Image is from @Parsani@hexbear.net, who got it from @RNAi@hexbear.net, who got it from Discord.
Thread update: Prigozhin's fucking dead.
The BRICS summit will begin on Tuesday and end on Thursday, with various world leaders, politicians, and representatives meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.
America's anxiety about the summit has been obvious. They have been complicating the event by pushing for the arrest warrant for Putin to be upheld if he steps foot in the country. While this is a remarkably dangerous and unhinged thing to do - even by America's standards - to the leader of a nuclear superpower who could end the world within an hour, it does betray their desperation. Unfortunately, for those of us who wanted to see Putin surrounded by an army of security guards fending off people holding handcuffs, he has sent his Foreign Minister, Lavrov, in his place. Additionally, America has likely been spreading rumors about the lack of interest in gaining new members in the organization.
With apparently 20 countries formally seeking membership and another 20 informally doing so, the bloc has been elevated, whether they like it or not, to the position of the international vanguard of the non-western world. It is extremely important to say that this is not the same as it becoming an anti-American bloc, and many of them (including original members Brazil and India) wish to keep a friendly relationship with the United States. Nonetheless, with the United States' policy of "if you are not with us, you are against us," and as the US seeks to weaken China, in coming years many of them might find themselves under hostile pressure.
BRICS has to try and solve many problems if they are going to chip away at America's stranglehold of the world economy. These problems - like mitigating the dollar's status as a global reserve currency, and America's dominant role in the world economy - are extremely complicated, and will takes years, even decades, to be overcome. Therefore, one should temper their expectations and excitement for this summit. It took tens of millions of deaths in cataclysmic wars, and then several more decades, for America to reach its current position. I see no reason to believe why its downfall will be any less bloody and elongated.
To end on a less depressing note, I've been searching for appropriate anagrams given the list of countries that seek to join BRICS. Obviously not all of them will make it in, but even so. The best I've come up with is HIBISCUS EMANCIPATES BBBBKKRVV.
(also, "bulletins and news discussion" can be rearranged to "libidinous newsstands uncles".)
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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.
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 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
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.
![](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/59d1e060-b123-4a02-a65d-ecb71fd43e10.webp)
saw some thread about how ukraine is making huge grounds and liberated a place called Urozhaine. i never heard of it so i tried to find it on a map, but couldnt. so i typed it in google and apparently its a town that consists of two very narrow and short roads and is about 700 feet wide. so like 3-4 football fields
everyone is saying the war is over over 3-4 football fields of land
propaganda is wild
Someone told me this on Reddit yesterday
this, of course, doesn't apply to Bakhmut, which had zero importance whatsoever and yet the Russians were trying to take it for the better part of a year and Ukraine resisted them anyway
I remember even RWN fell for this shit.
Dolan: the Russians finally took Bakhmut, so what? and it took them a year to take a small town and some villages!
Very high quality military analysis here lol
don't worry, they'll admit they were wrong about most things after the war when it doesn't matter anymore, and then in the next war they'll fall for the exact same pitfalls, ad infinitum
Oh come on, don't be so hard on Gary, he's funny and informative. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't started reading the War Nerd in 2007.
To be clear, I also have followed RWN for years (not so much now), but this war in Ukraine is the first time that I (and I’m sure others here had the same experience) thought to myself: “hmm… i’m pretty sure this was not how the things they described went down”, simply because I had followed the events much more closely than they do.
Also, Ames couldn’t let go of “well Putin is stupid, so clearly it’s very possible that Russia was the one that bombed Nord Stream” was a pretty coward move, until Seymour Hersh literally went on their show to educate them.
Are these experts related to the “sages” in the D&D monster manual?
Do not question the NYT, peasant.
Americans measuring a place: imagine a football field
What's more confusing is since I'm also Czech I sometimes think of soccer football
The fields are roughly the same size, so it shouldn’t matter too much if that’s what you picture
Euros measuring a place: imagine a football field^*^
^*)^ A real football field, not that an American stuff
look for 'Levadne' on google maps
this is the kind of thing Ukraine is celebrating when you hear "another three settlements liberated!"
hey thats bigger, thats like 2,500-3k feet! waiting for them to christen some new towns just to say they took them back when they do a short walk up a road
most of the “great Ukrainian victories” are like two apartments blocks and towns equivalent to Goltry, Alfalfa County.
This is the most perfect video ever made if I take your comment as context.
You have to wonder whether the Russians just pulled out there and then shelled/droned the Ukrainian troops that moved in, as they've been doing quite a bit, and they just didn't report that bit.