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Image is of Putin and Scholz sitting on opposite ends of a frighteningly long table back in 2022. Folks, the table is gonna get ten feet longer.


The latest round of US-Russian diplomacy is taking place on August 15th in Alaska, where Putin and Trump are meeting in-person to maybe try and bring an end to this godforsaken conflict. While I don't want to totally discount the possibility that they may come to an agreement - you truly never know! - there's a lot stacked against this encounter yielding much of anything.

Russia appears to have demanded a land swap; that Ukraine fully withdraw from Kherson and Zaporozhye oblasts (in exchange for unspecified Russian gains, but probably parts of Sumy and Kharkov) as a precondition for a ceasefire that could perhaps lead to a permanent resolution of the conflict, and Ukraine seems completely unwilling to do anything of the sort, saying that even if they wanted to, the process of just giving up a couple oblasts would take significant time and require referendums. I say that Russia has appeared to demand it, because there's been a lot of confusion - probably in bad faith - about what Russian diplomats and Putin himself have said and what the demands even are. There are some who speculate that Trump will sell out Ukraine and blame Zelensky for refusing to agree with Russian demands, and there are others who say that this just the latest of many examples of the US and Russia meeting up with such fundamental differences that a deal is impossible, and that Trump fully expects to put sanctions on Russia after Putin declines some harebrained American scheme.

Anyway. After the summit, in late August, Putin is due to arrive for a visit to India, at Modi's invitation. Previously, I was unsure exactly what India would do in response to American sanctions pressure, and now we appear to be receiving an answer, as Modi has made public statements that suggest that he is only getting closer to Russia. Fascinatingly, Modi will soon make his first visit to China in seven years at the annual SCO summit at the end of August, and Putin will be heading to China too on September 3rd. There is an increasing amount of dismissal about the potential of BRICS (especially one that contains India), and that dismissal is certainly rather justified, but I am still deeply curious about what developments may occur as the global south braces to face the remaining ~85% of Trump's presidency.


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Israel's Genocide of Palestine

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Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
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Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
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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.


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[–] grandepequeno@hexbear.net 48 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

uncle-ho-2 From the Hanoi Times

Vietnam has launched a nationwide fundraising campaign to support the Cuban people, reinforcing the countries’ long-standing friendship and solidarity.

From someone on twitter:

This campaign is taking the Vietnamese internet with storm. In less than 24h, ~$1 million in donations from the public received. But this is a rare admission from another formally ‘fraternal’ socialist state that Cuba’s situation is extremely severe.

Both of them (Cuba and Vietnam) once challenged Soviet and Chinese chauvinism while combating with the US. Not even the USSR today can invoke as strong Vietnamese feelings as Cuba.

[–] jack@hexbear.net 32 points 14 hours ago

Vietnam is truly a land of contrasts

[–] iByteABit@hexbear.net 34 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Materially supporting existing socialism living in the wolve's den is chauvinism apparently

[–] jack@hexbear.net 23 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah the only section of that that makes sense is Chinese chauvinism against Vietnam. When was China chauvinist against Cuba or the USSR against either?

[–] Muinteoir_Saoirse@hexbear.net 18 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

If you read Fidel Castro: My Life, during his conversations with Ignacio Ramonet, while Fidel expresses a lot of positive sentiment towards the USSR, he does talk a bit about the USSR treating them as secondary partners (especially during the Cuban missile crisis). The Cuban government was hardly included in any of the negotiations with America.

"The Soviets managed to obtain absolutely trustworthy information about that plan, and they notified Cuba of the existence of the danger, although they weren't totally explicit. . . The details of the plan were learned some twenty years later, when the documents related to the subject were declassified and published by the US government."

"In my view, there was a clear desire to obtain an improvement in the balance of power between the USSR and the United States. I confess I was none too happy about the presence of those weapons in Cuba, given our interest in avoiding the image of Cuba as a Soviet base. . ."

"We didn't like the course the public debate was taking. I sent Che, who was minister of industry and a member of the National Directorate of the ORI, to explain my view of the situation to Krushchev. . . But I couldn't manage to persuade him."

"He made the mistake of rejecting the real debate, which should have been over the sovereignty of Cuba, its right to defend itself, to protect itself."

"We learned from news reports that the Soviets were making the proposal to withdraw the missiles. And it had never been discussed with us in any way!"

"Krushschev should have told the Americans, 'The Cubans must be included in the discussions.' At that moment they lost their nerve, and they weren't firm in their determination. Out of principle, they should have consulted with us. Had they done that, the conditions would most certainly have been better. There would have been no Guantanamo Naval Base; there'd have been no more high-altitude spy-plane reconnaisance. . . All of that offended us a great deal; we took it as an affront. And we protested. And even after the agreement, we kept firing on the low-level flights. So they had to suspend them. Our relations with the Soviets deteriorated. For years, all this had an influence on Cuban-Soviet relations."

This image is still ridiculous, but it can definitely be argued that from a Cuban perspective, the USSR treated them as vassals/junior partners, rather than as a sovereign socialist state that wasn't there to be directed at the Soviets' will.

[–] jack@hexbear.net 11 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I think that's actually a fair criticism to levy against the USSR's policies towards other socialist states generally. It was almost never unwilling to support and defend them, but it held itself above them by virtue of chronological primacy and ideological foundation. It's the gentlest form of chauvinism - "We've done this before, just do as we say to follow the best path to socialism". This was a major factor in the break with Yugoslavia (Stalin's biggest mistake), which was a precursor the Sino-Soviet split. If the USSR had been willing to loosen its political direction over its allies, they would not have been so invested in struggling for 'independence' from the Comintern.

Avoiding a split with Yugoslavia would have made it less likely to eventually split with China. If those splits hadn't happened, I don't think there's any doubt the USSR could have persisted and won the Cold War, avoiding the collapse of the entire socialist camp outside the five remaining ML states.

[–] bubbalu@hexbear.net 6 points 9 hours ago

See also the rank chauvinism and ineptitude of Comintern advisor Otto Braun to the CPC in the 30s. For instance, he advocated for positional warfare and de facto banned the effective guerilla tactics of the Zhu-Mao Army. He also demanded a camp follower and to eat bread.

[–] immuredanchorite@hexbear.net 8 points 12 hours ago

I think it is mostly just thinly veiled language appealing to Vietnamese anti-chinese sentiment… I think it is mostly inaccurate, but the argument could be made that the USSR had such a close economic relationship with Cuba it was essentially on the Soviet “side” during the split- and when the USSR abandoned Cuba to try and ingratiate itself with the US, China did not step in to provide support for decades because they were also concerned with their own US relationship… I think it is largely inaccurate because China’s capacity to “replace” the USSR’s relationship with Cuba, regardless of sanction or blockade, was very limited. China had (and probably continues to have) a limited ability to project its power to the Caribbean. The Soviet Union had relatively more direct access to warm water ports closer to the Atlantic. Through most of New China’s history its power projection and concerns have really been limited to Africa/Indian Ocean/SEA/the western Pacific/South China Sea