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.
In “Free Syria” there are now direct flight from the zionist cancer to Damascus.
https://en.al-akhbar.com/news/first-ever-direct-flight-from-occupied-jerusalem-to-damascus
From The Times;
US and Russia ‘propose West Bank-style occupation of Ukraine’
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is understood to support the idea, which can be revealed before the president meets Putin in Alaska on Friday
The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it was revoking the US visas of Mozart Júlio Tabosa Sales, Brazil’s health minister, and Alberto Kleiman, a former Brazilian government official. The decision was revealed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on social media platform X. Without naming names, he stated that he was taking steps to revoke the visas of several Brazilian government officials. He also said that the Mais Médicos program, in which the Brazilian federal government hired Cubans to fill vacancies in the Unified Health System (SUS), was “an inconceivable diplomatic coup.”
“StateDept is also taking steps to revoke visas and impose visa restrictions on several Brazilian government officials and former PAHO officials complicit in the Cuban regime’s forced labor export scheme. Mais Médicos was an unconscionable diplomatic scam of foreign ‘medical missions.’”
“StateDept is taking steps to impose visa restrictions on several African, Cuban, and Grenadian government officials complicit in the Cuban regime’s coerced forced labor export scheme. We are committed to ending this practice. Countries who are complicit in this exploitative practice should think twice.”
“The United States is expanding its Cuba-related visa restriction policy. @StateDept has taken steps to restrict visa issuance to Cuban and complicit third-country government officials and individuals responsible for Cuba’s exploitative labor export program. We will promote accountability for the Cuban regime for oppressing its people and those who profit from forced labor.”
In a previous post, Rubio said he was imposing visa restrictions on African, Cuban, and Grenadian government officials—and their families—due to accusations that they deprived Cubans of essential medical care. When talking about Mais Médicos, the Trump administration says that Mozart Sales and Alberto Kleiman “used PAHO as an intermediary with the Cuban dictatorship to implement the program without following Brazilian constitutional requirements, circumventing US sanctions against Cuba and knowingly paying the Cuban regime what was owed to Cuban medical workers.”
- Telegram
- Rubio Tweet 1 and Tweet 2
🟢 Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades: — Al-Qassam Brigades target two zionist “Merkava” tanks with two “Al-Yassin 105” shells and a side-attack explosive device near Abu Hamid roundabout in the center of Khan Younis city, south of the Strip.
TRUMP CONSIDERING RE-APPOINTING JANET YELLEN FED CHAIR: BESSENT
Source: NewsWire @ Twitter
Lmao. I doubt it’s going to happen, but it would be so funny. The Brandonization must continue.
19 years ago yesterday the Islamic Resistance Movement Hezbollah valiantly defeated a massive attack by the zionist child-killing army in what is now known as “the tank massacre of Wadi al-Hujair”.
Six 4th generation Merkava were torched and 14 other armored vehicles. Overall, 34 zionist officers were sent to hell.
This article is in memory of the mujahid who led the defense. This is but one instance of many during the July war of 2006 where a small handful of resistance fighters held off a zionist force many times their size.
Ali Saleh: The “Destroyer of the Merkava Legend”
An excerpt:
spoiler
In the southern Lebanese town of Adchit lies the grave of Ali Saleh. It looks no different from the others, except for the words carved on it: “Destroyer of the Merkava Legend.”
In the final days of the 2006 July War, he went to Wadi al-Hujair to make history. He knew the Israeli army had decided to push toward the Litani River. They wanted photographs of themselves by the water, now within reach after entering the valley. “We must stop their tanks at any cost,” he was heard saying. Those were his last known words.
And he did it. He stopped them. His comrades watched him run from one Kornet launcher to another, emptying his supply of anti-tank missiles, then searching for more. The invaders never imagined that all those hits came from a single fighter. He kept moving, from tree to tree, rock to rock, and not a single shot missed. Seconds after each launch, an Israeli shell would land where he had just been. Years of combat had taught him how to stay alive.
The Battle of Wadi al-Hujair, described by Israeli officers as “the great war within the great war,” the turning point of the conflict, was pure hell for Israel’s 162nd Armored Division. “Hell upon hell, nothing else,” one soldier told Yedioth Ahronoth. He hadn’t believed he would make it out alive: “You see death before your eyes, and you shake its hand.” Ali Saleh shattered the plans of the Israeli paratroopers sent to secure the valley for the tank columns. They landed in the nearby village of al-Ghandourieh to open the way and expose resistance ambushes. In the end, the Merkava tanks never arrived, and the ambushes were never uncovered. On the contrary, while Ali was destroying armor in the valley, his comrades mauled the paratroopers, reportedly killing or wounding 13.
🔴 Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades: — Scenes of the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, in cooperation with Saraya Al-Quds, striking the zionist enemy forces and their vehicles east of Gaza City, with a barrage of standard 60mm mortar shells, as part of our ongoing response to the occupation’s crimes against our people.
Al-Aqsa Flood.
Article
MOSCOW, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Russia said on Wednesday that its stance on ending the war in Ukraine has not changed since President Vladimir Putin set out his conditions last year: the full withdrawal of Kyiv’s forces from key Ukrainian regions and the abandonment of its NATO ambitions.
Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump are due to meet on Friday in Alaska, the first U.S.-Russian summit since 2021, to discuss efforts to end the war. Trump has said both sides will have to swap some of the land they currently hold to make this happen.
Russia currently controls 19% of Ukraine including all of Crimea, all of Luhansk, more than 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
After reports by some media that Washington understood Putin was ready to compromise on his territorial demands, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s deputy spokesperson, Alexei Fadeev, was asked by reporters if Russia’s position had changed or not.
“Russia’s position remains unchanged, and it was voiced in this very hall just over a year ago, on June 14, 2024,” Fadeev said, referring to a speech Putin delivered then at the foreign ministry.
At that time, in his fullest public remarks so far about the shape of a possible settlement, the Kremlin chief set out demands including the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that they still control.
Putin also said that Kyiv would have to officially notify Moscow that it was abandoning its plans to join the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, and that it intended to remain neutral and non-aligned.
In addition, Putin said that the rights and freedoms of Russian-speakers in Ukraine would have to be ensured, and the “realities” that Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson were now part of Russia.
Putin has said his conditions would also have to be reflected in international agreements. At the time of his 2024 speech, Ukraine rejected his demands as tantamount to an absurd ultimatum.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it will never recognise Russian occupation of its land, and most countries recognise Ukraine’s territory within its 1991 borders. Based on the current frontlines, Putin’s demand would entail Ukraine ceding an additional 21,000 sq km (8,100 sq miles) to Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russia must agree to a ceasefire before territorial issues are discussed. He would reject any Russian proposal that Ukraine pull its troops from the eastern Donbas region and cede its defensive lines.
⚔️ Al-Nasser Salah Al-Din Brigades: — This afternoon, we shelled a gathering of zionist soldiers and vehicles in the western Al-Satar area, north of Khan Younis, with 60mm mortar shells.
Al-Aqsa Flood.
#beanwatch nothing ever happens update:
coffee is still mildly expensive at 320, but that’s still near lows for a year, unless someone (cough vietnam cough) harvest implodes, unlikely to change (this side of china doing shenanigans with brazil), cocoa still at 8600, god bless those farmers, hope they are milking it while they can. soybeans stay stable, nobody believes in shenanigans anymore
Zelensky: My position on the withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Donbas remains unchanged. We discussed the situation at the front line. I told Trump that Putin is bluffing.
- Telegram
The United States AirforceCustoms and Border Protection, for some reason the aircraft shows up as USAF on flight radar, but it is operated by CBP and is owned by the DHS, has operated an MQ-9B SkyGuardian/Predator B MALE UAV asset “TROY701” over Mexican airspace today as part of a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) mission, circling to the west of Mexico City. This is the first time aUS military aircraft has operated over Mexican airspace (outside of a search and rescue mission)a CBP UAV has flown deeply into Mexican airspace, since the beginning of the second term of the Trump presidency.
The MQ-9B can also be configured for Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) missions. Payloads can include Electronic Support Measures (ESM), Radar Warning Receivers (RWR), and a variety of SIGINT packages. The aircraft will also be capable of using the Link- 16 military tactical data exchange network.
Future capabilities for the MQ-9B include communications relay, anti-submarine warfare, electronic attack, ballistic missile defence, and more. Weapons capability will be available on the MQ-9B SkyGuardian and will leverage the proven precision strike capability of the MQ-9A Reaper which is typically armed with 500-pound GBU-12 Paveway II laser guided bombs, and/or AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.
However I highly doubt that the MQ-9Bs which are part of CBP missions and visible on public flight trackers have the hardpoints for mounting weapons. They are most likely unarmed. Photos as recent as March 2024 show no hardpoints for weapons. The specific sensor that the CBP uses for reconnaissance is called VADER:
In 2012, AMO (Customs and Border Protection Air and Maritime Operations) added Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar (VADER), a strategic and tactical operations sensor that provides comprehensive situational awareness for an expanded area. It is designed to detect moving targets and perform coherent change detection. VADER-equipped UAS are an effective tool to help crews detect, classify, and track moving targets over land.
While 20,000 portraits were distributed, with a 31% acceptance rate, uptake was uneven. Just 3% of hospitals, 7% of universities, and a quarter of Church of England churches requested a portrait, compared with 73% of national and local government bodies. All 23 coastguard stations took part.
Fun little Shift in Narratives , so the Victoria Nuland / Kegan Thinktank has started to report Russian Gains Fast and accuratly , ISW was the same Bullshit factory that got us gems like “Russia tries to give to Illusion of a succesfull defense by holding its positions” before …
⚫️ Saraya Al-Quds: — Saraya Al-Quds presents scenes of its fighters, in cooperation with the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, striking gatherings of zionist enemy soldiers and vehicles penetrating east of Gaza with mortar shells.
Al-Aqsa Flood.
