An image of the wildfires in Rhodes, taken on July 23rd, showing the flames and the plume of smoke.
Greece, in late July, faced a heatwave in which over 8 million people experienced temperatures about 41C, with some areas reaching above 45C - all in all, both the longest heatwave in Greek history, as well as some of the highest temperatures on record.
Due to these high temperatures, Greece was then struck by hundreds of wildfires this summer, affecting nearly 200,000 hectares. About half of the total burned area was in the north-east of Greece, in the Dadia national park near the city of Alexandropoulis - the single largest blaze that the EU has recorded. Other parts of the country were also struck, such as Attica, Magnesia, and islands like Corfu and particularly Rhodes; the last one prompted an evacuation of 20,000 people, the largest evacuation operation the island had ever seen. Of course, this is just one country of many that have been caught in the European wildfires this year, of which the total burned area approached 500,000 hectares - the only consolation is that this was less than last year.
Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkiye were impacted in early September by flooding caused by massive storms bringing a deluge of water - in Greece, this mainly impacted Thessaly, in the centre of Greece.
Luckily for Greece, despite being a very earthquake-prone country, they have experienced no significant quakes lately to round out the four (I hope I haven’t jinxed it) - though, of course, earlier this year, a major earthquake struck nearby Turkiye, killing 60,000 people and injuring 120,000.
The Country of the Week is Greece! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week’s update is here!
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week’s discussion post.
Very sad news from Iraq. Noor BM, who is perhaps the most famous trans woman in Iraq, has been sadly killed in the street by some nutcase delivery driver who was carrying a gun. Noor’s birth name was Mohammed Noor, but she later adopted the name Noor BM after coming out. The backlash against her was quite harsh in the beginning, which forced her into dark circles associated with prostitution and organized crime. Despite all the darkness, she still had some loyal followers and many people supported her and asked people to leave her alone. Everything had calmed down recently and Noor managed to live a relatively normal life, making money from TikTok Live and stuff like that. The way her life tragically ended today so suddenly is really sad, most young people in Iraq are mourning her on social media.
R.I.P Noor 2000 - 2023
Why include her dead name? Did she still use it? Anyway rest in peace, Noor.
She used to sometimes use it on her streams to remind people of her past identity. Lots of transphobes tried to shame her by saying that she’s going to hell because she’s named Mohammed and has now sinned by transitioning. So she used to say fuck it, yeah I’m Mohammed and that’s the name on my ID card. Trans culture in the Arab World is also quite different, the concept of deadnames and new names isn’t as prevalent, many trans people use variation of their birth name or adopt a “celebrity” name while keeping their birth name in an official capacity despite being able to change it.
Always fascinated by the differences in concepts of gender for different cultures.
RIP
Hello from Damascus, Syria. Still working under my faithful Turkish VPN. Visited Aleppo and Homs in the last two days, which has to be the most traumatic experience of my life. What happened to this country is a tragedy, and honestly Bashar Al Assad despite all the Lion memes that we like, was responsible for a large portion of the crimes here. The scale of the destruction and suffering is just crazy, entire neighbourhoods have been obliterated from the fighting and the bombings. A relative of mine lives in an Aleppo suburb and I visited her while I was there. Her house is still half rubble, which she has “sectioned off” with rags and old wood, so that the kids don’t wander there. She lost one son who was out protesting the government in 2011/2012, and then got arrested and tortured to death by the government. Another son got drafted in the SAA and got wounded in the Aleppo battle in 2016, he still can barely walk and gets something like 30$ a month from the government as a pension. Her youngest son managed to escape to Germany via Turkey. Just pure despair from all angles. She made us delicious warak anab though. Full trip report coming next week when I’m back in Beirut, I need a few days to gather my thoughts first.
what pisses me off about this whole canada thing is that there are still plenty of living ukrainian ww2 verterans who fought AGAINST the nazis. But no, they had to dig out this fucking worm to give applause to
Yeah. I saw a Canadian WW2 veteran respond to this whole thing on Twitter, and suffice to say he was pissed.
Link pls
I should’ve saved the damn link, because now I can’t seem to find it anymore.
I was browsing Twitter earlier when I spotted it. I’m sorry, comrade.
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Everything about this pisses me off. Why is this nazi asshole alive to begin with the main thing. Then the fact our deputy pm who knew exactly what she was clapping for. Then the garbage cons using this as an attack even though it was unanimous as far as I can tell
It’s incredibly annoying to see a lot of radlib spheres treating the whole Canadian parliament applauding an SS war criminal shit as some act of innocent naivety when it’s pretty fucking obvious what side someone who fought the Soviet Union in WW2 was on.
If there’s a nazi in your parliament and 338 members give a standing ovation to them there’s 339 nazis in your parliament.
good news everyone! the sole person responsible for inviting and praising the nazi has resigned. Now please move on and stop talking about this there’s nothing else that needs to be done.
Is the West purposefully setting up the conditions for the rise of the far right in Europe? The parallels between now and 100 years ago are mind blowing. Destroying Germany’s economy while the AfD is on the rise. Dog piling on Russia. Media openly praising literal Nazis. Ala Adolph Hitler, Time’s man of the Year.
Or is it ignorance? Hubris?
Yo remember NordStream? Kinda wild how the thing suddenly exploded (😱) and nobody spoke about it again
I hate it when my critical energy infrastructure is suddenly destroyed by a force unknown smh my head
the craziest part is how western media eventually put the blame on zaluzhny and then they just kept doing interviews and fawning profiles on him like nothing ever happened. Isn’t this the guy who, accroding to you, blew up germany’s critical infrastructure? Why aren’t you asking him about it?
Yeah still scratching my head over why
would blow up his own pipeline. Some real 5D chess stuff.Here’s the thing bucko: the CIA said to Ukraine please don’t blow up the pipeline. Pretty please. They knew about it and asked Ukraine not to do it.
But then! Then some rogue Ukrainian agents got in a dinghy with their special forces equipment they somehow found lying around in the cupboard, and they decided to blow it up. Even though the CIA knew about the plans, no one could have expected this!
So this is a tough situation. Clearly no one is responsible. These were rogue agents. And we know this story is true because anonymous CIA sources told the Washington Post. Why would they lie? They have nothing to gain by lying! Unlike that liar tankie Hersh who based his completely fabricated story on anonymous sources, just to further his career! Shameless grifter.
Anywaay, Putler must lose, so it’s best to forget about it. Donate to Ukraine while you can. Freedom must prevail. Slava geroyam
Seymour Hersh read this comment
Does Zelensky do anything other than throw whiny tantrums, beg for money, and pimp himself out on photoshoots for the Nazi clothing brand as le epic anti-Russian democracy warrior?
He’s completely indistinguishable from the thousands of other corrupt bureaucrat compradors, except that he lucked into being the MSM precious baby darling who can do no wrong and is literally Harry Potter.
Liberals are the most brainwashed people on earth. Tyranny is when you don’t let fascist death squads roam around freely, freedom is when you ban all opposition parties and suspend elections.
The first main point is Zelensky’s own personal weakness, he originally wasn’t part of the Nazi shit, in fact the opposite he was “pro-Russian” therefore it is not like they have any particular allegiance to him, the whole “but he is Jewish” thing is a deliberate point
That lovely video and that famous interview @1:33 and where this point is made.
The second main point is its not about what he does but the political power he got as libs only representation of Ukraine. He was at the right place at the right time and now they can’t replace him easily, for many normal people Ukraine is Zelensky. The same shirt from 18 months ago is not a coincidence I guess.
Finaly the Ukrainian government is filled with Nazis and if given outright control of it by someone even more unhinged they would say things even western media would have trouble making excuses for.
I mention Podolyak so many times, “office to the president” is a meaningless bureaucratic job I’m sure, but it is still absolutely true he is allowed to talk freely like he does because to some extent his words are low impact and don’t reach western ears, he says all this to Ukrainian nationalist ears, as a means to make it clear to them Ukraine is not under some western leftist woke agenda, to constantly reassure the Nazis that the core ideology of the government is still intact.
But imagine Podolyak as president constantly giving interviews about imprisoning and expelling everyone from Crimea? Nah even the MSM can’t handle that because you know, democracy and shit. It is pathetic but right now I imagine Zelensky is perhaps the least publicaly unhinged fuck in that government.
I think one of the other reasons to not hold elections is the quantity of nazi shit that would be spewed in those elections.
Literally every single sus and horrific thing said in these elections will be broadcast globally and none of it would make Ukraine look good. It would also allow us to quantify the scale of the nazi problem in Ukraine, when we can reel off every political party and what horrific shit they say in the election we can literally put them each into camps on a varying scale of nazi-like things stated by the different parties. This would then quantify things in a way that would be very hard for people to ignore internationally.
He was at the right place at the right time and now they can’t replace him easily, for many normal people Ukraine is Zelensky.
Foucault’s great-man boomerang
Zelensky was literally an actor and comedian before becoming president. Had his own TV show and used that to get elected on a populist, pretty generic “anti-corruption” platform. He never seemed like a particularly clever or even political guy, relying more on his photogenic charm and name recognition to get elected. All the politicians in the country being blatantly corrupt scoundrels helped his popularity too. He’s is a lot like Trump is these regards actually- something I doubt the liberals who support him would ever recognize or admit just because he’s their media darling (much like trump is for the right wing)
When it comes to this war, I think touring the western states begging for more aid and doing photoshoots is what he is best at, so the Ukrainian nationalists are squeezing him and the west for all he’s got. His whole election was based on him being an “outsider”, so I bet he’s now getting pushed around by the “insiders” during this war and he’s in way over his head by now. I certainly can’t imagine him seriously strategizing alongside the generals or even making key staff appointments and changes. The military and far-right militias probably just tell him what they’re going to be doing and then orders him to go back to Denmark to loot more of their social services budget.
I think it’s great that pretty much every major and relevant power, supernational or regional, is treating the expulsion of 120,000 people by the Azerbaijani government with the threat of violence for not doing so (as textbook ethnic cleansing as it comes) with little more than some fetid hand waving. Truly amazing.
Claims of genocide are outrage bait for hitting geopolitical rivals, not actual events to be acted on and prevented.
This is the end result of dilution of the word to meaningless dribble.
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#EUValues
Wow Zelensky met another geriatric war criminal in the span of a week. What a run! What. a. run. Hoo-boy. I wonder who’s the next mass murderer he’s gonna meet. What a truly great democrat he is. A true role model with impeccable ethical standards.
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Lol weren’t
mad at the ghoul for calling out how dumb this whole project has been?Yeah but apperently now that the die is cast and the war is underway, Kissinger thinks Ukraine should join NATO or something.
So Kissinger thinks that USA made a mistake pre-2022, but now they must go forward. He’s clearly a galaxy-brain genius.
Here’s hoping all these high level important ideas strain something and induce a stroke
Do you know how hard it is to get a 98 year old anywhere? It took a concerted effort for the cretins in Canadian parliament to find a geriatric pre-flood nephilim of racism and parade him around as a freedom fighter. These liberal meritocrats, who justify their positions with elite academic credentials, somehow “made a mistake” in finding this guy?
Either they’re ideological fellow travelers with nazism or they’re too ignorant to google “first galician”, maybe it’s a mix of both. Either way these people are supremely unfit to rule.
You don’t even have to Google you just have to think for 5 seconds about who it was that was fighting against the USSR in WW2.
You mean it’s hard to find someone 18 years older than the president of the United States?
18 years older than the oldest president in united states history
They’re both so old, they could’ve met veterans of the American Civil war, or even bleeding kansas.
Considering that there are at least 2 Ukrainian SS monuments in my province that I know of, I have to assume they knew.
No mistake. They just overestimated how much the manufactured consent has prepared the general population for the open glorification of out-and-proud fascists at this point in time. They keep trying, and keep getting blowback. So they’ll do a little more “poor lil’ Ukraine can’t defend themselves without their proud neo-Nazis” and then try again after a few more waves of glorifying their proxy and whitewashing its history (both recent and not-so-recent). It doesn’t bother them to be wrong, because it’s just a wave of media criticism and then back to business-as-usual. And sooner or later, they’ll be correct about how far the propaganda has pushed things, and they won’t even get the blowback.
Moon Of Alabama has found this gem of a sentence from the US regime-affiliated think tank ISW:
Putin may have ordered the Russian military command to hold all Russia’s initial defensive positions to create the illusion that Ukrainian counteroffensives have not achieved any tactical or operational effects despite substantial Western support.
What a devious propaganda technique, winning just to give people the idea that you are winning.
Ukraine’s democracy is facing a wartime election test
Russia and Ukraine are both supposed to hold presidential elections next March. Autocratic Russia will go ahead. But for democratic Ukraine, under constant threat of Russian attack and constrained by martial law, it is a lot more complicated. Parliamentary elections due next month have already, in effect, been cancelled.
I do wonder if even the slightest hint of cognitive dissonance hits these people’s brains when they say “Democratic Ukraine isn’t having elections, while autocratic Russia is”
Elections: autocracy
No elections: democracy
reminds me of how the first National Assembly of the “democratically governed” “Taiwan” lasted from 1947 to 1991
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There are currently 9 parties with seats in the National Peoples’ Congress according to NATOpedia
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There’s no need to have elections anyways as all the opposition parties has been banned. Going through with elections now would be a waste of taxpayer hryvnia.
It’d be kind of like every single election in the U.S., in fact.
Within a couple of months in 2022 Ukraine went from a slightly radioactive slush fund occasionally seen in VICE documentaries about nazi paramilitaries to a load bearing pillar of every single liberal party west of the black sea.
I had assumed early on that the liberal apparatchiks were just cynical ghouls who didn’t really believe in anything they were saying, but this really seems like something different.
The decision to dredge up and applaud SS criminals as Ukrainian freedom fighters and publicly engage in crackpot holocaust revisionism is the geopolitics equivalent of calling someone the n word because they’re beating you in a video game. Ukraine’s failure to deliver anything that could conceivably be called a victory has wounded people who normally seem bloodless.
