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
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.
Just saw my landlord while I was taking out the trash and he sparked up a conversation
“Can you believe they’re arresting Trump? Next they’re going to come for people like you and me.”
Buddy, we do not represent the same group of people who would be arrested en masse in any possible scenario
i love the Hexbear Bulletin crew, seriously i'm so grateful for the education I get every single time I open this page. What a precious resource you all are. sometimes I look at the 67 upvotes or so on these posts and imagine the individuals behind each one, and wonder what it would be like if we were all in a room discussing such things in person! isn't that a funny thought?
The Department of Defense has chosen the Australia-based company Hypersonix to develop these hypersonic weapons, which could reach Mach 7.
Speaks volumes that the Pentagon reckon a ln Australian company with like 30 staff are more likely to produce something useable then the usual suspects of their military industry
Lol how much of this deal was made because Australia wanted something in return for buying nuclear subs that won’t be delivered for 20 years
It's almost as if blindly giving away billions to arms contractors who answer primarily to shareholders is a bad idea if you actually want to devlop anything:shocked-pikachu:
Remember how there was a Chinese spy balloon and then the US government shot it down only to never talk about it again or provide any evidence that it was a spy balloon?
And permanently damaged US-China relations for no other reason than to get 15 minutes of fame and panic when they don’t call you back
They actually used two missiles on a fuckin balloon. The first one missed.
They can't keep getting away with it. Fucking boomers lol.
Russian prank callers now got former French President Hollande to admit the now well known lies of the Mink agreement.
Looks like cops in florida arrested a 13 year old kid for posting a meme making fun of them
the mom is the scientist that was harass by meatball ron's cops because she exposed his fake covid numbers
desantis keeps basicaly doing as he pleases like he is an autonomous vassal, all while the democrats get simbolically arrested and telling the victims of the fascist in florida that they just have to :vote: more
everyday that passes makes this plan more plausible :croc-pog:
Anyone else find it funny how just a couple of months ago NAFO clowns, BROSINT idiots, and military failsons were boasting all over social media that "Bakhmut has served its purpose" and that it was all a genius plan by Zelensky to grind down the Russian forces for an insignificant city.
Then a couple of weeks later, Zelensky actually admitted that Bakhmut was extraordinarily important and that the Donbass could be lost if Bakhmut falls so he doubled down on sending tens of thousands of reinforcements to secure the "strategically insignificant" city.
It would be a more interesting propaganda line if they didn't literally just copy the "Bakhmut has served its purpose" rhetoric from the Russians and the Wagner group, who had been saying before the western media started paying attention that the Ukrainians were being killed by the tens of thousands and their equipment destroyed and this was why they were in no particular hurry to take the town. Having to steal and invert the propaganda is very lazy and shows that the alphabet boys are not sending their best narrative writers.
Though it does make discussions of Bakhmut, like everything else in this war, very frustrating to have actual discussions about because there's one group of people who are in one completely separate reality where 5 Russians die for every Ukrainian and Wagner conscripts are being sent on human wave attacks against overwhelming Ukrainian strength and this is the master plan of the Ukrainian government to cause Russia's collapse, and the actual reality where the ratio is the other way around and though Ukrainians aren't doing human wave attacks per se, we do know that the people being sent in are recently called up reservists with a life expectancy that is measured in days, not weeks, whose role is purely to fire a rifle for 10 seconds into the mist before being hit by an hours-long artillery barrage that will in the best case scenario give them permanent brain damage
It's at least vaguely comforting to know that none of these narratives really matter, like all of this is just a pointless battle of words and commentaries and narratives while material reality plays itself out and Russia will be the ultimate victor if trends continue no matter how many retweets a twitter topic saying that 1.3 quintillion Russian tanks have been destroyed and Russia has been out of ammo since the day after this war started, but waiting for all this to resolve itself to the point where people have to admit that reality is reality and then work towards the future from there rather than remain living in their elaborate fantasy worlds where Russian collapse is just a few days away is proving to be a very drawn out process.
It's like an infinitely ascending shepard tone and sometimes it feels like as the war continues, rather than admitting that this is going to be a long and very bloody war in which the West cannot compete logistically with Russia in a land war on Russia's border, and no matter what happens on the battlefield, no matter how far Ukraine pushes back Russia, this will remain true and thus the ultimate victor has already been decided, people instead become increasingly hooked on narratives that the other side will buckle, they will collapse, they'll be able to march to the Dniper/Russian border soon, just a few more days, just another week, they're almost out of missiles, they're almost out of planes, they're almost out of ammo, they're almost out of manpower, they're almost exhausted, their economy is about to collapse, just another week or two, please just believe me, just hang on another few days... Mercouris does this though I think he's gradually, very gradually learning from his mistakes, so do others on the pro-Russian side, and so do many, many people on the pro-Ukraine side.
waiting for all this to resolve itself to the point where people have to admit that reality is reality
real mid-2004 Iraq War vibes
is it really a question?
"haha, what a blunder! this is the end for putler! open wide, here comes the counter attack!"
that's what they'll say and they'll keep saying it while they wait for ten years for the counter attack
"The peace treaty is just a trick to lull Russia into a false sense of complacency. Ukraine is building up their army in secret. They stashed like half the weapons from the west. Why do you think they didn't make it to the front during the first two years of the war? What do you mean there are 7 women for every able bodied man in Ukraine? its not because they are all in prison or dead. The 'denazification' Russia is doing in Ukraine is good. Routing out all the neo nazis will make Ukraine a better nation. There really aren't that many nazis. Most of the Men in ukraine are just in hiding training for the counter attack."
It’s not about helping. It’s about having the right opinion and for the other to see me as a good person
Oh those poor smol bean wholesome democratic Ukrainians being crushed under the yoke of brutal Russian occupation! This is why we need to spend a gorillion dollars to build a death star so democracy, freedom and western garden civilization can be safe from Putler!
Ahhh, I get it now.
They call him "Winnie" because he can't stop winning. :xigma-male:
Zelensky now saying
"There were no borders between us, and I consider this the beginning of the fact that there will be no borders between us in the future: political, economic and - what is very important - historical. For the sake of our people. But for that we still need to gain victory. For that, we need to walk side by side a little more," Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized.
I'm just going to remind people nobody should be surprised that this is one of the outcomes of this war, a possibility that was discussed over 6 months ago. One of the first reports on Reuters, Russian Telegram This was also discussed by the usual YT analysts back in the past as well.
It is very possible and not really surprising, Poland will probably invade western Ukraine. Whether this is with NATO approval/backing or a "forced" maneuver it wont matter. The rumors are increasing, even Orban was adding fuel to this. This will be the cover used by Poland.
The timing of this is not coincidental either. The coming offensive is seen as an all or nothing. Meanwhile Russia is making decisive gains in Bakhmut, and Ukraine is reportedly finally retreating. In the most likely scenario Ukraine fails again and Russia pushes further, the next stage is being set.
“This is demagoguery and NATO will understand that they need to be realistic,” Lavrov said, as quoted by TASS. “I don’t rule out that if this decision were to pass the bulk of the peacekeeping force would be from Poland and it would take control western Ukraine and Lvov.”
“They would then stay there for a long while, and may be that’s the point of the plan,” the minister went on to say.
The only factor against this IMO is the US may "veto" this whole thing, with the election coming up I am not really sure "starting WW3" is going to fly particularly well. Also Poland being pretentious delusional assholes is going directly against the US wishes to pivot towards China/Taiwan.
But something something when the empire can no longer control its subjects.
6 months later and not a single picture of the Nord Stream sabotage with an "I did that" sticker of Joe Biden pointing at it smfh
There's a thread on trueanon about a guy's apartment complex convinced that their Chinese neighbors are Chinese spies and are considering reporting them to their landlord. I remember this happening with perceived terrorists and perceived illegal Mexicans.