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.
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.”
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
And you can see right here is where wages decoupled from productivity.
I have a question: how many red lines did Russia lay out that eventually got violated?
Yeah where are all these red line memes coming from?
Article
BRASILIA/SAO PAULO, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Brazilian police on Tuesday arrested five people, including a member of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s government, suspected of involvement in an alleged plan to kill then president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his vice-president in 2022 days before they took office, police said.
The arrests were the first time in the investigation that federal police have mentioned a plot to kill Lula and Geraldo Alckmin, his choice as vice-president, and stage a coup to stop him returning to power. Most of those investigated are military personnel with Special Forces training, the police said in a statement. Two sources close to the case told Reuters that one of those arrested was retired Brigadier General Mario Fernandes, who previously worked as former rightist president Bolsonaro’s executive secretary. He was in possession of the plan to kill Lula, one of the sources said.
“A detailed operational plan called ‘Green and Yellow Dagger’ was identified, which would be executed on December 15, 2022, aimed at the murder of the elected candidates for president and vice-president,” the police said in a statement. Federal police officers carried out five arrest warrants on Tuesday, the police said without providing any names, as well as three search and seizure warrants and other 15 precautionary measures.
These included banning suspects from contacting the others and forbidding them from leaving the country. “Investigations indicate that the criminal organization used a high level of technical-military knowledge to plan, coordinate and execute illicit actions in the months of November and December 2022,” the police statement said. Lula won the presidential election in October 2022, defeating rightist incumbent Bolsonaro, and took office in January 2023.
A federal police investigation will conclude that Bolsonaro conspired to engineer the attempted coup after he lost the election, a source with direct knowledge of the investigations told Reuters in October. The probe is expected to be finished this month. Bolsonaro has made no public comment on the coup plot allegations. Reuters was trying to reach representatives of the former president and General Fernandes for comment.
The Brazilian army monitored the federal operation against the coup plotters, which was carried out in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Goias, Amazonas and the Federal District. The police said that the suspects under investigation had planned for an “Institutional Crisis Management Office” to be installed in order to manage problems arising from the coup.
They also planned to seize and kill a Supreme Court justice if they succeeded, police said, without naming the judge. According to the sources, the justice is Alexandre de Moraes, responsible for inquiries investigating Bolsonaro over the Jan. 8, 2023, riot against Brazilian institutions.
About 2,000 people were arrested over the unrest in the capital Brasilia, although most were later released. Others have been convicted by the Supreme Court on charges of an attempted coup, among other crimes.
US congressmen calls to sanction Ben Gravir and Smotrich
also grovels for Pissreal’s right to genocide “defend itself yadda hostages yadda”I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Ukraine just hit a military installation in Bryansk with ATACMS missiles in the early hours of this morning, five intercepted but one got through according to the Russian MOD. Putin has also signed Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine into law, allowing for a nuclear response to a large scale non nuclear attack by a non nuclear state, aided by a nuclear state.
Russian MoD statement:
Translation of Russian MoD statement
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Tonight at 3.25 a.m. the enemy struck a facility on the territory of the Bryansk region with six ballistic missiles.
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According to confirmed information, American-made ATACMS operational-tactical ballistic missiles were used.
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As a result of an anti-missile battle by S-400 SAMs and Pantsir SAMs, five missiles were shot down and one was damaged.
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Its fragments fell on the technical territory of a military facility in the Bryansk region, causing a fire, which was promptly extinguished.
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There were no casualties or damage.
Russian Ministry of Defence
The statement appears in contradiction with the latest video from the area, showing a clear explosion. It seems as if the damaged missile got through for a direct hit. Or there were some secondary explosions from debris. Either way, there is clear damage done should the footage be legitimate.
Biden’s going to get us all nuked.I think the most interesting part of this is that the S400s have grossly underperformed.
A single S400 battery should have taken down every single one of these. Letting one through is a huge embarrassment and a bad sign that the S400 might underperform expectations.
No modern air defence or missile defence system in the world is able to deal with modern day ballistic missiles when fired at a large enough volume, with quasi ballistic manouvers (in the case of ATACMS and Iskander-M) and Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicles (MaRVs) capable of performing skip and glide trajectories/pull up manoeuvres and pseudo random evasive maneuvers, in the case of modern Iranian missiles, such as the Kheibar Shekan series, and Fattah-1. We’ve seen Patriot PAC-3 systems been destroyed by Iskanders and Kinzhals, and S-300 and S-400 systems been destroyed by ROCKS (in Iran) and ATACMS.
Modern ballistic missiles (both air launched and ground launched) travel faster than ever inside the earth’s atmosphere, are capable of high accuracy even in GPS denied environments (in the case of US systems with highly accurate inertial guidance, Israeli systems with anti radiation seekers, and short range Iranian systems with EO seekers), and can manouver in non ballistic ways. It’s just going to get even worse for air defence once hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) enter service. India just tested an Anti Ship HGV a few days ago.
6 missiles to defeat it is still really concerning as that’s easily within the payload of a single F35 firing from safely out of range of the S400.
The only F-35s with Air Launched Ballistic Missiles (ALBMs) are the Israeli F-35s with the ROCKS missile, the US F-35s have the AGM-158 JASSM and LRASM cruise missiles as standoff weapons, and cannot carry them in the internal weapons bays, and only on external pylons. Realistically, one F-35 can only carry 2 AGM-158s (it has only been pictured carrying two at a time) or ROCKs missiles at a time on external pylons, given that these are large heavy missiles with a large aerodynamic footprint. So that’s 3 F-35s for six missiles. The smaller SPEAR 3 cruise missiles, designed to be carried internally, are still in development, and are much smaller weapons, more similar to 100kg glide bombs than large cruise or ballistic missiles.
Realistically, a stationary air defence system versus modern SEAD/DEAD tactics is a sitting duck, eventually it will be taken out, the aircraft always have the advantage. The key to survivability for air defence is to be mobile, as shown by the Serbs.
Russian air defenses shot down five of the missiles and another was damaged. Fragments from the damaged missile fell on the territory of a military facility, causing a fire that has since been extinguished. There were no casualties or damage.
It sounds like they actually did shoot down all of them but one crash landed instead of exploding
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/19/europe/ukraine-russia-atacms-biden-strike-intl/index.html
Yeah I saw the MoD statement and added it to the initial post. Apparent footage shows a large explosion though, could be a secondary explosion from debris, or a direct hit.
Why does America want Russia to use nukes so badly?
Losing New York under a Trump admin will really fire up the base
Hopefully that entire DPRK military sized NYPD budget went towards missile defense
missile defensebunker storage
What is Ukraine smoking. It seems theyre happy to get nuked for daddy Amerikkka. And Zelensky and the ruling class that he represents are complete traitors to Ukrainians.
This has been part of Zelensky’s five and ten point plans for a while. He really is that delusional.
True he’s out of his mind.
And I’m sure That NATO membership is in the mail
fuck
i was just about to go to bed and all, hope i wake up lol
Remember to fill your water bottle before going to bed
done <3
and 
wrote the theory, 
and 
do the praxis.I’m seriously concerned, but this is really funny
As I learnt a long time ago, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.
Also technically
did both the theory and praxis, he wrote a book about bombing Russian oil and gas pipelines, and then he actually did it with regards to Nordstream.I am also very worried to be honest.
When Waterkloof Air Force Base and Makhado Air Force Base eventually get nuked during the eventual nuclear exchange, I’m going to enjoy seeing the nuclear hellfire live before my painful and hellish death. Maybe I’ll just watch up close from the hillsides so I’ll die instantly, seems like the best way to go.
In all seriousness though, this is very worrying.
-
The NYT has leaked a story by accidentally CC’ing Electronic Intifada.
Apparently, they killed a “visual investigation” into the recent Israeli hooligans in the Netherlands, presumably because it would go against their narrative of anti-Semitism at the event. Keep in mind that it was the Times that recently claimed a video of Israeli fans attacking a Dutch citizen was the opposite.
Seems like the nyt journalist whose story got squashed definitely leaked it on purpose, right?
transphobia mention
As much as I like Norm Finklestein on Palestine, he is such a boomer when it comes to wokeism or trans people.
What redneck hillbilly cares about trans people having access to puberty blockers? Dems didn’t campaign on that. If you ask hillbillies if they support puberty blockers, they’ll 100% say “what’s that?”
And whenever Norm talks about Palestine he will meticulously talk about his sources, UN, HRW etc. But he just says that puberty blockers are bad for you is backed by “overwhelming evidence” with no sources. Biology isn’t his field.
And I don’t agree that Trump can’t be a fascist strongman dictator because Supreme Court will prevent that and because US has no “left”.
It is true, US has no significant left wing opposition, however, fascism wasn’t just about fighting the leftists, it also meant othering of minorities and directing the public anger towards them.
it also meant othering of minorities and directing the public anger towards them.
to divert them from the extremely militant leftist movement
I think he has a point that capital doesn’t really NEED fascism because the center doesn’t need violence to repress workers. Biden calls off the strike, threatens to call the national guard and the strike is off. They don’t need paramilitary thugs to mantain the capital order
This is what always happens with liberals who happen to have good takes on things that liberals typically have bad takes on.
IMO he’s just an old fart. He’s never been a liberal, he started his career as a Maoist and has always defended the Soviet Union, the PFLP, and other official bad guys. I wish he could apply dialectical materialism to gender as well as he can to mostly everything else, but he’s too stuck in the past.
They compensate elsewhere?
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Wonder if we’ll see more H5N1s than usual with the uptick in holiday turkeys coming soon
biden pardons a sick turkey, contracts bird flu
deleted by creator
user squarecoats1 on twitter has made a map with all of the contractors and subcontractors in the US involved in many of the weapons and materiel being used in the genocide, including hellfire missiles and F35s. there’s a lot of nitty gritty details in here, nearly 700 locations on the map, tracking who makes even the smallest parts of some of this stuff. they have also included a spreadsheet with the raw data that users can pore through since the site where they uploaded the map only allows 1000 visitors per month. pretty interesting
Missing Puerto Rico which has Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Boeing, Pratt and Whitney, etc.
Why does PR have like a thousand arms manufacturers? Cheapest labor inside the US where the locals are US citizens. Other unincorporated territories didn’t get the Jones act. Any sensitive work that requires clearance winds up incentivizes to operate in PR for the extreme wage difference, it’s the periphery within the core.
This is super useful
Cinia, the Finnish state operator of the 1,200km C-Lion1 fibre optic cable between Helsinki in Finland and Rostock in Germany, said it had been cut early on Monday morning in the Baltic Sea close to Sweden and was almost certainly the result of an “external force”.
If you didn’t want to lose stuff underwater you shouldn’t have named your city Helsinki
External to what? External to the cable?
My vote is inexplicable alien contact event from beyond our comprehensible reality - The Zone, but underwater.
Or literally anything that reduces their liability.
The cable just did that I call it “the no comically large scissors theory”
Who would commit such act of sabotage in Nato sea? I know, must be those evil russians.
spoiler
Does anyone following the Myanmar civil war know anything that contradict this news about how China has detained one of the Myanmar ethnic force’s leader to force them into talks with the current junta (as well as cutting off access to water, electricty to ethnic forces) ?
It seems objectively bad and goes against their supposed non-interference policy.
The editor-in-chief of this magazine is a known anti-China ghoul. Safe to take this news with an ocean full of salt until you see something reputable corroborating it
Definitely would not trust this outlet. Just some quick Googling and MHT Corporation seems really sus too
Totally not a
https://mhtcorp.com/en/history
MHT Corporation had over the years built formidable translation expertise in investor relations documents, and by 2006 it was a natural step to establish a specialist Investor Relations department dedicated to giving clients the cost, speed, and quality mix they need for effective disclosure. This department became the fastest growing area of the Company’s business.
In the last few years, we have begun online publishing, acquiring The Diplomat (www.thediplomat.com) and turning it into a highly respected foreign affairs magazine specializing in the Asia-Pacific, and CSR Magazine (www.csr-magazine.com) which offers comprehensive coverage of issues in corporate social responsibility in Japan.
Now in its 3rd decade in business, MHT Corporation remains committed to pursuing its mission of providing information services that focus particularly on globalization and accountability. Specifically, we will continue to provide services that help our clients operate successfully and responsibly in the international marketplace.
Originally from Perth, Western Australia, James Pach came to Tokyo in 1989, initially working as an “English teacher and freelance translator.” After completing a master’s degree in “finance”, James established Trans-Asia Inc. in 1994. Closely involved in all aspects of the Group’s business throughout its history, James was also the founding president of the Australia Japan Business Association.
Open hexbear
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Feb 2022
