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
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.
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.
Is it fair to call him that? I thought he was just a guy who trained under Andropov and only became relevant AFTER the ussr was already properly butchered
He’s a convinced neoliberal ideologue, you dont get like that thru osmosis while simply living in the Soviet Union
Even if he was just a foot soldier among the traitors, he was a certified member
Putin was like the first person to call for a global de-dollarization after the Ukraine war started. He may have been a neoliberal, but it shows that he is also willing to switch position when the circumstances have changed.
Unfortunately Russia’s economy is too weak to do this alone, and after China doubled down on defending dollar hegemony and the neoliberal order instead of challenging it, Russia has been on its own for a while now.
And he spent thirty years before that trying to integrate with the west and before 2007 JOIN FUCKIN NATO. And what’s this “may have been” have you heard him during the last three years when he brings up the economy, he’s an ultra free market lib who sided with the central bank and thinks the market is under-represented in Russian arms manufacturing, he’s a dumbass
Look, every major economy in the 2000s tried to court the US, even if they are not genuine in having a friendship. China does even more of that lol.
Remember China was nowhere near as strong as it is today. Russia would be alone against the US if it were to do that.
Which doesn’t really do much to diminish the criticism.
Putin is not some sort of a secret communist. Him being in favour of dedollarisation now is overwhelmingly likely a consequence of the bid of joining NATO failing.
Russia should get critical support for opposing NATO, not a blanket support for everything that it does.
What are these "critical support"s and "blanket support"s that you mention? What does this look like? Is it a difference in rhetoric? Can you show some examples of this “blanket support”? The more I encounter these terms, the more I come to the conclusion that it’s not a meaningful distinction.
I don’t support Russia’s anti-communist actions but support their anti-Nato actions. But right now, I can do nothing in regards to their anti-communism, but can have impacts on how western countries respond to their anti-Nato stuff.
Defending (presumably on the basis of Russia currently being in opposition to NATO) an anti-communists that have been taking action to erode working-class people’s living standards and, well, taking action to make sure that communists do not have power.
If you were supporting Russia’s anti-communist actions, that would be what I would describe ‘blanket support’.
“defending”. Do you mean in rhetoric? To be clear, I think the person you responded to is just factually wrong about Putin’s history. But what difference does it make at this moment between 1. supporting Putin but noting his historical mistakes and 2. Supporting Putin and not noting his historical mistakes. And is that also the difference between “critical” and “blanket” support? Is it lying which shifts it into “blanket” support? I’m just skeptical that anyone actually ever does this “blanket” support. That means that all support is critical, some just also hedge the ability to later say ‘i told you so’ if it goes wrong
I never talk about him as an anti-communist because right now he’s been forced into fighting on the progressive side of history. If the point is that he will make mistakes that we must account for, then I’m good for that. But I still just don’t see how that’s different than any other support that’s ever given
My point exactly and look where that led, in what universe is this a coherent defense of Putin?
And they should stop before the bombs drop
It is alone against the US, unless you count North Korea, funny how it all came full circle, but without the socialism or a unified Eastern Europe
Almost like the capitulationist bullshit that toppled the Soviet Union doesn’t work in the long term and you end up at war anyway
Actually I think you do, certainly in the late period when people stopped believing in socialism and those ideologies started being ok to share publicly as a solution to every problem the country had
The Soviet Union and the east bloc rotted from the inside out. Or where did you think all the millions and millions of registered members of various communist organizations went? To Space?
Every communist party needs to closely study the rot that killed the USSR. If our revolutions can fall after generations, no victory is truly secure until every last capitalist everywhere is dead.
Uhhhh yeah, and Putin was part of that rot
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Are you joking or something? He was first deputy head of the Saint Petersburg administration and leader of the city’s NDR branch, he was a collaborator and neolib from the beginning, get real
He was the deputy chief of the presidential administration of Russia from 1996 to 1999 (and in 1990-1996, he worked in the administration of St. Petersburg).
He didn’t even have a candidate’s degree until 1997, meaning that he could not even be a docent, let alone a professor (and he is still not qualified to be a professor).
And why are you being so incredibly hostile when defending this anti-communist?
The democrats are true revolutionaries while President Putin is “a butcher”.
Shameless Yankee drivel
Where and when the fuck did I say that? Do you know alot of democrats who grieve the fall of the Soviet Union?Aare you so hopped up on Z-posting that the fall of the Union was actually GOOD and modern Russia is an improvement, is this the kind of nonsense we’re gonna start peddling now?
Mamdani
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No I just have permanent brain damage from when american nazis bashed my skull. Thanks for that though 👍
If the US kidnapped the Russian president then the world will be brought to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. Only a myopic hater of humanity would celebrate such a thing.
Yeah doom, doom, doom, cool story but I got a better one…the US forever damages its credibility and Russia finds a better leader who doesn’t wait thirty years to figure the west is trying to destroy his country
You have no idea what you’re saying about Russia, again
Nice argument, very convincing
I can’t argue with democrat supporting USians. I have better things to do
Yankee regime change narratives.
It was the US that destroyed the Soviet Union. When Putin came to power the CIA held key positions in the Russian government, that is no longer the case.
Regardless of your opinions, Vladimir Putin is one of the most popular leaders on the planet and even imperialists admit he maintains an approval rating above 80%. Many people hold the position that he helped pull Russia from the depths of being destroyed into a strong force again.
Yankee left ought mind their tongues. There is a way of talking about these leaders without repeating nazi drivel.
Putin is a weakling, a neoliberal, a traitor and a right-wing bigot
He doesn’t have the balls to hand the US empire a defeat, which is why he waited for twenty years until an army of 700,000 neo-nazis massed on his border to do anything, because he thought the Germans of all people had convinced the US to play nice with Russia, and even after the war began all he’s done is get in the military’s way, ordering bullshit faints, backing the central bank in cratering Russian economic growth, mandating undermanned and understaffed units to save money, to say nothing of that fuckin fiasco with the mercenary army
He’s a CIA creation and a burden on Russia, success has come because of western incompetence and Russian institutions slowly working around Putin’s limits through trial and error
Doom? No,that’s just common sense, how in god’s name do you think jailing the head of state, much less a nuclear power would end in anything else than a immediate declaration of war?
Ukraine with western aid literally bombed the Kremlin, arresting Putin is not gonna trigger nuclear holocaust, the Russians will certainly respond somehow dramatically, or maybe not and it causes a nationalist uproar in Russia that eventually blows over, or Russia bombs a US base somewhere in a limited strike
Either way it’s within the realm of possibility and the results will weaken capital globally, so it’s a likely net positive
You really want a world where a precedent for just straight up jailing the head of state of the worlds largest nuclear armed state is created? Really?
Where diplomacy between powers is even more fraught? Think really carefully if you want the implications beyond the immediate reaction or you’d rather things be as they are.
The potential benefits outweigh the risks, the US empire is dying and lashing out like a cornered beast, there is no such thing as diplomacy under this global order, it has to die and it’s better it dies a lonely death at the expense of one person instead of millions
When I say diplomacy I don’t mean UN vote on saying Israel is doing crimes that doesn’t do anything,I mean Khrushchev Kennedy nuclear hotline. You know,so that we don’t reenact 99 luftbaloons?
And you really wanna gamble on nukes not being used in that scenario? Really? You know this is the fate of human civilization you’re talking about,not trying to grow leftism in the US,right? The stakes are bit higher than you would seem to think. And how do you know the people next in line with their finger on the button are capitalist cowards? What if the people who can launch nukes are more hardline nationalists?
Also,I hate to bust out the Yankee card,but you seem to suffer from American exceptionalism, because the reason the US hasn’t gotten pushback on its own soil wasn’t that it was unbeatable, but that,until recently,it picked on soft targets. No matter how rotted by neoliberalism you may think Russia is, if you push them too far,they will retaliate in kind.
Agreed, the worst outcome would be a Minsk-style deal that gives Russia some breadcrumbs, but which allows the West to further foster Nazism in Eastern Europe, and allows them to try again a decade down the line.
Not properly wrapping this conflict up would be a mistake.