Links and Stuff
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Yesterday's discussion post.
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"Oh no, now that we have no leverage to bargain with Russia won't accept any of our peace treaties :["
I saw macron propose what is essentially Minsk 2. If only that was on the table before the war….
Ukraine really wishin they had abided by Minsk 2 right about now
Who seriously believes Russia would be content with going back to Minsk 2 by now? They would need something much more radical at this point.
Suggesting Minsk 2 at this point in time seems more like a way to score a propaganda victory by saying "look, those evil warlike Russians wouldn't accept our very sensible and diplomatic peace offer" than a serious attempt at making peace.
Honestly I think if the peace deal was all-encompassing about the security relationship between Europe, Russia, and the USA you probably could get close to it. But I agree it’s hard to see Russia making big concessions if the peace deal is limited to the immediate conflict.
I don't see what would compel the US to make a comprehensive security deal with Russia. Such a deal would expose their declining power and limit their expansion.
IMO as just another armchair geopolitician who doesn’t really know anything, that will come down to public opinion more than military reality.
If Ukraine collapses then that’s a humiliation for the USA. They will step in to prevent that and make concessions. But I think a total collapse of Ukrainian forces is unlikely (my estimation.)
Or let’s say something crazy like Zelenskiy goes on a rant about being betrayed by the west, kind of a fantasy since he is totally dependent on the west so he’s unlikely to bite at them but it’s at least conceivable his frustration at Ukrainians dying to achieve US geopolitical goals might get to him. He has real star power in the west and that gives him political leverage. If he threatened a Biden or BoJo re-election he would get big concessions from them.
Neither of these seem likely to me but it’s within the world of the plausible.
Tik tokers don’t control foreign policy
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Guess it depends on whether Zelensky will come to the table with any amount of sensibility this time. Crimea and Donbass is lost forever to him, so that's a minimum. Not sure if Russia is gonna give back Kherson, nor Zapor. oblast. So maybe the deal is: Russia withdraws from Kharkiv, doesn't attack Zapor. city, doesn't advance in Mykolaiv, and in return, Ukraine recognizes current Russian gains, doesn't join NATO, doesn't join the EU (as I think Russia recently changed tack on that), has security guarantees in which Russia has a veto. Not sure if either Russia nor Ukraine will be happy with that deal but the time to make diplomacy is when Ukraine had concrete leverage, and that was a month or so ago. Given that their economy is almost irreversibly fucked, I'm not sure what else they could do.