Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.
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.
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The bulletins site is here!
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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.
With the numbers of infantry, tanks, armored vehicles and drones sent into Kursk this appears it might be an all-in offensive from Ukraine. Everywhere in Donbas has stopped getting reinforcements and is collapsing at an increasing rate. This is Ukraine’s “2024 summer offensive” and this time they were smart enough to not brag about it loudly in the media for months.
More and more reinforcements are being sent into the Kursk breach and once it’s eventually stemmed and cleaned up Ukraine is going to be in an extremely weak position.
However this will be very damaging for Putin’s reputation and was a major intelligence failure. I even heard reports the Russians saw Ukrainian build-ups and hesitated to strike for some reason, major fuck up
I do have to respect it in a way. I might be misremembering but about this time last year, I think I was talking about how the Ukrainian offensive against Zaporozhye was futile and how Ukraine should instead try something incredibly audacious to try and shock the Russians into some sort of sudden peace, such as attacking Russian territory directly. If Ukraine was doing the current offensive with the resources they had in 2023, then maybe it would get somewhere - not Voronezh, not even Kursk (city) necessarily, but y'know, briefly occupying an appreciable fraction of an oblast would be a shock. As it stands now, I don't predict Ukraine making much more substantial progress even without Russia's extensive fortifications that they built up in Zaporozhye.
it's still an idiotic decision, but I feel like it's the least idiotic decision they could have made if they didn't want to just surrender.
idk, I feel like the Ukrainian hope is that the Russian generals will panic and sue for peace before the offensive can be beaten back and their position made considerably worse by all the equipment used, but if there's one thing that the Russian general staff has not once done in this war, it is panic. They are admirably, unnervingly, frustratingly calm about everything that happens, even during the worst days of Kharkov in September 2022, and take their time to formulate the proper response. The Russian telegrammers are probably shitting their pants about how Zelensky will be touring Moscow by December, but they don't matter. I feel like Russia could honestly lose the entire Kursk oblast and the response from Putin would just be a "yeah, we're keeping track of that too, all the war aims will be achieved" yada yada, and we're not even 1% of the way towards that.
If this is the All in, Last Hurrah, Hail Mary, move which will lead to ukraine capitulating would it not make sense to pretend they didn't know? Russia's strikes on the build up of the 2023 offensive delayed it by months and in that time they were reinforced and reequipped and got valuable on the job training.
By making the initial punch through the border look easy ukraine gets excited and pushes deep really fast. They spread themselves out with no defensive positions which is way quicker and easier to deal with than if they were holding out in a dozen towns in Ukraine. Russia's goal is to destroy ukraine's army.
This isn't going to turn Russians against the war, even if it does make them a little disappointed in the military and Putin, they will mostly just forgive it as a mistake and those happen in war. Maybe it'll lead to Russia declaring war formally and striking zelensky directly so that negotiations with his successor can take place. Maybe it's a "pearl harbor" to convince Russians that going all in is in their best interest.
Man if the Russians manage to turn it around the same way the Soviets turned around Stalingrad of would be actually cool.