Here is September 19th’s update! TLDR? Here’s the summary.
Here is September 20th’s update! TLDR? Here’s the summary.
Here is September 21st’s update! TLDR? Here’s the summary.
Here is September 23rd’s update! TLDR? Here’s the summary.
Here is September 24th’s update! TLDR? Here’s the summary.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists, for the “buh Zeleski is a jew?!?!” people.
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, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
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.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
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 ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it’s a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn’t really need more, but:
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.
It’s a color revolution sparked by a lie. The woman who died just collapsed suddenly without anyone touching her, they have it on cctv in a public lobby.
All the usual suspects and pro-west groups are involved in riling this up and boosting it.
The initial protests were all saying she was beaten to death in custody. You, as well as I, know that these protests aren’t just randomly happening right now as shit pops off in Armenia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. Iran had moved troops to the border with Armenia to ward off Azeri aspirations (Azeri has imported all the Turkish/Syrian fascist jihadists and they are chomping at the bit for war).
Get real, these laws have been in place for decades. This is coming to a head now, from a comprador group, for a reason. Because the fascist NATO alliance is calling in favors, and they will happily make Iran and Armenia into fascist jihadist bloodbaths if this is allowed to continue
Iran should make a good faith show of reform, and if those efforts are swatted down and the rebels keep attacking the Iranian state they should and will be crushed as color revolutionaries
All the usual suspects and pro-west groups are involved in riling this up and boosting it.
But isn’t that an inevitability? As long as the American/Western Empire exists, its media and intelligence agencies will latch on to any instability within opposing nations, regardless if it’s manufactured or organic. Can we really compel actual Iranians to sit tight and wait for the West to fall (whenever that’ll finally happen) before doing any activism just because we critically support their current leadership?
Even if they jumped the gun on making assumptions about this women’s death, it seems more than reasonable to protest against religious fundamentalism in your government. I mean it’s more understandable than the HK rioters, who were pretty openly stooges of Western fascists. I’ll never openly ally myself with all the NGO’s and American politicians that are trying to take advantage of the situation, but I’m not sure I can explicitly oppose people trying to improve their day-to-day lives.
It’s unfortunate, but I feel like the only thing I can do is to hope this movement doesn’t completely throw itself to the West, as futile as that might be. Maybe the impact of US sanctions might create a more independent opposition, but that’s probably wishful thinking. I’m just not sure this community’s response should be to demonize the on-the-ground protestors, and I don’t think that makes me a radlib
This is what people said at the start of the Egyptian, Syrian, Libyan Arab springs. It’s what they said during the color revolutions in Belarus and Kazakhstan. When the pressure of the imperialists and colonizers are besieging you, you can’t give in.
you can’t give in
But what does that mean for actual Iranians? Should the women there just shut up and keep wearing the hijab as they’re forced to? It’s not like these religious laws are a necessary ingredient for resisting the West (China sure as hell doesn’t have them). Why can’t we want Khamenei to be more like Xi? I mean I’m a party to leftist infighting as much as the next Hexbear user, so why is that off-limits for other people? (not saying all the protesters are leftists obv)
But isn’t that an inevitability? As long as the American/Western Empire exists, its media and intelligence agencies will latch on to any instability within opposing nations,
Not quite. The west will only latch onto instability when it serves their purposes. They don’t just do revolutions any time its easy. The Arab spring was timed to get the US out of the “great recession.” It allowed them to make some quick money off stolen oil and distract USAians from the fallout of the recession domestically. I remember Occupy protestors talking about Libya and Tunisia like they were a good thing.
when would destabilizing Iran not serve Western purposes? obviously there is some kind of operational tempo wrt intervention/spook shit that waxes and wanes, but i fail to see why the US would simply pass up an opportunity for chaos. literally any protest activity in Iran can be co-opted by Western interests, which tbf is something to be wary about.
but i don’t think the appropriate response is to bar all Iranians from ever protesting or doing activism. the existence of bad-faith actors doesn’t give Iranians some moral obligation to comply with unjust laws. i just don’t feel it’s at all reasonable to tell people living outside the West to just hunker down and take the flak until communism wins.