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.
The Country of the Week is Iraq! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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.
Ukraine failed to take Sudzha, and is now actively being pushed out of Kursk.
So ultimately, all they got were a bunch of villages, just like with last year's epic counteroffensive.
I don't know why anyone was even dooming over this.
you can get 30 kilometers into Russia and still be more-or-less on the border; there literally is no country on Earth where mere territorial gains matter less. whereas 30 kilometers into Israel from the north is like half of northern Israel
said it before: if Ukraine had tried this with their 2023 counteroffensive force then it might have achieved something, but that was already a farce of their 2022 army, which was itself a farce of a powerful state army. now we're on a farce of a farce of a farce.
there's also this weirdly psychopolitical aspect of this war (you hear this a lot with the whole "Putin is HUMILIATED by this") which is just about all the Ukraine side has at this point tbh
Nazis and losing the battle of Kursk, name a more ironic duo
The dooming over this was getting annoying. I'm glad people were pushing back on it and reminding everyone to breath and also think about it for more than the five seconds it takes for whatever odd impulse response was forming with some.
Yes, I was somehow dooming myself. I blame the good folks on this here website, you all posted stuff like how it's an embarassment for le Putin and it's conceivable that Ukraine might seize a much larger chunk of Russia and so on.
Anyway I think I can tell my grandkids how I experienced the Ukrainian Battle of the Bulge attempt, and they'll ask "Why did they do this? In Kursk? Didn't Napoleon lose Army Group Center in Kursk back in 1844? Why did nobody learn and hasten peace negotiations after that"
First comment under each of those posts was usually a more sober 'the Kursk offensive will change nothing' though.
The desire to go back to brunch is strong. Especially with the people who are somehow still bothsiding this.
Damn, it turned out it's actually super hard to hold Russian territory. Wow, there has never been historical precedent for that happening ever. Russia was never invaded by the Swedes, the French, or the Germans.
No, history is over now. Materialism is dead. The old rules no longer apply. We have the internet, cell phones, and reddit upvotes. It's uncharted territory
But surely Kursk in particular is an easy place to breach and hold
If history is a guide then the next “turtle tank” type innovation we’re going to see is a T90 with a steamroller attachment on the front
Doomers are humiliated. They're embarrassed.
it was obvious they will be pushed back sooner or later. what made people scratch their head was russian losses on defense
I dont think they even did that.