. BEHEAD.
Argentina’s government rules out free dengue vaccine despite record deaths
Presidential Spokesperson Maneul Adorni says there is no plan to make Dengue vaccine free and compulsory to citizens despite a record number of deaths this year.
President Javier Milei’s government will not include a vaccine for Dengue fever in its national vaccination calendar. Speaking at a press conference in Buenos Aires on Monday, Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni shot down suggestions that the state would make the jab free and compulsory to citizens despite a record number of deaths this year.
Adorni, who also questioned the vaccine’s effectiveness, said talks over its inclusion on the national vaccination calendar are “not on the agenda,” though the decision could be revisited in the future. “Immunity is achieved over time, so vaccinating now would mean that immunity will be achieved in four months, where the mosquito is no longer a problem, even though its effectiveness has not been proven,” said Adorni.
Argentina has seen 79 deaths from dengue over the last eight months, 69 of which have been registered since the turn of the year. In the past week, 22 people have died after infection from the virus. Infection numbers are soaring. So far in 2024, more than 102,000 cases have been reported, which is 86 percent of the 120,000 cases registered in total, another record.
Milei said in an interview last Sunday that the dengue crisis is “part of Kirchnerism’s negligence” – a reference to the government which preceded his in office. He accused them of “not having run a good campaign a year ago.”
For those seeking vaccination, the TAK-003 vaccine, also known as Qdengam, produced by the Japanese laboratory Takeda, is available in Argentina privately. Each dose against the virus, which is transmitted by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, costs about 70,000 pesos (about US$80 at the official exchange rate), while the minimum wage is set at 202,800 pesos (USS$232).
Eduardo López, an infectious disease doctor at the Buenos Aires Children’s Hospital, contradicted Adorni’s remarks. “Studies show that vaccines are safe and effective,” he told the C5N news channel.
Andrea Gamarnik, a virologist, specialist in the dengue virus and researcher at the CONICET scientific research institute, denounced on the X social network that Argentina is “in the worst dengue epidemic in history” but that experts are not “allowed to work” because, she believes, the government is dismantling the scientific system.
A month ago, tens of thousands of people around the world shared videos of mosquito swarms in Argentina. That particular one was an invasion of Aedes Albifasciatus, a species that grows especially after the rains and in open, grassy places, unlike Aegypti, which grows mainly in cities and spreads Zika and chikungunya as well as dengue.
Both my mother and sister have dengue, both had serious fever but are now recovering. Hospitals wont give them tests, stating that “they don’t have any” or are reserved for some special cases. “Come back tomorrow” they say. So far I’ve been able to avoid the disease, but I work in the streets so it’s a matter of time one of these little fuckers bite me.
Also, oncologic patients are getting their help completely shut down by the government, leaving them to fend off by themselves against predatory pharma practices. The state decided to fuck off and the market will never help, we’re all being left alone.
I try to mask it all off with some jokes and whatever, try to sound positive. But deep down I’m reaching a breaking point. Everywhere I look there’s misery, hunger and desperation and it’s all catching up to me.
I’ve seen a lot of takes lately about ISIS being essentially a US asset at this point. Tracks with what I know of US methods historically, but wondering if anybody has anything substantive or specific on this.
"The Attackers on “Crocus” did not intend to become suicide bombers: the criminals were caught attempting to flee to Ukraine
FSB head Bortnikov reported to President Putin on the detention of 11 individuals, among whom are all four terrorists directly involved in the attack on “Crocus”. The effort to identify the remaining accomplices continues, but conclusions about the situation are forthcoming, and they are disheartening for Ukraine.
The perpetrators of the attack did not intend to become “martyrs.” They wanted to live long and happily after their horrific crime. That’s exactly why they quickly retreated, not waiting for the assault to begin and did not try to take hostages. This does not resemble the typical actions of Islamist terrorists, but rather resembles the actions of mercenaries from sabotage groups, who were promised cover, escape, and a generous reward. None of the scoundrels intended to die for ideas or anything similar — it was purely cold calculation.
As for who sponsored them — this can be understood by the direction of their escape. " - Readovka
Edit: to clarify this is the telegram interpretation of what happened. What is known for now is that 11 ppl were arrested, the terrorists were heading towards ukraine and “they had approppriate contacts there”, whatever that means.
Edit 2: anyway it does look a lot more like ukraine had to do something with this. Whether it was official or some mercenaries told to go rogue is not at all clear yet.
Edit 3: BBC reporting curiously omitting the part of the FSB statement about where they were captured, where they headed and who they had contacts with.
I wanted to write a short primer on missile terminology at the start of the week, but my phone deleted most of it so I ran out of energy. Here it is again.
#Aerodynamics: Hypersonic: Technically a buzzword, but is regarded at Mach 5 (aka 5x the speed of sound). In US Military terms, this refers to a weapon that can perform maneuvers at this speed above. Ballistic missiles travel at above hypersonic speeds or above by virtue of all their other properties, but don’t fill the US military definition as they don’t do maneuvers in response to incoming fire. Even the original V2 approached hypersonic speeds. This speed makes the weapon difficult to intercept, as there’s less time to intercept and any change in direction is “larger” for the purposes of interception. However, most cruise missiles and anti-tank missiles are not hypersonic, and are even subsonic. Hypersonic velocities introduce some aerodynamic and physical/mechanical complications that slowly increase depending on the local air pressure and multiple of the speed of sound. As a counter-example, a Mach 10 projectile 60 km above the Earth’s surface will not produce the same plasma envelope or heat as the same profile projectile 2 km above the Earth’s surface. Be wary when seeing this term in the media, it sometimes refers to ballistic missiles, which is nothing special unless they can course correct.
Supersonic: An actual technical term that means above the speed of sound in a given context. You know this. At sea level (and for many military applications), this is roughly 340 meters a second (1200 kmph or 760 mph). There are a bunch of aerodynamic qualities that change around this speed. I say around as air flowing past a bit sticking out (say, a wing, or radio antenna etc) will cause air to flow faster than the speed of sound, creating lateral forces that affect the vehicle (vehicle: plane, missile, bullet etc). Those lateral forces mean a vehicle will want to be solidly above or below the supersonic threshold. The lower the air pressure (usually, the further up) reduces the speed of sound, but also reduces the supersonic effects (to zero, as you slowly go up into the stratosphere). For long ranged air-lining, a higher altitude where your jet engines still run is better, but for other purposes it varies a lot.
Subsonic: Slower than the speed of sound. You are this, probably.
Missile Types: Ballistic Missile: A vehicle (plane, missile, or bullet) that follows approximately a ballistic trajectory. Usually, such a vehicle will expend all of its fuel on the way up (at most), and rely on orbital mechanics to maintain its speed on the way down. Longer ranged ones will avoid the Earth’s atmosphere for a lot of the journey. This means that such a vehicle will be very speed<->weight/fuel efficient. If it isn’t striking a moving target, it also needs the least amount of redirection by weight. Its main disadvantages are that its very easy to detect by RADAR, since it by definition goes over the horizon very far away, and that it can get difficult to course correct for many reasons. As the air pressure goes down due to altitude, your aerodynamic surfaces matter less. As the pressure and speed increase, both heat and RADAR are less effective on the way down. Nonetheless, they are very hard to shoot down. Famous examples: V2 Rocket, Iskander, Kinzhal, and ATACMs. They’re also cheaper per range/weight.
Cruise Missile: A missile that follows the curvature of the Earth (instead of ballistic trajectory), usually powered by a jet Engine and are usually subsonic. Compared to Ballistic missiles, they’re easier to guide and harder to detect by RADAR. However, once they are detected, they are easier to shoot down. They can even be chased and engaged with fighter aircraft. Some of them have a lower powered RADAR that lets them follow terrain up and down, making their visibility extremely low when going cross-country. Cruise missiles have an ascending, descending, and a cruise trajectory, and generally behave like a plane (indeed, the original Kamikazes planes were called early cruise missiles, but the V1 is closer to what we’d call a cruise missile). They have similar vulnerabilities to planes. Various methods of making them harder to shoot down, coating them in RADAR absorbing paint, making them faster during one stage (often descent, for things like the Zircon), RADAR following terrain, Jinking maneuvers on descent, hardened noses etc. Famous examples include the V1 Buzz-bomb, Tomahawk Missile, Zircon… Anti-ship missiles are often a variation of this, flying lower and with less range but otherwise performing the same function.
Missile: Much talk of missiles, traditionally it means something that isn’t powered in flight (e.g. an arrow, rock, bullet etc), but nowadays means an unmanned powered flight weapon (e.g. a cruise missile, ballistic missile etc). Nonetheless, it is always separated from the operator and firing mechanism, as is tradition.
Anti-Aircraft Missile: The Ballistic and Cruise Missiles usually go to destroy battlefield assets of one sort or another. AA missiles specifically destroy missiles and aircraft. They tend to be the fastest rocket powered missiles for their size. Things like the Patriot or the S-500 are AA missiles, and are capable of catching up to and destroying other missiles even if the other missile has passed the launch point. The tend to fly in a straight-ish line, always heading for the predicted trajectory of the target.
Drone: Often powered by an electric motor, subsonic, and intended to loiter in the battle space until needed, as opposed to launched for mission. Blurry term.
Motors:
Rockets: Rockets are high power per weight, high power per time, and extremely cheap. Their disadvantages are running time and they are less able to be controlled (there are fuel rockets, but that’s generally outside the scope of a military context). They are mostly used on Ballistic and AA missiles, and the final portion of some cruise missiles. The smallest missiles (MANPADS, MANPAT?, etc) also tend to use rockets for their simplicity, tolerance to size, and cheapness.
Jet Engines: Jet Engines offer very high power to weight ratio, weight to range, and medium efficiency. They’re usually found on cruise missiles and aircraft. Some cruise missiles final stage may seem like they attain rocket-like velocities, but in-fact use scramjets to attain this velocity. They tend to be very high cost for all dimensions (range, efficiency, volume etc), but fulfill a niche in between traditional combustion engines and rockets.
Piston Engines: Outside the scope of missiles and aircraft nowadays, though they used to be used in aircraft. They are cheap, have high tolerances and fuel efficiency, and can adjust their power for a purpose very well. They tend to be quite heavy for their power output though. Poor torque at low RPS compared to all other engine types. We don’t see these on missiles or aircraft atm and I don’t see it except in some extremely niche cases.
Electric Motors: These tend to be somewhere around Jets and Pistons, though they tend to have quite high weights to volume and power. They offer very high torque at low RPS compared to jets and lots of power variability, and much lower mechanical complexity compared to equivalent Jet and Piston designs. As the line between missile and drone gets blurred, I imagine we’ll see this blurred. However, for the time being, if something is electrically powered and seems like a missile, it is a “drone”.
Motor vs Engine: Motor provides motive force generally, engine provides motive force with internal combustion. Colloquially, these are pretty interchangeable. However, if you need to… Steam Engine, Jet Engine, Electric Motor, Pressure Motor. Usually, this is rotary. Rocket engines, despite being a combustion system, often get called motors.
Guidance systems:
RADAR: The standard method of tracking aerial targets and sea targets. Metal reflects Radio very well compared to air or water, or even soil, so this can be tracked very easily. Sometimes, especially for smaller projectiles (e.g. AA guns), the RADAR is on the ground and the projectiles pull into the reflection from the target until they are close enough. Missiles can also track into such a reflection; Semi-homing RADAR (Fox-1). For larger systems, a RADAR array can be mounted on the projectile (active homing RADAR, Fox 3). This is used in civil and military aviation constantly, but can also be used for reversing your car, speed detectors etc. Can be jammed, but not as easily as you’d think.
Infrared/thermal/heat-seeking: (Fox 2) The main method other than RADAR for tracking aerial targets. Aircraft tend to run hot. Thus, an infrared camera can track a projectile into a target for much cheaper. Most military aircraft carry flares to guide heat-seeking projectiles away, to varying degrees of success. This also tends to be pretty short ranged; infra-red gets soaked up by the atmosphere pretty quickly. Also, for faster missiles, the nose cone gets hotter as the velocity increases, which reduces the ability of thermal optics to see any target.
Manual or external guidance: Receiving data from somewhere else to guide the missile. Wire-guiding on anti-tank weapons is a classic method of this, however the modern Dong Feng uses transmissions from an AWACS to guide to target. These tend to vary quite wildly and their counter-systems also.
Aerodynamic Control: Uses fins and wings to control the direction of movement. Only applicable for low altitude missiles, and less applicable for supersonic vehicles (but not inapplicable, you just have to design around it)
Gyroscopic Control: Stabilisation control that allows you to adjust heading based on previous velocity. Used in conjuction with other controls.
Vectored Thrust Control: Uses thrust from the Motors to control the direction of movement. The only valid method of control when outside the atmosphere.
Talking to a red fash from a former eastern block country is so disorienting.
Them: Immigrants are taking up all our housing.
Me: Actually housing problems are a result of housing being treated as a vehicle for profit
Them: I agree, commie blocks were good, the market can’t handle housing properly
Me: So???
Them: Immigrants are taking up all our housing.
It’s basically just the Patrick wallet meme.
Blue MAGA like, how can I be anti-arab when I support ISIS?