Image is of Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, with Sudanese Foreign Minister, Maryam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, at a news conference in Khartoum.
Russia, China, and the United States have been scrambling for Africa over the last year.
Lavrov has recently been to Mali, Mauritania, and Sudan. Last year, he went to South Africa, Eswatini, Angola, Eritrea, Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the PRC. I’m actually having trouble finding consistent lists, he’s been zipping around so much. He’s reinforced ties with Sudan and their Russian naval base, and South Africa is holding naval exercises with China and Russia.
Qin Gang, the new Chinese Foreign Minister, has been to Angola, Gabon, Benin, Egypt, and Ethiopia - notably, the first diplomatic tour he’s been on since being appointed FM, as others before him (in a 30 year tradition).
Meanwhile, Janet Yellen has gone to Senegal, Zambia, and South Africa. And, of course, Biden invited leaders from all across Africa to the US-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022.
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.
February 13th’s update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 14th’s update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 15th’s update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 17th’s update is here on the site and here in the comments.
February 18th’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 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. 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 fairly brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. The Duran, of which he co-hosts, is where the chuddery really begins to spill out.
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 ~ Now rebranded as Battlefield Insights, they do infrequent posts on the conflict.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
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 ~ One of the really big pro-Russian (except when they’re being pessismistic, which is often) telegram channels focussing on the war. 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. 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
Any Western media outlet that is even vaguely liberal (and quite a few conservative ones too).
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.
Spy balloon
SPY BALLOON
SPY BALLOON
:pain:
Just keep on repeating it until it becomes truth. How very fascist of them.
The Anglo Empire is fascist to it’s core, and is far more successful than the Nazis ever were.
This is not hyperbole. The exact same state apparatus that carried out the purging of an entire continent now rules as world hegemon. There was never a point where they ‘cleansed’ themselves of that ideology.
They are gearing up for war with China, and this is the new “big lie”. It doesn’t matter what China does now, the seeds of hate have already been planted. China cannot avoid an unprovoked invasion by trying to appease what was always a simple lie - the truth is that these fascists seek to invade, and will do anything to accomplish that goal.
China did maintain some ability to maneuver the balloon, however. Once the balloon was over Montana, officials believe China took advantage of its position to loiter over sensitive sites and try to collect intelligence.
Did the clever Chinese spies happen to slow the balloon down when wind speed died down?
These fuckers were tracking it 24/7 since it launched in china and could’ve shot it down before it even touched American airspace, and now they’re freaking out about sovereignty lol
