Bulletins and News Discussion from December 2nd to December 8th, 2024 - May A Hundred Hazel Flowers Bloom - COTW: Russia
Image is of one of the six salvos of the Oreshnik missile striking Ukraine.
The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that appears to split into six groups of six submunitions as it strikes its target, giving it the appearance of a hazel flower. It can travel at ten times the speed of sound, and cannot be intercepted by any known Western air defense system, and thus Russia can strike and conventionally destroy any target anywhere in Europe within 20 minutes. Two weeks ago, Russia used the Oreshnik to strike the Yuzhmash factory in Ukraine, particularly its underground facilities, in which ballistic missiles are produced.
Despite the destruction caused by the missile, and its demonstration of Russian missile supremacy over the imperial core, various warmongering Western countries have advocated for further reprisals against Russia, with Ukraine authorized by the US to continue strikes. Additionally, the recent upsurge of the fighting in Syria is no doubt connected to trying to stretch Russia thin, as well as attempting to isolate Hezbollah and Palestine from Iran; how successful this will have ended up being will depend on the outcome of the Russia and Syrian counteroffensive. Looking at recent military history, it will take many months for the Russians and Syrians to retake a city that was lost in about 48 hours.
Even in the worst case scenario for Hezbollah, it's notable that Ansarallah has had major success despite being physically cut off from the rest of the Resistance and under a blockade, and it has defeated the US Navy in its attempts to open up the strait. Israel has confirmed now that their army cannot even make significant territorial gains versus a post-Nasrallah, post-pager terrorist attack Hezbollah holding back its missile strike capabilities. In 2006, it also could not defeat a much less well-armed Hezbollah and was forced to retreat from Lebanon.
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.
So is there going to be some sort of accountability from the users and mods here who spent this whole week calling everyone who was saying this situation was bad a "doomer" and accusing people, including people from the region, of spreading CIA/terrorist misinfo and deleting posts, or are you all going to pretend you didn't do that?
This mega didn't learn its lesson from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
I simply hope that this place doesn’t turn into an echo chamber i.e. r/worldnews or Fox News/MSNBC of the left.
It is good to be critical of sources and information especially with so much misinformation circulating around, but please don’t be hostile and accuse others for simply posting something you don’t like. Engage productively, educate, discuss, and most importantly, be willing to learn from others.
I mean I was trying (and am still trying) to provide an accurate as possible overview of the situation, using first hand information, and reliable sources that have proved their credibility in the past. Even if said information was not what I liked to hear, or was considered "doom and gloom". The writing has been on the wall with regards to the situation in Syria ever since the big push to Hama and it's resulting capture, and me and the Mr LargePenis user were the first to point out that Aleppo was going to fall. I can't (and have no interest in) controlling other people's opinions, or how they interpret unfolding situations. I'll continue to provide posts that are as accurate as I can, positive or negative, and I encourage other users to fact check them, I'm human so I'll make mistakes, I've made errors in the past too, and I always appreciate corrections. I think yesterday someone corrected me on something and that was cool.
I think you and LargePenis did overall a good job providing actual coverage and analysis of what was going on. I don't expect anyone to ever be right 100% of the time. What I do expect is for this community to not dismiss news out of hand because it doesn't fit the narrative it wants to support. That's especially true when multiple different news sources from various ideological and political camps are all reporting similar things, just because "official Resistance representatives" aren't also reporting it.
Syria's version of that was probably their minister of defence, Ali Mahmoud Abbas. Just last night he gave a speech about how all the rebel advances were media fabrications.
No, they werent. Unlike you, they were actually looking at the situation of the SAA continually collapsing, retreating, and leaving military equipment behind, looking at what people they knew on the ground were saying about their faith/belief in the Assad government, and extrapolating that Hama was doomed should that trend continue. And they were right.
This is why you never keep an account longer than 2 weeks. As soon as you see a comment deleted for being defeatist, just make a new one. Of course there won't be.
they did so because they are deeply unserios people , so they see "beeing uneffected" as something cool and awsome. And they avoit "standing for something" because of the Dirt this something might cause on their white west , .. So whenever something really dramatic happens , they think they need to proclaim how they are "uneffected" , they think it marks them as cool , not unserious..
"So syria desendign into a Failedstate and Lybia scenerio effects you emotionally ? Lol , i care for nothing deeply.. "
its just the Attitude that "menetekels" carrry themself by .. its no use to try to police it , this is a western forum the uncalledfor smug by not effected is baked in.