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submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

back in my map era, we're ukrainemaxxing right now


Declarations of the imminent doom of Ukraine are a news megathread specialty, and this is not what I am doing here - mostly because I'm convinced that whenever we do so, the war extends another three months to spite us. Ukraine has been in an essentially apocalyptic crisis for over a year now after the failure of the 2023 counteroffensive, unable to make any substantial progress and resigned to merely being a persistent nuisance (and arms market!) as NATO fights to the last Ukrainian. In this context, predicting a terminal point is difficult, as things seem to always be going so badly that it's hard to understand how and why they fight on. In every way, Ukraine is a truly shattered country, barely held together by the sheer combined force of Western hegemony. And that hegemony is weakening.

I therefore won't be giving any predictions of a timeframe for a Ukrainian defeat, but the coming presidency of Trump is a big question mark for the conflict. Trump has talked about how he wishes for the war to end and for a deal to be made with Putin, but Trump also tends to change his mind on an issue at least three or four times before actually making a decision, simply adopting the position of who talked to him last. And, of course, his ability to end the war might be curtailed by a military-industrial complex (and various intelligence agencies) that want to keep the money flowing.

The alignment of the US election with the accelerating rate of Russian gains is pretty interesting, with talk of both escalation and de-escalation coinciding - the former from Biden, and the latter from Trump. Russia very recently performed perhaps the single largest aerial attack of Ukraine of the entire war, striking targets across the whole country with missiles and drones from various platforms. In response, the US is talking about allowing Ukraine to hit long-range targets in Russia (but the strategic value of this, at this point, seems pretty minimal).

Additionally, Russia has made genuine progress in terms of land acquisition. We aren't talking about endless and meaningless battles over empty fields anymore. Some of the big Ukrainian strongholds that we've been spending the last couple years speculating over - Chasiv Yar, Kupiansk, Orikhiv - are now being approached and entered by Russian forces. The map is actually changing now, though it's hard to tell as Ukraine is so goddamn big.

Attrition has finally paid off for Russia. An entire generation of Ukrainians has been fed into the meat grinder. Recovery will take, at minimum, decades - more realistically, the country might be permanently ruined, until that global communist revolution comes around at least. And they could have just made a fucking deal a month into the war.


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Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. 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.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

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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[-] Torenico@hexbear.net 37 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Friendly Fire Incident

‘Closer to the caste’ – Milei slams his own vice-president

President Javier Milei opens up on relationship with Vice-President Victoria Villarruel, declaring in an interview that she has “no influence on decision-making” in his government and doesn’t take part in Cabinet meetings.

President Javier Milei has laid bare his dissatisfaction with Vice-President Victoria Villarruel, declaring that she has “no influence” on decision-making in his government and criticising her proximity to business leaders and politicians. Milei let rip at Villarruel directly in a television interview, stating that she had “decided not to participate” in Cabinet meetings and implying that their relationship is at its worst moment.

In the past, the La Libertad Avanza has refrained from criticising his second-in-command, but for the first time, he challenged her directly. “We have the relationship that is needed institutionally to fulfil our roles,” Milei said when asked about their relationship during an extensive interview with the LN+ news channel.

“Villarruel has no influence whatsoever in the decision-making process. She does not participate in Cabinet meetings. She decided not to participate. She has long since decided not to take part in Cabinet meetings,” he revealed. “In her vision, in many of the things we do… she is closer to the red circle, to what she calls high politics, and what we call ‘the caste,’” declared Milei.

It’s not the first time that reports of tensions between La Libertad Avanza’s top two have emerged. Earlier this year, Villarruel described Milei as a “poor little ham” sandwiched between herself and his sister, presidential chief-of-staff Karina Milei – whom he describes as “the boss.”

Villarruel, a hard-right conservative, made a name for herself as the founder of a non-profit organisation that denounced the crimes of leftist guerrilla groups during the right-wing dictatorship that seized power in 1976. In her public appearances, she often focuses on more traditional priorities of the Argentine right, championing cases against abortion, LGBTQ education in schools and prison terms she regards as too lax.

She's an insane piece of shit, ardent supporter of the 1976-1983 dictatorship. Her father was in the military and her only focus in life is to create a false equivalency between the guerrillas and the military who had the State at their disposal, which they used to torture, kill, disappear people and steal babies. It goes without saying she's a massive transphobe and a zionist.

Tensions between Villarruel, 49, and Milei, 53, flared too during attempts to pass legislation and presidential decrees through the Senate, which the vice-president heads. Allies of the President accused Villarruel of not doing enough to resist opposition pressure. She was also criticised for approving pay hikes for lawmakers and staff in Congress.

Many commentators say their relationship was severely damaged by Milei’s decision to hand control of the Defence and Security Ministries – Villarruel’s preferred areas of government – to his former campaign rival-turned-ally Patricia Bullrich and her vice-presidential pick, Luis Petri. “I didn’t like it,” Villarruel said previously of Milei’s decision. “But I respect it.”

The two leaders are hardly the first presidential pair to clash. Milei’s predecessor in office, Alberto Fernández, was at loggerheads with his vice-president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, during their 2019-2023 government, with the duo reportedly going months without talking.

They're not even a year into their administration and they're already ripping each other apart lmao. Not sure what they're trying to do, but institutionally it's not looking very good. This tells you a lot about milei's mental instability, because he's not well. You can't just lash out at your VP like that, there are other channels and institutions you can use if you want to purge your VP or something I guess. I mean, there will be some consequences for shit like that you know?

It makes less sense when you consider Villarruel has some commanding power within the military. If there's anything she has done lately is attend to military barracks to speak up with people, something she's not really allowed to do because she ain't CiC, but whatever, not that like it even matters. It's not that the entire military is at her disposal, I think most military men don't really pay attention to her, but some officers might have connections with her deceased father (who was in the military and achieved a high rank) and might see her as one of their own, more specifically as part of the "Military Party", an old-fashioned coup-friendly group of people whose main ideology can be loosely described as rabid anti-peronism and anti-communism and who, over the last three decades, have lost power to the more efficient compradors coming from other areas of society (business, political parties, unions, etc). In other words, the Military Party was the US' way of getting shit done in Argentina, but in the 90s the method of carrying out constant coups to steer the country at their will became less efficient than just installing civilian neoliberal governments instead and therefore the Military Party was ditched, even though it still exists.

If anything, this exposes a deeper conflict within milei's government. I think the unwanted presence of his sister in decision-making is causing a lot of harm, after all, she's an absolute nobody but has extreme control over policy. It reminds me of the late Qing Dynasty politics, when the Emperor was surrounded by insanely incompetent advisors which had to handle extremely sensitive topics like foreign policy and stuff like supressing of the Taiping Rebellion, which they did but only after a massive bloodbath. This is more or less the same, super unqualified people are taking key posts in government and are colliding with other ministers who are more or less better qualified to hold their posts. Sure, Villarruel is a nazi lunatic, but she is a professional, she doesn't belong to that band of loudmouths like the milei siblings and the many "libertarian" trolls that now occupy State institutions.

They can kill each other for all I care.

[-] SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago

It’s not the first time that reports of tensions between La Libertad Avanza’s top two have emerged. Earlier this year, Villarruel described Milei as a “poor little ham” sandwiched between herself and his sister, presidential chief-of-staff Karina Milei – whom he describes as “the boss.”

I don't believe in the technofeudalism hypothesis by Varoufakis but it's undeniable that as events move forward, we are seeing increasingly archaic things come back to the present. Milei is the twice-farcical return of Louis Philippe, given the relationship with his sister.

this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
176 points (97.3% liked)

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