Links and Stuff
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.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Yesterday's discussion post.
When literally anyone ever goes to jail in China, DPRK, Russia etc: "Evil dictatorships ruled by people worse than Hitler! These people are brave and heroic whistleblowers yearning for freedom and democracy!1!!!1" :wojak-nooo:
Ukraine persecutes critics on charges of "treason" for writing on a blog and making YT videos: "This is what democracy looks like, Zelensky is a hero and they share our values, we must stand up to Putler's unprovoked war, these people are nothing but terrorists and deserve to be punished11!!1!!." :so-true:
Idk what to say that's fucking horrible. Spain has to know they're going to kill him, right?
They basically all but openly assassinated one of their own negotiators accused of treason, and there are other journalists that have received beatings and abuse while arrested.
Plus the UN itself has documented torture and beatings during the whole civil war from the SBU, whatever is going to happen to him it wont be nice.
Ukrainian opposition activists are safer fleeing to Russia than to the EU.
Hilarious in a dark way that they granted him asylum when he criticized Yanukovich and rescinded it when it was about someone liked by GoodCountries.
lmao i remember our media going off about freedom of the press a few days ago
Berlins SPD-Green-Left coalition has banned Soviet flags for the time of Victory Day celebrations
WWII veterans are permitted to wear uniforms, parts of uniforms or St George's ribbons - but not USSR flags.
What are they gonna do? Arrest 95 year old war heroes?
:germany-cool:
I don't much care for the new cold war, it's much dumber than I expected
Man it's almost like the West didn't destroy communism thirty years ago or something.
Here we go again...
Putin may hold the fate of humanity in his hands
The war in Ukraine is the most morally unambiguous battle for freedom against tyranny since World War II. The Ukrainians did nothing to invite attack other than to start building a democracy in a place where dictators once ruled, yet Russia is committing horrific savagery and aggression in the service of a dictator who smothers the truth with lies and unflinching repression of dissent.
Russia’s bland, stone-faced führer, Vladimir Putin, is following Adolf Hitler’s playbook. Like Hitler, Putin justifies his actions as a response to past humiliations of his country and makes bogus claims to the territories he intends to seize by force. As Hitler did 75 years ago, Putin is discovering his weakness in the face of the economic, technological and industrial power of the democratic nations arrayed against him. Unlike Hitler, though, Putin has a way to counter that advantage; an ace in the hole — or, rather, in a missile silo.
Russia has enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilization and most of the people on the planet. It has long been assumed no leader would be so insane that he would start a nuclear war that would end with the destruction of his own nation, as well as his enemies, yet Putin has not-so-subtly been rattling that saber as the tide of war has turned against him.
To almost everyone’s surprise, the Ukrainians have repelled the Russian assault on Kyiv and have exposed the incompetence and low morale of the Russian military machine. Now, with a flood of significant weaponry flowing into Ukraine from the United States and European democracies, there is a real possibility that the Russians could lose their war of aggression. The question is, would Putin accept a defeat that would not only be a huge humiliation, but would seriously threaten his hold on power in Moscow?
Putin has an alternative to capitulation. He could use those unthinkable weapons in his arsenal, at least the tactical nukes that would devastate a battlefield opponent and put the world on notice that he just might be desperate enough to ratchet it up another notch to his bigger weapons.
This lone, deeply cynical and ruthless man in the Kremlin may hold the fate of humanity in his bloody hands, and we really do not know if there is a limit to what he is willing to do.
:matt-jokerfied:
THE UNITED STATES IS THE ONLY COUNTRY TO DROP NUKES ON ANOTHER IN WARTIME. IT KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE FOR NO STRATEGIC GAIN. THE UNITED STATES HAS A FIRST-STRIKE POLICY. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD
The Ukrainians did nothing to invite attack other than to start building a democracy in a place where dictators once ruled
That, as well as ignoring past treaties, shelling the Donbass, discriminating against Russians, inviting Russia's enemies to place military installations on the border to Russia, scheming to draw Russia's enemies into a war to annex Crimea, arming and encouraging Nazis and refusing any serious diplomatic solution.
But other than that, Ukraine did nothing to provoke the war.
I continue to be amazed that you can read this shit. I was just finishing the first sentence and I was already about to go into a full Matt Christman rage. Why would someone write this? I have a family to support, and I make compromises all the time because I need or want money, but I would never do something like this to myself or the world.
Patrolling the ~~Mojave ~~ western media almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
This is quite literally the model "free press" article. It checks all the boxes
The war in Ukraine is the most morally unambiguous battle for freedom against tyranny since World War II.
Palestine, Vietnam, Cuba, South Africa, Angola, Bolivia, China... The list goes on and on.
IT KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE FOR NO STRATEGIC GAIN.
I take issue with this. The USSR declared war on Imperial Japan on August 9th of 1945. The US nuclear strikes were effective in deterring the Soviets from prosecuting their war on the main Japanese islands.
And bacteriological weapons. I can't think of any specific instance where the US has used nerve gas but it's allies have. But we're supposed to be worried about Russia deploying weapons of mass destruction and not, like, France selling Ukraine nerve agents like that time they gave Saddam the weapons he used to gas the Kurds.
I'm sure theres some experiment buried in the files or covered up where they just wiped out a village or gassed POWs to find out what nerve gas does.
Getting real tired of the endless media flip-flopping between "The Chinese people are brainwashed and indoctrinated to follow their 'Glorious Leader' no matter the bad decisions he makes" and "Opinion polling is made up, the Chinese people yearn to be free of the repression of the state and their boiling anger shall soon blossom into a revolution that restores democracy and freedom".
Like yeah, no shit people don't like being in lockdown, but people don't like being dead a whole lot more. It's just whether your government actually gives a shit or not, and manufactures consent that the economy must open up for the sake of The Line.
It's a lot easier to see all these contradictory takes coming out of the media now that I've essentially installed my brain into it. I try and organize the list in the updates to show how the narrative can be utilised to serve the same end, both because it's entertaining to watch one article go "there won't be a recession" and another go "there will be a recession", or "sanctions don't do anything" and "we must do MORE sanctions"; and also to hammer home that the event doesn't matter, the media will make it good or bad all the same
Don't worry president zelensky, the paradox community will send their best hoi iv players to help you defeat the russians
The EU will only exist for Germany, and maybe France, to vampirically drain the lifeforce of other countries within it to keep itself stable or growing, essentially like what America does with the whole world. Though America will also obviously be draining Germany of money if they switch from Russian to US imports.
I guess it was always kinda like that (e.g. with Greece) but it's about to accelerate if conditions remain poor, and I don't see why they wouldn't.
Energy giant Shell says the world doesn’t have systems to trace Russian oil refined overseas. This could undermine sanctions. src
You know this means that western Oil companies are going to start putting something in their crude so you can determine whether it's their proprietary oil or not
and then in 30 years we are going to learn that this additive is what caused the dramatic upswing in taint cancer cases
Next WaPo piece: Why Getting Taint Cancer Means That You're Standing Up To Putin
It’s the Mountain Dew/Xbox meme but you have to keep loudly singing the Ukrainian anthem while you fill your car with gas.
China Orders Government, State Firms to Dump Foreign PCs src
China has ordered central government agencies and state-backed corporations to replace foreign-branded personal computers with domestic alternatives within two years, marking one of Beijing’s most aggressive efforts so far to eradicate key overseas technology from within its most sensitive organs.
It continues
Staff were asked after the week-long May break to turn in foreign PCs for local alternatives that run on operating software developed domestically, people familiar with the plan said. The exercise, which was mandated by central government authorities, is likely to eventually replace at least 50 million PCs on a central-government level alone, they said, asking to remain anonymous discussing a sensitive matter.
The decision advances China’s decade-long campaign to replace imported technology with local alternatives, a sweeping effort to reduce its dependence on geopolitical rivals such as the U.S. for everything from semiconductors to servers and phones. It’s likely to directly affect sales by HP Inc. and Dell Technologies Inc., the country’s biggest PC brands after local champion Lenovo Group Ltd.
Lenovo erased losses to climb as much as 5% on Friday in Hong Kong, while software developer Kingsoft Corp. also recouped its earlier decline to gain 3.3%. On mainland Chinese exchanges, Inspur Electronic Information Industry Co., a server maker, gained 6% while peer Dawning Information Industry Co. jumped more than 4%. Inspur Software Co., an affiliate of the Inspur group, and China National Software & Service Co. both soared their daily 10% limits.
The push to replace foreign suppliers is part of a longstanding effort to wean China off its reliance on American technology -- a vulnerability exposed after sanctions against companies like Huawei Technologies Co. hammered local firms and businesses. That initiative has accelerated since 2021, when the Chinese central government quietly empowered a secretive government-backed organization to vet and approve local suppliers in sensitive areas from cloud to semiconductors.
The latest PC replacement project also reflects Beijing’s growing concerns around information security as well as a confidence in homegrown hardware: the world’s biggest laptop and server makers today include Lenovo, Huawei and Inspur Ltd., while local developers such as Kingsoft and Standard Software have made rapid strides in office software against the likes of Microsoft Corp. and Adobe Inc.
The campaign will be extended to provincial governments later and also abide by the two-year timeframe, the people said. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and State Council Information Office didn’t respond to faxed requests for comment.
Really hoping China (and Russia, and, well, every country outside the west, but especially China) succeeds in distancing themselves from western products. I'm assuming that basically every internet-capable device that's produced or maintained by a western company has like 17 background processes or viruses or whatever that allows the US intelligence agencies access to the information within.
Like the recent thing in Spain, and I think there was some kind of Israeli-developed virus that wormed its way into Iranian nuclear facilities to destroy them or something? Shit like that's gotta be all over the place.
The last thing you're thinking of regarding Iranian nuclear facilities is Stuxnet that would (IIRC) insidiously fuck with the centrifuge speeds and cause damage over time, while reporting normal operations. Believed to have been developed jointly by the (US) NSA, CIA, and Israeli intelligence because of course it was.
Isn't this the one that also uhhhh... escaped and fucked up alot of computers all over the place?
Yeah others modified it for attacking other industrial systems:
The Legacy of Stuxnet
Although the makers of Stuxnet reportedly programed it to expire in June 2012, and Siemens issued fixes for its PLC software, the legacy of Stuxnet lives on in other malware attacks based on the original code. These “sons of Stuxnet” include:
- Duqu (2011). Based on Stuxnet code, Duqu was designed to log keystrokes and mine data from industrial facilities, presumably to launch a later attack.
- Flame (2012). Flame, like Stuxnet, traveled via USB stick. Flame was sophisticated spyware that recorded Skype conversations, logged keystrokes, and gathered screenshots, among other activities. It targeted government and educational organizations and some private individuals mostly in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries.
- Havex (2013). The intention of Havex was to gather information from energy, aviation, defense, and pharmaceutical companies, among others. Havex malware targeted mainly U.S., European, and Canadian organizations. Industroyer (2016). This targeted power facilities. It’s credited with causing a power outage in the Ukraine in December 2016.
- Triton (2017). This targeted the safety systems of a petrochemical plant in the Middle East, raising concerns about the malware maker’s intent to cause physical injury to workers.
- Most recent (2018). An unnamed virus with characteristics of Stuxnet reportedly struck unspecified network infrastructure in Iran in October 2018.
While ordinary computer users have little reason to worry about these Stuxnet-based malware attacks, they are clearly a major threat to a range of critical industries, including power production, electrical grids, and defense. While extortion is a common goal of virus makers, the Stuxnet family of viruses appears to be more interested in attacking infrastructure.
This is funny because it's the same reason that using actual viruses and bacteria in warfare is foolish; once it's in the wild you can't control where it goes next.
Zelenskyy address to Iceland:
blah blah we share a common heritage (like barely, Kiev was ruled by Varangian princes but that was over a thousand years ago)
we both like democracy and freedom and stuff
one funny thing he said was that we are both in the outskirts of Europe 🤔
also that the "soil", people and culture not only makes us different to our neighbours but also links us and our children to the generations before us
We are under attack by Russia
some allegations of cultural genocide by Russia
Praise for Iceland for being democratic and peaceful (not that hard if you look at our material conditions)
Very subtly comparing Russia to Earthquakes and Volcanic eruptions
Accuses Russia of forcing 500.000 people to go to Russia, taking their ID's and forms of communication, says they are transported to distant regions in Russia
Accuses Russia of killing tens of thousands of people and committing war crimes, especially in Bucha
Accuses Russia of hunting down dissidents, activists and journalists (ironic)
Russia is doing this to Ukraine because Ukrainians want freedom
Russias attack is not only against Ukraine but against freedom itself
Thanks Iceland for supporting sanctions
Offers Iceland to take part in rebuilding Ukraine after they have won, especially with modernizing the energy grid (i'm not aware of any potential for untapped geothermal or hydroelectric power in Ukraine, but sure!)
"Slava Ukraini"
So Ukraine shares heritage with Iceland somehow but Russia is an alien horde? Wut
Very subtly comparing Russia to Earthquakes and Volcanic eruptions
I have a mental image of Zelensky writing his speech with the Iceland Wikipedia page open and being like "huh, it's volcanic, okay, gotta get that in"
Offers Iceland to take part in rebuilding Ukraine after they have won, especially with modernizing the energy grid (i’m not aware of any potential for untapped geothermal or hydroelectric power in Ukraine, but sure!)
I love it when he does this. My prediction a couple weeks ago about how he's just gonna go around to each European country and task them with rebuilding part of Ukraine becomes ever closer to reality by the day. Like the rebuilding sequence near the end of an animated children's movie. Encanto or something like that.
No no, go off king, I love it when people have little niche things they know a lot about (especially when it reveals that a techbro thing genuinely is a grift designed to keep people from panicking and minecrafting politicians a little bit longer).
edit: speak of the fucking devil:
The Dakar Hydrogen Racer Comes To The ACT Expo In Long Beach
still fundamentally an internal combustion engine.
This isn't correct. Hydrogen cars are almost all hydrogen fuel cell cars. Fuel cells are very similar to batteries and power an electric engine. There are cars with hydrogen combustion engines but I don't know if there's been one you could buy from a car dealership, they've mostly been testbeds. The rest of your info seems correct.
At my uni, I got an email (several actually) from the local natural gas monopoly (who is the local electric power monopoly in southern parts of US it seems; guess they lost that race here).
Anyway, it was surveys asking how I feel about hydrogen shit. I didn’t answer cause it seems dumb, like a way to pretend you’re doing renewable shit when in reality…
It’s just more war-type infrastructure; extremely capital-intensive (monopolizable and also a money printer). I know that compressed gas and shit isn’t necessarily inherently militaristic, but I honestly don’t think it’s a coincidence that Israel’s main export consumer good is sodastream: some pressurized gas shit.
This is all just a loose collection of vibes I’ve built up, but I stand by them (for now)
Has Shanghai Been Xinjianged? src
Shanghai and Xinjiang used to be the two sides of the China coin.
Shanghai was the glamorous China, with skyscrapers, Art Deco apartments and a thriving middle class that shopped in Paris and strolled around Kyoto, Japan.
Xinjiang was the dark China. The western frontier region, which is twice the size of Texas, is home to more than 10 million Muslim ethnic minorities who have been subject to mass detentions, religious repression and intrusive digital and physical surveillance.
Since April, the 25 million residents of Shanghai have gotten a small taste of the Xinjiang treatment in a strict citywide lockdown. They have been lining up for rounds of Covid-19 tests to prove they are virus-free, a pandemic corollary to Uyghurs lining up at checkpoints to prove they don’t pose any security threat.
The political slogans in the government’s zero-Covid campaign echo those in the Xinjiang crackdowns. Residents in both places are subject to social control and surveillance. Instead of re-education camps in Xinjiang, about half a million Shanghai residents who tested positive were sent to quarantine camps.
When the Orwellian animal ranch government doesn't let millions of people die of coronavirus
:19: :84:
Sun Zhe, the editorial director of a fashion magazine in Shanghai, has been reflecting on his life choices. “I’ll stop all unnecessary shopping. I’ll stop working hard. It was all a lie,” he wrote on his verified Weibo account. “The affluent, decent middle-class lifestyle that we managed to attain with hard work, intelligence and luck was smashed into pieces in the glorious anti-pandemic campaign.” “Prosperity is only for decoration,” he continued. “After all, there are luxury shopping malls and hotels in North Korea, too.”
lmao get fucked
Come to America to die of COVID if you hate the zero covid policy so much
I can't access RT anymore from UK internet, so looks like it's time for a VPN
It's fucking wild how rapidly and enthusiastically the west cut off dissenting media.
The free, democratic EU banned Russian state media a few days before the authoritarian, unfree Russia banned westoid state media.
Wow! I suppose that nuclear tidal wave video really shook up the boomers. "We can't have our populace living in fear because their government likes talking shit and giving guns to Nazis."
So according to a comment by @farter the Canadian sniper everyone thought was dead that mysteriously stopped posting on Facebook (yes, this guy was posting on Facebook in the middle of the war), survived somehow and is back in Canada.
According to him he almost died after taking fire from a Russian tank that killed two Ukrainian conscripts next to him that gave up their position by getting up and smoking a cigarette together. After that incident he phoned his wife an hour later and left Ukraine. Also many suspicious arms deals and ex western special forces getting jobs in the Ukraine army to go behind enemy lines.
taking fire from a Russian tank that killed two Ukrainian conscripts next to him that gave up their position by getting up and smoking a cigarette together.
Man, that genuinely fucking sucks. If the West had just abided by the goddamn Minsk agreements and stopped poking a stick into the bear's back, they'd probably still be alive.
ex western special forces
Are they ever really "ex" special forces, though?
Responding to the vid from the Austrian military someone posted in the last thread:
The comparisons to the battle of Kursk are at least somewhat apt, especially in regards to defense in depth.
Ukraine's defense in depth is something that I don't see a lot of people talking about but is really important. If you look at DPA's Russo-Ukraine war map, he recently added markers for a lot of the prewar Ukrainian entrenchments he could find. There's a hell of a lot of them, and they can be found as far back as ~20-30 km from the frontline. They're also built very close to one another, meaning that every fortified position probably has at least 3 others near, sometimes even up to 5 or 6, that can all provide supporting fire if they come under attack.
This is the same kind of defensive strategy that the Soviets used in the battle of Kursk in 1943 that helped them halt the German offensive. Whether the Ukrainians can pull of the same thing obviously remains to be seen, but as the Austrians pointed out, they do seem to have some of the same main strengths the Soviets had in 1943. However, Ukraine's situation in regards to supplies and strategic reserves could be one of their main weaknesses that the Soviets did not face in 1943.
Ukraine's supply situation is obviously not great. Idk exactly how bad it is, but the fact that the Russians have recently put a lot of effort into crippling Ukraine's rail network means that Ukraine is really going to struggle getting supplies to troops in Donbass. Armies obviously can't fight if the run out of supplies to fight with, so the tenacity of Ukrainian resistance will mean very little if they start running out of food & ammo.
The other thing to consider is whether Ukraine has any strategic reserves that they can deploy to use to blunt Russian breakthroughs, or to launch counterattacks with. IIRC, in the battle of Kursk, the northern pincer of the German offensive was ground down and halted by Soviet defense in depth, but the southern pincer actually almost broke through. What saved the Soviets was that they kept the 5th Guards tank army in reserve for just such a situation, and launched it into a counterattack against the German's southern pincer, resulting in the infamous tank battle at Prokhorovka and the end of the German's entire Kursk offensive. If Ukraine lacks a force like this, then they're basically stuck relying almost entirely on static defensive positions to save them, and if that strategy fails, a Russian breakthrough in Ukrainian defenses means that the Russian forces will be able to conduct large scale maneuvers behind Ukrainian lines essentially unopposed, which will result in a complete and rapid collapse of the entire Ukrainian army in Donbass.
To make up for my lateness, this is by far the longest update I've done yet. Also, Yahoo News wants Putin's staff to assassinate him, I think. Still can't get over that.
Sorry for any conversations I cut off. If anybody wants to repost comments that they just posted before I locked the thread then go ahead.
Sorry for any conversations I cut off.
1984
Are we still making that joke?
Not [Redacted] the [Redacted] joke is [Redacted] [Redacted]
Also, Yahoo News wants Putin’s staff to assassinate him, I think.
This article? https://news.yahoo.com/bernie-rabik-putin-assassination-answer-092208807.html
Just read that a Russian bomb hit a maternity and children’s hospital in Ukraine, killing staff and babies.
Uhhhh :citations-needed:
Is Putin’s assassination the answer to this atrocity and others like it? What is the ethics of targeted killings and assassinations?
What the fuck is wrong with you you psychopath
Assassinations during military conflict are specifically forbidden by the Lieber Code which President Abraham Lincoln issued as a general order for the U.S. forces in 1863
oof
Oh no, I was talking about the other Yahoo News assassinate Putin article, I put it in the update.
Near the bottom.
The One Mistake Putin Is Dying for Us to Make.
In fact, rather than look to the Chechnya analogies, Russia’s military and civilian leaders should ponder what happened in Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II. After the war, some top generals claimed that in 1938, when Hitler began threatening Czechoslovakia, they were planning to oust him if it looked like he was about to plunge Germany into a war with the West that it was not prepared for at that point. Whatever the accuracy of their accounts, any resolve they may have had evaporated when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier acquiesced to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia by signing the infamous Munich agreement that September.
For the West today, the lesson of Munich should come through loud and clear: It must remain firmly committed to helping the Ukrainians in their fight against the invaders, providing them with every piece of weaponry that can be turned against them. That is the only way to save Ukraine, and to prevent Putin from targeting his next victims. A new Munich-like agreement, which would allow Putin to cement his gains, would signal another colossal failure of nerve.
There is an equally important lesson for those Russians, especially in high circles, who can still think for themselves. It is also up to them to take action to stop a broader war, which will be the inevitable outcome if Putin is allowed to succeed in his current venture. Such a success would be a disaster not only for Ukraine and the West; it would be a disaster for Russia. They cannot afford to repeat the mistake of Hitler’s generals of letting an increasingly desperate leader stampede his army and his people over a cliff.
lmfao and with a direct comparison to Hitler no less. Fucking of course.
