Image is a ball-and-stick model of a molecule of CL-20, alternatively known as hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane, taken from Wikipedia.
Much of this preamble is taken from this article.
CL-20 is the most deadly non-nuclear explosive that humanity has yet discovered, capable of generating detonation velocities and pressures higher than other military explosives like TNT, RDX, and HMX. If you have a more powerful explosive, you can make your missiles travel further and/or make them smaller. It also helps the creation of nuclear missiles, as to start the nuclear chain reaction, you need a powerful shockwave to get all the atoms in there to mingle. The problem is that it's a little too explosive, making it exceedingly difficult to not only manufacture, but transport. I mean, America can hardly transport some chemicals across the country without poisoning entire towns. Thus, it isn't really used in many known military applications.
In 1994, in China, Professor Yu Yongzhong synthesized the first CL-20 compound in his laboratory. America came along and said 'Actually, we did it first, in 1987.' The US team said that despite it being such a powerful explosive, the cost of making and testing it was too high, and the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that there wasn't really much interest in that kind of weapons arms race anymore. Production therefore fell to the wayside, while China kept at it, investing in its production and testing.
China has recently found a way to synthesize it to make it five times as shock-resistant. This shock resistance is essentially measured by dropping an object onto it and measuring the height you need to drop it from to make it explode. The previous record was 13 cm / 5 inches, whereas now it is 68 cm, or about 27 inches. US military experts already fear that China has designed its weaponry to use CL-20 and thus this will give them an advantage in missile technology.
(Also, fun fact, CL-20 is called that because it was developed in the China Lake facility in California.)
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.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
This week's third 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.
Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, has said that the counteroffensive has not yet begun and all that has happened so far is probing attacks.
me, crawling on the floor of a bar after I got my ass whooped, coughing up blood:
THOSE WERE JUST PROBING PUNCHES! THE REAL FIGHT HASN'T STARTED YET :pit:
I'M NOT OWNED I'M NOT OWNED
Maybe the real counteroffensive was the tanks we lost along the way?
The bunkers in Ukraine were cold. You could feel the cold, deep in your bones. I had been down here since the beginning of the war. A long, long time. My name is Major Petrov. I had maps, intelligence reports, and a radio that only played static.
The men around me, they smoked and talked about the counteroffensive. It was always coming. It had been coming for years. The world had forgotten about us, but I still posted on Twitter. Every day. I was the voice in the dark.
Then one day, it happened. The wave of socialism. The news came through in bits and pieces. They said it was a new dawn. Workers united, borders fading. They said the world was one. But my bunker was still cold.
The planet turned green again. They fixed the climate, they said. But my maps were still old, my radio still static.
I grew old. My hands shook as I rolled cigarettes. My hair turned white. The war was over but no one told us. The counteroffensive never came. But every day, I posted to Twitter. I promised it was coming.
The young officers, they laughed. They called me an old fool. But I had seen things they could never understand. The weight of the past hung heavy on my shoulders.
The years went on. A lifetime in that bunker. The world built things, wondrous things. They moved factories to space, started work on a thing called a Dyson sphere. I did not understand. My world was the maps, the intelligence reports, the threads, the cold.
Then one day, it came. A message. The counteroffensive. It was not a military one. It was the world, finally reaching out. They had not forgotten.
I was ninety-five. My hands were old, my heart tired. I made my final post to Twitter. “The counteroffensive has begun,” I typed with shaking fingers. “The world is saved. My duty is done.”
They carried me out of the bunker. The sun was bright. So bright. I felt warmth on my skin. The maps were old, the reports obsolete. But my heart, it was still strong. It beat for duty. It beat for a world united.
I had waited a lifetime. The counteroffensive was not guns and tanks. It was the world, finally remembering itself. The bunker was cold, but my heart was warm.
It's true, they haven't even deployed the Ligma Squadron yet
Captain Steve Jobs, commander of the Ukrainian Ligma Squadron
when the probing is definitely going well
I'm curious how these type of attacks have been spun in other wars. By this I mean offensives that get bogged down almost immediately and produce nothing but casualties for gains in the 100s of meters. I know wartime censorship has been a thing pretty much as long as the press has existed, but it's difficult to hide large numbers of casualties. As an example, what did the uk papers have to say after the somme kicked off and they traded thousands of lives for dozens or hundreds of meters? Were those just "probing attacks"?
Edit: Dammit these bastards want to make me pay to see their archives
You have to pay because they don't want people actually digging up the horrific shit they used to print
Ukraines Minister of Information