Image is from @[email protected], who got it from @[email protected], 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.
anyone else feel a bit more weird about Prigo’s death?
Putin in the past typically assassinated his opponents using more covert methods like poisoning. Taking down a plane is much more overt. Also, if he were going to kill him why send him to Belarus in the first place? It gives me sus vibes.
Ukraine/West has as much motive to kill Prigo because of his ties to Wagner as Putin does. What do you all think?
Pringles led an armed rebellion during wartime and made Putin look weak. He had to be offed in a much more spectacular way than your average defecting spy or annoying blogger.
He couldn’t be killed right away. During the attempted Pringles putsch the main concern of the Russian state was to defuse the situation and get the organised armed men to go home without bloodshed. The Belarus deal made sure this happened. Now the risk of a new coup attempt has decreased and Pringles could be killed safely.
people were calling Putin weak because he didn’t have him killed, he had to do it in an overt way as a message
I think Putin tried to serve Prigozhin his “just desserts” after all, his coup attempt did get a plane with pilot shot down along with some helicopters. That’s betrayal, big time. Not a normal opponent for Putin imo.
The one question mark I have is how the bomb was planted. The plane was flying from Africa so it must have been planted there, which leaves the door open to some other actors but also easily Russians in Africa, perhaps Sudan, or some allied Africans doing Putin a favor.
I think as a balance of probabilities most likely Putin or his ally’s getting revenge for the coup but I see some plausible scenarios where it wasn’t. But I mostly think it was Putin / his ally’s.
depending on how sneakily the bomb was planted, is it feasible that it was planted long in advance? I’m assuming intelligence agencies around the world have come up with some pretty nefarious ways of killing important people
I think they shot a missile at it
Maybe I’m behind the news but the last account I heard was eyewitnesses saw two explosions on one wing, but I didn’t see a report about a missile. Which sounds like a bomb?
I might be out of date?
no it sounds like you are more up to date than I am
The US/NATO already came out and said that they didn’t detect any missile launches.
I think the plane was flying from Moscow to st. Petersburg. I think Moscow was a stop over from africa.
deleted by creator
I think it’s wise to consider outside actors, since the assassination could potentially be destabilizing if it pisses off enough Wagner guys.
However, it seems like Putin got his ducks in a row before going through with the assassination. The fact that Surovikin, who was considered by at least some commentators to be “Wagner’s man in the MoD” and who disappeared after the rebellion, was fired the day before the crash was probably not a coincidence. I imagine they went through basically making sure everyone important wasn’t going to make any noise about Prigo receiving his punishment before they went through with it. What is often overlooked about assassination is that you can often end up with someone worse or harder to control if you don’t understand who is going to fill in the power vacuum it creates.
👀 second plane 👁️🗨️ him holding Porno Manga (👀 Isekai ? )
i have not investigated the porno manga for clues , but somebody can chime in , he would be judged tho…
I’ve seen this theory floated, where it makes sense is that France/USA wanted to re-exert influence over the Sahel and taking out Wagner leadership was a way to weaken Russian influence over that region
I know nothing so take what I say with a grain of salt, but it just doesn’t make sense to me. The Wagner rebellion was because the MoD wanted to subsume Wagner and bring them into the Russian Armed Forces. Prigozhin knew that would undermine his influence and so rebelled. When the rebellion ended, part of the deal was that those who did not participate could sign contracts and become regular troops. So the goal seems to still be to end Wagner and make them part of the Russian Armed Forces. Prigo as an oligarch who feels betrayed and upset with Putin - Putin knows how much the US/west would like to regime change Russia, Prigo with military contacts, and remaining loyalists could give the US a pretty dangerous way in. Prigo had already tried a coup once, which was fortunately sort of disorganized, who knows if he wouldn’t try a more organized coup this time with US backing. The entire leadership being gone makes sure no one can really fill Prigo’s void.
It’s also a message to other oligarchs who might step out of line. Prigo tried to fight the state, Putin needs to send a message to any other oligarchs who might try this, especially with the US clamoring for regime change. See “he made serious mistakes in his life” from his speech yesterday. Putin had to seem strong, and he couldn’t send the message that if you fight the state and lose you can just walk away no consequences, lest someone else attempt it.
Surovikin is also gone, so it looks like there’s a larger attempt to remove any Wagner sympathy from the military - it’s not merely contained to killing Prigo.
Probably not Ukraine or the west either because getting a bomb on a plane surrounded by Wagner security… in Moscow… in wartime seems a bit tough.
I don’t think it was Putin because like you said he’d probably do it quieter.
My money is on Surovikin . Prigozhin’s mutiny made Surovikin look bad and is probably what cost him his job. He probably got the OK from Putin.
Prigozhin planted the bomb because he wasn’t on it. He has returned to Outer Heaven to wage war against The West, having discovered a weapon to rival Metal Gear.