October 3rd's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
October 4th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Just a heads up - I'm doing more prep on Wednesday as I'll be moving in the near-to-mid future, so it'll be a four-update week.
October 7th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
October 8th's update is here! TLDR? [Here's the summary.
Next thread here!
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists, for the “buh Zeleski is a jew?!?!” people.
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.
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 ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn't really need more, but:
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.
reddit is melting right now, calling for invasion of Saudi and Iran to seize their oil wells. lmao, maybe they should attempt it, then 90% of users on reddit would dissapear
Starting October 20th the CDC will no longer be reporting daily covid cases/deaths
Pandemic is over folks!
I'm seeing reddit :soypoint-1: :ukkkraine: :soypoint-2: headlines insisting that Ukraine is triumphantly pushing in north of Kherson, where surely they'll catch Putin's orcish hordes and liberate Crimea in no time.
Any insights into this? Or is this more paradox brain map obsession?
Ukraine's brand new batch of NATO armed and trained conscripts are having some reasonable success against the few troops Russia had on the ground. They found a gap in Russia's artillery dependent tactics, "go big go fast." I'm sure its costing lots of lives but it is working... for now. Looks to me like Russia underestimated how many troops were being trained in the EU and how fast they would be ready. Also I think a large number of the reddit brigade got put through proper training along side the conscripts and a bunch of PMCs showed up too. Once Russia's mobilization issues get sorted I'm sure things will turn around. It just looks bad because Russia would rather lose ground than men.
It's not like Russias historical move has always been cede land till winter comes.
Something redditors don't know about
Seeing claims that the ukrainians are pissing hard before winter. Nectar both sides will take an operational pause during the winter months 😱
Probably just gamers being gamers. Redditors are thoroughly incapable of any kind of intelligent analysis, to the point where if you just believed the opposite of what they say at any given moment you'll have a much better understanding of the world than they do
Zelensky declares Russian islands as Japanese
This gave me a laugh. How small and petty can you get?
https://i.redd.it/tmfxyktuwwr91.jpg
A BBC journalist in Ukraine pretending to be on the front lines while a local lady walks around like normal in the background
Ukraine to join Spain and Portugal’s bid for 2030 World Cup. Announcement due on Wednesday. Plan - backed by Zelensky - would be for Ukraine to host one group.
Europeans must be stopped, this is insane lol
Predictions on what kind of American tantrum happens if OPEC follows through? UAE confirmed.
The worst part of lib eagerness for nuclear war is their absolute refusal to accept the West provoked this conflict with the 2014 coup.
In their world that never even happened, so it is only sensible to resist Russias unprovoked invasion with all possible means.
Truly the most propagandized people on Earth.
I like to see how they'll pull this off, would be amazing if they able to do it, accelerating the collapse of the empire.
Ukraine ‘must revamp labour laws and step up privatisation to fix economy’
:ancap-good:
Also of note (from the article):
Rodnyansky was promoted to become chief economic adviser earlier this year after two years with the government. His father is a film producer who helped Zelenskiy become a household name as an actor.
Libs going from "Biden is saving the climate, take that tankies" to "ackshully Biden is better at oil than trump, we do more drill now than ever and that's a good this" is giving me omega whiplash
Russian Foreign Ministry: Moscow will take Zelensky's words on preventive strikes on Russia into account when taking measures to ensure Russia's nuclear deterrence and security.
Also, apparently Starlink is having issues in Ukraine, and it's causing the Ukrainians issues on the front. Either Elon's inventions don't work (extremely plausible) or he's being catty about Ukraine insulting him. Honestly, the absolute funniest thing would be Musk deciding to pull out the satellites altogether in response to Ukrainian politicians insulting him on Twitter.
Imagine if that was the interpreted reason as to why the Ukrainians lost. God, that would be so fucking funny.
They should do it, want to find out what happen after they f*ck around.
Looks like the Russian retreat from northern Kherson oblast has done much to stabilize the front there, but Ukraine remains desperate for results. The rains and the mud are also posing a barrier to advances. Could go either way.
Meanwhile, Ukraine could soon attack on the Zaporozhye front, which has been accumulating troops and equipment for the last month, maybe two. Ukraine has put much deception and secrecy into this, though the Russian information gathering appears to have overcome it. It appears to be a major site to watch in the next few days and weeks. Again, I don't know which side will falter here, but given Russia's decency to retreat at the first sign of trouble, it seems very plausible we could see a similar Ukrainian advance here and let the Russian elastic defence strategy work its magic. Hopefully they're evacuating everybody out of the area.
Ukraine has been losing incredible amounts of men and equipment, and what the Pentagon is giving them - or at least claiming to give them - is almost a hilariously tiny amount at this point. In contrast, Russia's decency to retreat before Ukraine can form cauldrons around them means that they are receiving few losses in men and equipment. Apparently up near Kherson, the Russians lost only a couple broken trucks.
My thinking, and the thinking of various commentators, is that Ukraine and the West knows that they cannot win militarily, and so are trying to win by other means. These offensives are not strategically oriented - Ukrainian reserves are being pulled from the important area of the Donetsk front, especially near Bakhmut, and instead put into other fronts. These offensives are instead trying to cause tactical victories for Ukraine - no matter the cost - that look bad for the Russian government, and Putin himself. Kherson City is kind of the crown jewel here, but we've also seen inordinate resources put in to capture places like Lyman, which are of no particular military purpose.
Zelensky's decree that he would never make peace with Putin was worded that way for a reason. He did not say he'd never make peace with Russia. What Zelensky is trying to do is cause a revolt in the upper ranks of the Russian government, or perhaps the oligarchs who have suffered from the sanctions, to get Putin out of government. Ukraine and the West cannot win the war militarily, and so are attempting to win it through other means, like regime change. Apparently - I haven't been reading them - western media is increasingly drawing from despondent Russian sources rather than their traditional Ukrainian sources, as a way of displaying how "badly" this war is going for Russia, and create panic, and thus anger, among anybody sympathetic to the West that is still in Russia.
The end result of this desperation by the West and Ukraine may be false flag nuclear strikes on Ukraine, in order to try and create divisions between Russia and their geopolitical allies. Let's all hope this war ends before they get that desperate.
OPEC cuts oil production by 2 million barrels per day. Well, that screw Brandon plan of keep releasing spr