Image from this article - and much of this thread's preamble adapted from it.

After the most recent failure of Lockheed Martin's ARRW project, which sought to be America's first true hypersonic weapon, the missile prototype is being abandoned. One reason for its failure might have been its unnecessary complication, with many subsystems and thus many points of failure. Another factor may be that these projects are being rushed as China and Russia's advantage grows in this field.

The other hypersonic missile being developed under the USAF is the HACM, which uses a different concept, and is smaller, allowing it to be carried by more types of aircraft. The Department of Defense has chosen the Australia-based company Hypersonix to develop these hypersonic weapons, which could reach Mach 7. The AUKUS alliance thus becomes an even more important one for the United States, with Australia both being a potential source of their first hypersonic missiles, and being a vassal country in the Pacific from which the American Empire can attempt to contain China.

In the meantime, American copium continues to grow over how hypersonic missiles really aren't THAT important, and how Russian ones don't even work as they increasingly batter Ukraine. At the same time, Russian development and production of their existing hypersonic missiles (the Kinzhal, Zircon, and Avangard) continues to accelerate. And that's not even mentioning China's hypersonic missiles, a large advantage against the US's aircraft carrier fleet in the event of a war.


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.

April 3rd's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

April 5th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

April 7th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

April 8th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.

Links and Stuff

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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.


  • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    @SeventyTwoTrillion any considertaion on trying out ChatGPT for creating summaries? I'll post today's Mercouris update below, using this chrome extension and with GPT-4.

    Ongoing War in Ukraine and Russian advances in Bakhmut

    The video examines the continuing conflict in Ukraine, with Russian forces making significant progress in their campaign. Notably, they have captured around 90% of Bakhmut, a strategic location in the conflict. Although some sources initially denied this claim, subsequent reports have confirmed the substantial Russian advances. It is speculated that the Ukrainian forces have come to terms with the likely loss of Bakhmut and are now focusing on a rear-guard operation to facilitate the withdrawal of their forces from the town.

    Ukraine's ammunition shortage and efforts to secure artillery shells

    The Washington Post has reported on Ukraine's dire ammunition shortage, particularly for its Soviet-era guns. The country is now struggling to produce makeshift bombs and limit their ammunition usage, even as the conflict intensifies. The Ukrainian Defense Minister, Alexei Reznikov, has been visiting countries in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean, such as Bulgaria, Greece, and Cyprus, in an attempt to secure artillery shells. However, the success of these efforts remains uncertain, with concerns about the timing and effectiveness of any potential aid.

    Controversy surrounding the "six guys in a boat" story

    The video discusses the controversy surrounding the "six guys in a boat" story, which emerged as a counter-narrative to Seymour Hersh's account of events. Critics argue that this story was an exercise in disinformation, intended to discredit Hersh's reporting. Despite the lack of public denials from key figures like National Security Advisor Sullivan and CIA Director Burns, questions persist about the credibility of the "six guys in a boat" story.

    European leaders' visits to China and Macron's alleged betrayal of the US

    French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders have been visiting China to strengthen ties and attempt to sway China's stance on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. However, Macron's visit has been met with mixed reactions, with some accusing him of betraying the US by cozying up to China. Despite positive coverage in Chinese media, Macron's visit has not yielded significant results, leaving both Chinese and Western observers dissatisfied.

    Russia's budget deficit and economic concerns

    The video touches upon Russia's budget deficit, which has garnered attention in recent times. The deficit may be attributed to accelerated spending in January and February, while Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has mentioned the possibility of a budget surplus in March. However, the video suggests that concerns about Russia's budget deficit may be overblown, as the country has the means to counterbalance the situation by adjusting its currency exchange rate and other financial measures.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
      hexagon
      M
      ·
      1 year ago

      Absurdly (concerningly?) good timing. Here's my summary I just finished of Mercouris video, for comparison:

      Today's Mercouris video: Russia Holds 90% Bakhmut, Sweden Refutes 6 Guys in Boat NS Claim, Macron Accused of Betraying US

      Obviously, yesterday's Readovka report was exaggerating, and Bakhmut has not been totally captured by Russia yet - though even Ukrainian channels admit that Russia holds 90% of the town.

      WaPo has said that Ukrainian artillery ammo is running so low now that Ukraine is having to use alternatives, even makeshift devices and bombs to replace them. The Ukrainian defense minister is running around in the Balkans and eastern Mediterranean (Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, etc) hunting for artillery shells.

      Mercouris talks again about the leaked documents, and notes that while the US clearly have a good amount of information about the Russian military, and obviously they have some advance information about Russian strikes and offensives and such, a lot of their intelligence appears to be either be open source information that we already knew about, or polluted by propaganda and spin (e.g. saying that Russia has failed because it hasn't taken much territory over the winter, when not a single Russian official even hinted that they would try a winter offensive and Surovikin even explicitly said they would conduct a grinding war). Therefore, assuming the documents are real, then either this is some deeper level propaganda campaign, or, concerningly (for Ukraine, not for Russia), America actually believes their own lies about Russia.

      The Swedes have concluded that the Nord Stream bombing was a state operation and not the result of Six Guys In A Boat, so the story is now dead and we can safely conclude that it was American disinformation in order to attempt to counter Hersh's story, as even the Europeans don't appear to buy it anymore.

      Slovakia is saying that they can't supply their Mig-29s to Ukraine because they've been sabotaged by Russian technicians. Therefore, we can conclude that either that Slovakia has already covertly sent their planes and don't have them anymore, or their planes are in shitty condition, and need a cover story,

      Ukraine has launched a missile/drone strike on a town in Crimea, and the missile/drone was shot down. Perhaps Ukraine is testing its technology, or trying to locate where Russian anti-air equipment is.

      Ukraine's commander of air defense has said that the Russians are increasingly using long-range precision-guided glide bombs, with weights 500kg and 1500kg, with devastating impact on Ukrainian positions - and that Ukraine cannot intercept them, and the only way to stop them is to shoot down Russian planes with F-16s.

      The battle of narratives over the EU-China meeting continues: China seems determine to put a positive spin on it, saying how much they agreed etc, whereas the Western media is very angry with Macron for betraying the US, with authors also taking shots at German reliance on China too. However, it seems like the Chinese leadership were really not very pleased with Macron despite the Chinese media's spin given Macron's hostile comments, so Macron has tried to play both sides and has basically pissed everybody off, as he returns to a France that is both figuratively and literally on fire. It takes a great deal of skill to pursue an independent foreign policy that doesn't make at least one side angry if not both, and Macron does not have that skill. Meanwhile, Germany's Baerbock is on her way to China, as are further European officials, as the US sends its vassals to try and change China's mind on Russia, and they will all, of course, fail.

      The Russian economy continues to look fairly stable and positive, and the ruble has been allowed to fall to ~80 rubles to the dollar as demand in Russia recovers, which is a longstanding Russian policy despite some panic (or hope, in the West) about it.

      • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        This is a better read by like 20%. I suppose the question is, would the proof reading - input editing -reproofing, take as long as typing up your TLDR?

        • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
          hexagon
          M
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I'll try it tomorrow.

          As I'm not transcribing his words, I don't often need to pause (though sometimes he rattles off a bunch of facts in a row and I need to take it slower) so it doesn't take significantly longer to write than the actual video length. And I usually multitask while doing it.

          I'm a little more interested to see if its summarization would be useful for the update posts. Right now I don't think I can use it to speed up going through the articles due to the hallucinations it has, so any information it displays, I would need to independently confirm is real, so I still need to go through the articles, and the time save that it could offer would probably be like, less than 1%.

          But given I already know the material and know when it's bullshitting and can fix it, it could be nice for summarization in general.

    • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is a second version with the prompt "Rewrite, expand a bit more on each topic, try to add quotes from transcript when appropriate."

      Ongoing War in Ukraine and Russian advances in Bakhmut

      The video examines the continuing conflict in Ukraine, with Russian forces making significant progress in their campaign. Notably, they have captured around 90% of Bakhmut, a strategic location in the conflict. Although some sources initially denied this claim, subsequent reports have confirmed the substantial Russian advances. For instance, a Ukrainian Channel conceded that "Ukraine now only controls 10 percent of the town," implying that the Russians effectively control about 90% of Bakhmut. It is speculated that the Ukrainian forces have come to terms with the likely loss of Bakhmut, with even General Sivok possibly admitting as much to President Zelensky. The Ukrainian forces may now be focusing on a rear-guard operation to facilitate the withdrawal of their forces from the town.

      Ukraine's ammunition shortage and efforts to secure artillery shells

      The Washington Post has reported on Ukraine's dire ammunition shortage, particularly for its Soviet-era guns. The country is now struggling to produce makeshift bombs and limit their ammunition usage, even as the conflict intensifies. The Ukrainian Defense Minister, Alexei Reznikov, has been visiting countries in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean, such as Bulgaria, Greece, and Cyprus, in an attempt to secure artillery shells. However, the success of these efforts remains uncertain, with concerns about the timing and effectiveness of any potential aid. The video's speaker notes the surprising nature of Reznikov's trips, saying, "I do find it really rather difficult to understand how the defense minister of Ukraine on the eve of the Ukrainian offensive is still running around small countries in the eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans asking for shells."

      Controversy surrounding the "six guys in a boat" story

      The video discusses the controversy surrounding the "six guys in a boat" story, which emerged as a counter-narrative to Seymour Hersh's account of events. Critics argue that this story was an exercise in disinformation, intended to discredit Hersh's reporting. Despite the lack of public denials from key figures like National Security Advisor Sullivan and CIA Director Burns, questions persist about the credibility of the "six guys in a boat" story. The video's speaker emphasizes the absence of direct statements from these officials, stating, "Sullivan and CIA director Burns, none of them has come forward and personally denied that they were in fact involved and has said themselves that this account of what happened by Seymour Hirsch is untrue."

      European leaders' visits to China and Macron's alleged betrayal of the US

      French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders have been visiting China to strengthen ties and attempt to sway China's stance on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. However, Macron's visit has been met with mixed reactions, with some accusing him of betraying the US by cozying up to China. Despite positive coverage in Chinese media, Macron's visit has not yielded significant results, leaving both Chinese and Western observers dissatisfied. The video's speaker highlights the contrasting media portrayals, saying, "it's fascinating to see the contrast between the way in which the Chinese media is covering this visit by Macron...and the very negative reaction that there's now increasingly been about this trip in the West."

      Russia's budget deficit and economic concerns

      The video touches upon Russia's budget deficit, which has garnered attention in recent times. The deficit may be attributed to accelerated spending in January and February, while Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has mentioned the possibility of a budget surplus in March. However, the video suggests that concerns about Russia's budget deficit may be overblown, as the country has the means to counterbalance the situation by adjusting its currency exchange rate and other financial measures. The speaker in the video downplays the significance of the budget deficit, stating, "I think it's important to say that the Russians have the resources to deal with this situation. They have a very strong fiscal position. They can adjust their exchange rate if they need to."

      China's decision to cut reserve requirement ratios (RRR)

      The video also discusses China's recent decision to cut reserve requirement ratios (RRR) for banks, in an effort to stimulate economic growth. By reducing the RRR, banks are now able to lend more money, which could help alleviate economic concerns in the country. While this move indicates that China is trying to address the economic slowdown, it also signifies that the country may be experiencing more significant economic problems than previously thought. The video's speaker notes, "the fact that the Chinese have had to do this, does suggest that their economy is perhaps in a more fragile state than people realize."

      In conclusion, the video covers a wide range of topics, including the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, efforts to secure artillery shells for Ukraine's military, the controversy surrounding the "six guys in a boat" story, European leaders' visits to China, Russia's budget deficit, and China's decision to cut reserve requirement ratios for banks. Each of these topics sheds light on the complex and interconnected nature of international politics and economics.

      • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
        hexagon
        M
        ·
        1 year ago

        This is a bit better; I think if I used this then I would have to go through and change inaccuracies anyway.

        China’s decision to cut reserve requirement ratios (RRR)

        The video also discusses China’s recent decision to cut reserve requirement ratios (RRR) for banks, in an effort to stimulate economic growth. By reducing the RRR, banks are now able to lend more money, which could help alleviate economic concerns in the country. While this move indicates that China is trying to address the economic slowdown, it also signifies that the country may be experiencing more significant economic problems than previously thought. The video’s speaker notes, “the fact that the Chinese have had to do this, does suggest that their economy is perhaps in a more fragile state than people realize.”

        This is never mentioned in the video, I skimmed through the transcript to confirm it. News on China cutting RRR dates back to mid-March, so I have absolutely no idea what the AI is talking about.

        • ElHexo [comrade/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Bloody lib brained AI

          The weighted average RRR for financial institutions stood at around 7.6% after the cut, the central bank said.

          For comparison, the EU is like 2 percent and the US hit zero in 2020

        • MoreAmphibians [none/use name]
          ·
          1 year ago

          It's something that they were statistically likely to talk about (based on the words and phrases used on the transcript) so GPT added it in based on statistical vibes. The technical term for when an AI starts bullshiting and vibing like this is a hallucination.

    • Shoegazer [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Does it also auto generate the transcript via audio? Or does it use the default youtube one with a ton of errors?