Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are to meet over the next couple days in Moscow, with this being Xi's first international visit since being elected for his third term. Many things will be discussed there: trade between the two countries; the construction of infrastructure to facilitate that trade; the SCO; BRICS; the EAEU; and, of course, the Ukraine conflict. Russian officials have responded positively to China's 12 Points for Peace, which is not a specific peace plan for the conflict but rather a proposed set of guidelines that this conflict and future ones should follow to reduce war throughout the world. Additionally, Xi will likely talk to Zelensky, as Ukraine does not (yet) have nearly the same level of distrust and hatred towards China as the rest of the West - though one can only guess what this will accomplish.
This happens in the backdrop of Russia taking down a Reaper drone flown by the United States, with transponders off, off the coast of Crimea. If this was to gauge Russia's reaction, then America has its answer - it can choose to learn the lesson or not. This incident, and the ICC putting out an unenforcable arrest warrant for Putin (unless he wants to go to Europe or America I suppose), demonstrate the continued, tired attempts by the West to ostracize and isolate Russia and show its weakness to all. But putting the slow progress in the conflict zone aside - as the Russian economy continues to recover, and diplomatic and economic relations outside the West only improve, Russia has little to fear.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.
March 20th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
March 21st's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
March 22nd's update is here in the comments.
March 25th's update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
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. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have decent analysis. Avoid the comment section.
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. Beware of chuddery.
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 journalist reporting in the warzone.
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 still quite reactionary in terms of gender and sexuality and race, so beware). 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 ~ Another 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's army.
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.
Putin to Xi: “We (Russia) are even a little jealous of you (China) when it comes to China establishing a very effective system of economy and state empowerment, much more effective than many other nations.”
:agony-shivering: BRING BACK SOCIALISM THEN YOU COWARD
Donald trump unlikely to be arrested
Yeah, no fucking shit
:data-laughing:
God the tiktok hearing right now is so insufferable holy fucking shit.
You can watch it live here.Questioning has now concluded.Some of the line of questioning highlights:
Does TikTok support genocide?
You don’t get to invoke the name of Texas–
Can tiktok access my home Wi-Fi network?
Are TikTok’s servers run by the Chinese Communist Party?
How many Tiktok employees are members of the Chinese Communist Party?
Dan Crenshaw: “Mr. Chew do you agree that TikTok is controlled by the CCP?” Are you, Mr. Chew, required to answer to the CCP in accordance to the 2017 National Security act?”
Mr. Shou Chew: “No, I am Singaporean”
We didn’t get evidence that the CCP controls TikTok, but we didn’t get evidence that the CCP couldn’t control TikTok.
Are there engineers in mainland China who work on TikTok?
Does TikTok promote content that elicits pupil dilation by accessing your phones front camera?
This gem is so fucking funny I don’t even want to quote it, you have to watch it
When will I get paid by TikTok for the data it gets from my children, my grandchildren, and my neighbors?
In summary, I will end with a quote from Mao Ning, a spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry:
“As the world’s most powerful country, the U.S. needs to be more self-confident instead of being so afraid of an app loved by young people”
Genuinely hilarious that 150 million Americans use this app and are completely aware that the government is trying to censor them right now just for having fun.
The grand jury hearing that was meant to indict Trump today got postponed.
:shocked-pikachu:
US Fears a War-Weary World May Embrace China’s Ukraine Peace Bid from Bloomberg
How do you make a headlines like this without seeing anything wrong with it?
Listening to how the news is framing the Iraq War is just... ugh.
"No WMDs were found, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died, but we did get rid of Saddam!":dean-smile:
At one point they're talking about how Iraq is safe enough for American tourists, what the fuck?:kombucha-disgust:
Hold on a second, so an Iranian-backed proxy group attacking American nationals in Syria justifies US military reprisal? Then I wonder what was happening in the Donbas in the 8 years between Euromaidan and the war. Nothing, I’m sure, and Putler just decided to invade out of the blue, right?
If we allow China to broker peace in Ukraine we risk millions of people being saved which will anger Mammon and it will sink t he USA into the sea. We cannot allow this happen, we must send a clear message to PUTIN that the USA will continue arming fascists and making sure innocent lives get slaughtered.
It's pretty disgusting seeing how the Gusanos were treating the Cuban baseball team with protest banners and throwing food at the Cuban reps. Miami gusanos are absolute scum who loathe their own people while talking about how "latino" they are to their white friends for exotic points.
The UK is sending depleted uranium rounds to Ukraine :agony-acid:
The news Megathread has officially been unpinned and there is no more news. Goodnight comrades
Reuters: Kremlin says talks between Putin and Xi still ongoing - reports
Talks have been going on for over four hours now :rust-darkness:
Six hours now! They might just be role playing a hoi4 sim re:Ukraine
