back in my map era, we’re ukrainemaxxing right now


Declarations of the imminent doom of Ukraine are a news megathread specialty, and this is not what I am doing here - mostly because I’m convinced that whenever we do so, the war extends another three months to spite us. Ukraine has been in an essentially apocalyptic crisis for over a year now after the failure of the 2023 counteroffensive, unable to make any substantial progress and resigned to merely being a persistent nuisance (and arms market!) as NATO fights to the last Ukrainian. In this context, predicting a terminal point is difficult, as things seem to always be going so badly that it’s hard to understand how and why they fight on. In every way, Ukraine is a truly shattered country, barely held together by the sheer combined force of Western hegemony. And that hegemony is weakening.

I therefore won’t be giving any predictions of a timeframe for a Ukrainian defeat, but the coming presidency of Trump is a big question mark for the conflict. Trump has talked about how he wishes for the war to end and for a deal to be made with Putin, but Trump also tends to change his mind on an issue at least three or four times before actually making a decision, simply adopting the position of who talked to him last. And, of course, his ability to end the war might be curtailed by a military-industrial complex (and various intelligence agencies) that want to keep the money flowing.

The alignment of the US election with the accelerating rate of Russian gains is pretty interesting, with talk of both escalation and de-escalation coinciding - the former from Biden, and the latter from Trump. Russia very recently performed perhaps the single largest aerial attack of Ukraine of the entire war, striking targets across the whole country with missiles and drones from various platforms. In response, the US is talking about allowing Ukraine to hit long-range targets in Russia (but the strategic value of this, at this point, seems pretty minimal).

Additionally, Russia has made genuine progress in terms of land acquisition. We aren’t talking about endless and meaningless battles over empty fields anymore. Some of the big Ukrainian strongholds that we’ve been spending the last couple years speculating over - Chasiv Yar, Kupiansk, Orikhiv - are now being approached and entered by Russian forces. The map is actually changing now, though it’s hard to tell as Ukraine is so goddamn big.

Attrition has finally paid off for Russia. An entire generation of Ukrainians has been fed into the meat grinder. Recovery will take, at minimum, decades - more realistically, the country might be permanently ruined, until that global communist revolution comes around at least. And they could have just made a fucking deal a month into the war.


Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

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 all socially reactionary. 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 ~ A 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. Produces interesting and useful maps.
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 Telegram Channels:

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.


  • Torenico [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    Looks like certain someones are asking for bullets to the head

    ‘Forces of heaven’: Milei loyalists launch ‘armed’ libertarian grouping

    La Libertad Avanza supporters, headed by online troll ‘Gordo Dan,’ government deputies and national officials, stage rally in San Miguel to launch new “armed” wing and “praetorian guard” known as “the forces of heaven.”

    National officials and leading voices from social media platforms identified with La Libertad Avanza (LLA) have launched a new political grouping to “defend the ideals” of President Javier Milei.

    “Las fuerzas del cielo” or “The forces of heaven” has the main objective of defending the Javier Milei Presidency and its ideas, according to its organisers. But the style, tone and rhetoric of the event has sparked concern among opposition lawmaker.

    Online influencer turned streamer Daniel Parisini, known widely as ‘Gordo Dan,’ was one of event’s key organisers and speakers. Raising eyebrows from government critics, he described the new grouping as the “armed branch” of the LLA libertarians in his speech.

    “This is the Praetorian Guard of President Javier Milei. We are his most loyal soldiers who were there from the start and will be there at the end, defending the ideals of our leader Javier Milei and his vision of the country,” declared Parisini.

    The launch in the Greater Buenos Aires locality of San Miguel was attended by libertarian writer Agustín Laje, Buenos Aires Province deputy Agustín Romo, Cults & Civilisation Secretary Nahuel Sotelo, national deputy Santiago Santurio (LLA-Buenos Aires Province), University Policy Undersecretary Alejandro Álvarez, among others. The idea behind Las Fuerzas del Cielo is to train leaders who can defend the project headed by Milei in public nationwide.

    Sotelo, one of the orators last Saturday night, underlined the importance of winning “the cultural battle” in Argentina in order to consign to the past discussions like Agenda 2030, the environment and other issues which interest “the left." Romo declared: “Do you know why we have achieved what we have? Because victory in war does not depend on the number of soldiers but on the forces which come from heaven.” Parallel to the rally, a website was launched to register interested parties and connect them with local “trainers” who can help them spread the libertarian word.

    Criticisms

    The launch of the event sparked criticism for its violent rhetoric and symbology associated with authoritarian movements like the Nazi regime or the fascism of Benito Mussolini.

    Onstage, behind a lectern, were red banners hung with golden letters spelling out slogans and symbols. As well as a four-spoked cross (similar to the Iron Cross used by the Nazi regime) were the words “property,” “liberty,” “life,” “God,” “fatherland” and “family,” as well as the slogan: "Argentina será el faro que ilumina el mundo (“Argentina will be the beacon lighting up the world”).”

    There is a translation problem there. Faro does not strictly mean beacon, but it’s actually lighthouse. Lighthouses are obviously avoided by ship captains, if anything, you want to stay far from them because they mean trouble lmfao.

    Also mfers having main character syndrome. Nobody looks at Argentina and says “holy shit what a based nation” lol

    Yet it was Parisini’s definition of the new grouping as “the armed branch of La Libertad Avanza” that has aroused the most alarm among opposition deputies. Among those criticising the rhetoric were leaders from the centrist Coalición Cívica-ARI, which questioned the self-proclaimed shock troops of the government. Party leader Maximiliano Ferraro warned about the danger of ambiguous attitudes towards democracy, quoting authors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt and their description of “semi-loyal democrats” – people who, although saying that they support democracy, ignore or justify violent or anti-democratic actions.

    Socialist deputy Esteban Paulón called on Security Minister Patricia Bullrich to investigate the statements of Las Fuerzas del Cielo, describing them as potential instigation to violence or urban terrorism. “Argentina is a country at peace and with a democratic society,” and requesting immediate action.

    Unión por la Patria lower house caucus chief Germán Martínez recalled previous statements to A24 radio, describing the approach as fascist. “I said it then and reaffirm it today: this is fascism. Enough of underestimating the violence of Milei and his entourage. The courts must act urgently before it’s too late,” he said.

    I hope they find out soon.

    I’m not going to play pretend and say violence is bad and they should stop doing this. No, I want them to continue and suffer the consequences. There’s no other way around this, you don’t talk with fascists or wannabe fascists, you literally kill them… but first they have to come out. If we have to draw one lesson from WW2 is that nazis and their friends should be killed, no remorse and no mercy for scum like that. Tito understood this very well barbara-pit.

    • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.net
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      13 hours ago

      Milei is bringing back the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina? These people will probably get punched in the face by Students, Peronist or Trade Unionists and cry about it on twitter. Or in some cases, get stabbed by some random person and die on the streets like an idiot while screaming about how they are defending Argentina from the “Zurditos”.

      • SadArtemis [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        19 hours ago

        Gotta love how they always call back to the Praetorian Guard (that, or the Spartans). It’s never the actually loyal Varangians (because it has to be western Rome amirite?) or any of those Hellenic peoples who weren’t, you know, eugenicists ruling over immense enslaved castes…

        Milei better watch his back lol…