Image is of a Russian missile impacting Ukraine.
As we rapidly approach the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Ukraine War (an anniversary I absolutely did not expect would occur while the two sides were still in combat), we have seen Russia turn to a new strategy, starting late last year but intensifying in December and now January.
Russia seems intent to disconnect Ukrainian cities from the electrical grid by focussing bombing on thermal, gas, and hydro stations, causing major power blackouts across the country. Russia is also bombing substations relatively close to Ukraine’s three nuclear power plants (Zaporzhye, the fourth, remains under Russia control), studiously avoiding hitting the premises of the NPPs themselves for obvious reasons. Even if they’re far away from the NPPs, striking the substations does have risks, because if the nuclear reactors aren’t shut off before the substations are bombed, there is a possibility that there will be insufficient backup power to prevent a meltdown - hence why Russia hasn’t really attempted to do this for four years.
Most of the electricity generated in Ukraine comes from the nuclear power plants, both because of the infrastructure they had initially (Ukraine was 7th in the world in nuclear electricity generation before the war) and because Russia has bombed most non-nuclear power stations and substations already. Over the last couple weeks, we have seen Ukrainian media fly into a frenzy about long-lasting blackouts, especially in the middle of winter. After the Zionist entity destroyed virtually all civilian infrastructure in Gaza while the West cheered on, they now appear to have changed their mind on whether such strikes are an effective and humanitarian option to subject millions of people to.
Regardless of whether you personally believe these Russian strikes are justified (I’m pretty iffy myself), it must be stressed that Ukraine has been bombing Russian tankers and oil refineries and power stations for a long time now, so in a sense, this is a retaliation. It’s also remarkable, compared to Western wars, that Ukraine was even still allowed to possess a functioning electrical grid for nearly four years into a war of this magnitude. That all being said, while Ukrainian strikes have been somewhat but not overly impactful on the Russian oil sector, the response is clearly very asymmetrical: Ukraine’s power grid is, according to Ukrainian energy corporations, now 70% degraded and is virtually impossible to now repair, and blackouts can last most of the day.
For everybody’s sake, I hope a ceasefire and peace deal will be reached soon. But after four years of seeing opportunities for an end to this war squandered over and over, I’m not holding my breath.
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The Zionist Entity'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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
Imagine if Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il-sung thought like this. They might as well lay down arms and ask for a seat in Parliament.
An insurgency is a very extreme situation, which may cost tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of lives. I hate that sort of thing, but Venezuela didn’t have many options. It was their chance to prove to the Venezuelan people that are actual anti-imperialists, that they actually believe in the ideology they propagated for two decades. Instead, the Chavistas are giving oil to the Americans, their base will dwindle by the day, and sooner or later, regime chance will happen, when the Chavistas no longer have anything to offer.
Also, imagine being a Chavista supporter rn. Your country was sanctioned, demonized worldwide, millions had to leave the country due to the same sanctions, and some tens of thousands died directly because of the sanctions. All this suffering, all this pain, so in the end, Delcy Rodrigues can give away everything that Chavez and Maduro, even with their class limits, builded. If you ask me, i don’t think the Chavistas will take the surrender of their leadership too well. Especially since some of them have guns now.
You’re relying a bit much on reducing revolutions to specific figures, and not the will of the people. Vietnam and the DPRK won their independence through fierce and catastrophic violence, yes. And that’s amazing. That was the work of the people, not two ideologically committed individuals. But Venezuela does not have a base of people to do the same, nor the same circumstances. The Bolivarian revolution was not a bunch of armed insurgents building a base of people willing to die in large numbers, to fight to the death. It was a a peaceful transition through electoralism and reform.
And what? Delcy is meant to decide for everyone in Venezuela that they are now committed to immediate hot war to defend a movement that was not built on guns in the trees? Why do you imagine she would have the mandate of the people to make such a choice? Why do you think that communism is built on the ideological commitment of individuals and not the will of the masses? If Venezuela has the conditions for the masses to be willing to engage in asymmetrical hot war to defend their revolution, one leader “betraying” them won’t stop it. But if Venezuela goes along with the decision, maybe it’s because that actually reflects where the people are at? That they aren’t in a place where they want to look at their neighbours, their brothers, sisters, children, and say “let the bombs fall.”
Fairs. Now that you mentioned it, it wasn’t just Ho and Kim, but millions of people who upheld the leadership of these two people. The Korean and Vietnamese peoples wanted those revolutions to occur, after all they went through in WWII.
I agree somewhat to the first sentence, the second one is stating a fact, and my problem is with the third one, although it is also a fact. Latin American reformism didn’t accomplish anything in the 1960-70s. It only prevented communists from doing revolution, delve them into the romantic path of reform, and that got most of them killed or severely tortured. The second coming of reformism in Latin America in the 2000’s barely accomplished anything. The few reforms that were passed where quickly reversed, and these governments all lost power, except in Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela. I fear the same thing happens again. PT will never take power again after Lula dies, and Petro’s sucessor will be in a tough spot (that’s if he actually wins). Venezuela basically had the only Pink Tide government remaining. They could learn from these past experiences and realizes that electoralism won’t be enough. Or if they don’t realize this, perhaps the PCV or other org could do it (the surrender of PSUV doesn’t surprises me, but PCV’s apathy in all of this is appalling. Seems that everything they do these days is scream “Hands Off PCV” in Solidnet, which doesn’t has any power).
The thing that I’m very convinced is that the Chavista rank-and-file in last December/this month were ready for a step forward: their massive mobilization alone could scare off an US invasion. Instead, the Chavista leadership took a step backwards, and essentially submitted to the US. And i bet 100% that people won’t like this. I fully expect PSUV or its coalition to splinter into a electoralist party fully loyal to Delcy Rodriguez, with some smaller orgs derived from PSUV attempting to reclaim some dignity in the people’s eyes.
As for PSUV, their destiny is sealed. They will follow the same path of MAS.
edit: also, thanks for actually engaging with my comment. the other people weren’t doing that.
I think it’s perfectly fair to question this particular model of socialist reform. I mean, I think most people here have no problem pinpointing reformism as a generally weak way to usher in socialism. It’s wonderful to see what fantastic things Venezuela accomplished in spite of the fury of capital, and to see how many people came together to support a better future for their community, rather than just for themselves. But even if it sucks, we have to look at the actual context of the society in which the revolution is happening. And because this is the path that Venezuela took, it wasn’t a path built with the militarism that has given the DPRK, for example, the mandate to stand up to America in the face of serious threat.
If you’re correct and enough people in Venezuela are opposed to this (and to be clear, as short-term concessions run the risk of turning to long-term subjugation, and the material conditions in Venezuela deteriorate from increased exploitation, it is very likely that larger groups of people become convinced of the necessity for desperate action as time goes on), then a new form of revolution in Venezuela may very well grow.
Ultimately, that is usually what people come to find in the question of reform or revolution. Reform is a means, not an end, and once reform is made impossible by the impositions of capital, revolution becomes necessary. But I can’t blame someone for wanting a way forward that doesn’t come with the brutality through which the DPRK was forged. For a lot of people, even if they might think intellectually that the long suffering of exploitation is just as painful and deadly, emotionally they aren’t ready to relinquish a chance at a peaceful path.
I disagree, in part. Venezuela is pretty militaristic, probably the most of any Latin America country, followed by Nicaragua, Cuba, El Salvador and Colombia (back when the right-wing ruled over, that’s it ; idk how Petro talks with the military, but I would guess isn’t a good relationship). But yeah, DPRK is way more militaristic, some of which is out of necessity, due to imperialism occupying half their country.
I haven’t got privileged info. I’m just expecting history to repeat itself. In 2014, some Chavistas broke with Maduro and PSUV, dissatisfied with Maduro’s economic policy, actually launched armed struggle, which was unsuccessful. I would say that, since this economic decision is way more important than the former, there will be more splintering. But, that’s just a guess.
I agree. Nobody wants to go through what the DPRK went. Perhaps I’m overreacting, but, as a Latin American, I feel almost as if the 70’s is back. The right-wing is on offensive in all countries, and the left keeps doing dumb shit. And it’s very terrifying seeing reformism crumbles, because every progressive person becomes a target of the reaction. It happened in Colombia after Gaitan got killed, it happened in Brazil when Goulart was deposed, it happened in Chile when Allende was overthrown. And I fear the same for Venezuela, if the leadership doesn’t changes course immediately. Of course, they know more about Venezuela than me, but there’s always that feeling that the leadership might have sold out the people. It happened before the nearby countries.
Thanks for taking time to respond. And I apologize for my rudeness. Stay well.
Uncle Ho had no other choice. The Vietnam liberation and revolutionary struggle escalated. They wanted a peaceful resolution, but they were forced to fight.
Venezuela is also forced to fight or surrender and they chose the latter, whereas Vietnam chose the former.
Reframing this concession as a surrender is the kind of unserious, reductionist analysis that comes from the online left. The revolution is not surrendered, point blank. Decontextualized comparisons to Korea or Vietnam are a special kind of negligence but lets go down that route: the asymmetry in military capabilities today is wider than it ever was during those wars; they both bordered china which gave them easy access to material support from China and Russia via rail, they could not be blockaded; they both evolved from existing national liberation struggles given the ultimatum of surrendering state power or engaging in war; I could go on and on.
The point is: it is dogmatic to say with these conditions that you know better than the Venezuelan leadership, and they should enter conflict and destroy the lives of millions of people like pawns in a strategy PC game.
To quote Amilcar Cabral:
Giving up all your nations oil to a fund controlled by the US that will be given to gusanos to do regime change is a complete and total defeat. Millions of lives were sold out to ensure the safety of leadership. Billions of hours of labor and sacrifice was destroyed for nothing in return. Cutting Cuba’s oil off is also a major defeat. These copes were going around when Syria was falling too, and when Hezbollah surrendered. Face reality.