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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 19th to June 25th - Wagner Terrorist -> Freedom Fighter Any% Speedrun (6 HOURS WORLD RECORD!!)

The image is of Russians in Rostov climbing up a Wagner tank.

New thread's preamble:

What a mess. The amount of information going around is hard to determine, but we know with relative certainty:

  • Wagner forces are in Rostov near the Defence Ministry building and are fortifying it; the Russian army and Chechens are en route
  • A/several Wagner column is moving from Rostov to Moscow, and along the way Russia is setting up barriers and blocking roads, but it seems like Wagner is spreading out through western Russia wherever they can go.
  • Prigozhin has no support from any internal force that we currently know of.

update: Lukashenko has saved Putin's ass. At least, that's the current narrative I'm going with - further analysis will probably change perceptions of the situation.

Old thread's preamble:

Mali's military government - which overthrew the old military government last year - has called on the UN to withdraw its peacekeeping forces in the MINUSMA program (the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali), which is the third largest peacekeeping force in the world. It was established in 2012 in the wake of the Tuareg Rebellion, in which the northern half the country, calling itself Azawad, began a fight for independence from the southern side.

The "official" fighting was over relatively quickly - the Malian military, with the help of France, retook most of the country in a year or two. But insurgencies continue to plague the region, with local militias and Islamic State jihadists taking advantage of the chaos. The idea behind the UN mission is to stabilize the situation and patrol the area - this has made it the second deadliest mission so far.

After a decade of not much progress being made, first the French pulled out in August 2022 after anti-French protests inside the country, and now the MINUSMA force is being asked to pull out after similar protests. The Russian UN ambassador has said:

“The real issue is not the number of peacekeepers but the functions, and one of the key tasks for the government of Mali is fighting terrorism, which is not provided for in the mandate of the blue helmets,”

Additionally, MINUSMA released a report last year stating that the Malian government (with the help of "foreign military elements" of which the implication is the Wagner Group) has accelerated civilian killings and human rights abuses, which hasn't made the mission more likeable to the government, I would imagine.

Update on the situation in Mali:

The rebel coalition in the north, the CSP-PSD (Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development - man, this sounds like it was named in a Washington DC office), has said that if the UN mission is pulled out as the military government is demanding, then this would be a "fatal blow" to the peace accord and threaten regional stability. The coalition previously withdrew from the negotiating table back in December as they grew impatient with the two successive military governments, and it's possible that more active fighting will continue in Mali soon. MINUSMA's mandate runs out on June 30th and if it isn't renewed by then, we may see an orderly withdrawal of UN forces taking about a year, leaving Mali by itself (and, I suppose, the Wagner Group).

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.

This week's first update is here in the comments.

This week's second update is [here[(https://hexbear.net/comment/3553612) in the comments.

This week's third update is here in the comments.

::: spoiler Links and Stuff

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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 decent analysis. Avoid the comment section.

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 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.

On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the warzone.

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 ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist (but still quite reactionary in terms of gender and sexuality and race, so beware). 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 ~ Another 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's army.

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

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.

Last week's discussion post.

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1.5K comments

  • Update for June 19th

    I've received fanart... kinda. Sorta. Somebody designed a banner for me for my profile which I think looks quite snazzy.

    Takeaways:

    • The EU is very unhappy about Syria reentering the Arab League.
    • The British police feel very threatened by actual children given that they keep handcuffing them.
    • Iran's been making deals left right and center all around the world, and the Saudis seem to be positive about the whole naval alliance thing.
    • Things continue to go fairly well for China in Central Asia (Kazahkstan) and Africa, and they're trying to help Afghnistan.
    • Canada's NDP might be a dead end at this point.
    • Putin has showed off the draft peace deal that Ukraine seemed to agree to last year before pivoting after Russia retreating from Kiev.
    • Cuba's based and Florida sucks.

    • Part 2

      I Love My Trans Comrades!

      Monthly Review brings up Melinda Butterfield's reflections on the US and Cuba after spending 12 days in Cuba last month, and her experiences as a trans woman in both countries - noting how while Cuba advances in LGBTQ+ rights, the US is regressing, particularly in states like Florida.^[Monthly Review, originally at Struggle-La-Lucha]

      On our final full day in Havana, we joined the Conga Against Homophobia and Transphobia, marching through the streets shoulder to shoulder with our Cuban siblings, chanting, “¡Socialismo, sí! ¡Homophobia, transphobia no!”

      The memory of the marchers’ joy and political determination, of the happy neighbors and families cheering from apartment windows and sidewalks, of revolutionary political leaders in the front ranks, helped me get through the long hours in Florida, a state increasingly suffocated by censorious, repressive, and frankly murderous laws meant to keep workers down and the rich on top.

      In Cuba, I was never misgendered, never worried about using a restroom, and never felt unsafe for being openly and unabashedly myself. I want that for myself and all my trans siblings, everywhere, every day.

    • Jacobin looks at the New Democratic Party and how they give lessons about how to not do politics - appealing to an imagined (and, as it turns out, non-existent) suburban conservative voter who is just so outraged by all the conspiracy theories and how gosh danged improper the current leader is that they'll vote for the NDP, and all the NDP has to do in return is give up their progressive policies.[31] Canadian Dimension also dunks on them, calling for a new political movement as the NDP is clearly a spent force.[32]

      That sounds about right. The federal NDP is just so toothless nowadays. Part of the problem is that they're effectively part of a coalition government with the minority-government Liberals. If the NDP pushes too hard for things like strengthening the social safety net, the more conservative factions of the Liberals push back, despite it being in the interests of both parties to keep the increasingly-unhinged Conservatives out of power.

      And that's not even getting into the weirdness of the Alberta provincial-level NDP. Theoretically the provincial NDP parties are part of the federal party, but in practice the Alberta NDP are basically just capital-L Liberals with orange lawn signs instead of red ones, and they care very little for what the federal party thinks of their policies.

      One of the things that many people outside of Canada might not know about our political system is how decentralized it is. The constitution is crystal clear about dividing areas of jurisdiction between the federal and provincial levels. The federal government has authority over things like the criminal code, the military, foreign affairs, and interprovincial transport, for example. But the provinces have authority over (for example) natural resources, health care, education, stock markets, intraprovincial transport, and oversight of municipal affairs. When the federal government gets involved in those areas, it's with the express blessing of the provinces after much negotiation. This is typically done to maintain consistent standards across provinces (such as with health care), using continued federal funding as the carrot, and taking it away as the stick.

1463 comments