[–] 8 points 2 years ago*

The Donbas is actually the least agriculture intensive region of Ukraine, iirc about 10% of production. Ukraine is using DU because they know they are going to lose and wish to simply punish the Donbas for an eternity.

The infected soils won't just stay in Donbas, but the Westerly wind will generally take these soils further EAST into Russia and the steppe.

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  • [–] 17 points 3 years ago*

    They think European consumption being equalized with Africans means that they'll have to eat bugs, because this is their view of Africa...

    And not shit like, chocolate being more expensive (relative to wages) and less available because African farmers aren't being superexploited by Neo-Colonialism.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    That's what austerity is basically, and the US gets paid by European sanctions on Russia.

    Turns out focusing on developing key industries and partnerships with other nations is beneficial for the economy.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    Communists in the settler and Imperialist countries can't seem to grasp their contradictions. They need to step back and research the material conditions to find their actual mass base and primary contradictions.

    For Brazil the settler population owns most of the property and the largest vehicle for "wealth creation" is expropriating and exploiting indigenous land and labor for international markets. This process is fueling the Brazilian middle class which has so far shown itself to be very reactionary. This is not coincidentally why Bolsonaro's camp has been destroying the Amazon and murdering activist land protectors (mostly indigenous). Communists in Brazil who don't see this will cause fractures in their parties and movements.

    Relevant MintPress article: https://twitter.com/MintPressNews/status/1692172891415269386?t=GbCYLCWXW3d-MxZWXg2rMQ&s=19

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  • [–] 32 points 3 years ago

    Authoritarianism isn't real. Every state aggressively defends its class base. If you don't face repression from your capitalist country, that says a lot about how the state sees you.

    These socialist states aggressively defend the project of socialism in their countries because it represents the working classes.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago*

    I'm updating to this one now, but honestly no it's not worth it. I'm on P6P and weird stuff like my call notification just not showing up and random gesture nav freezes has turned me off of participating in future betas. Missing phone calls because I can't see them has been problematic in multiple events these last few months. I'm going to reset my phone come the official update.

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  • [–] 25 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    The situation in Niger has been brewing for years. The French military has been bombing civilians in their "anti-terror" operation. Nigeriens are waving Russian flags because the Russians are actually good at fighting the insurgents and protecting civilians at the same time. In fact, France's actions have been making the situation in the Sahel WORSE!

    I doubt the USA has much to do with this coup. The reality is that Neocolonial armies are ripe with contradictions, and one of the outbursts of that is a military mutiny in defense of the exploited masses, as we have seen with Burkina Faso, Libya, Cuba, and Venezuela.

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    Archive Link: https://archive.ph/3mAVd

    emphasis [mine]

    WASHINGTON — Classified war documents detailing secret American and NATO plans for building up the Ukrainian military ahead of a planned offensive against Russia were posted this week on social media channels, senior Biden administration officials said.

    The Pentagon is investigating who may have been behind the leak of the documents [find the snitch], which appeared on Twitter and on Telegram, a platform with more than half a billion users that is widely available in Russia.

    So these leaks are real, and the Pentagon is looking for the mole.

    Military analysts said the documents appear to have been modified in certain parts from their original format, overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and understating estimates of Russian troops killed.

    The modifications could point to an effort of disinformation by Moscow, the analysts said. But the disclosures in the original documents, which appear as photographs of charts of anticipated weapons deliveries, troop and battalion strengths, and plans, represents a significant breach of American intelligence in the effort to aid Ukraine.

    Biden officials were working to get them deleted but had not, as of Thursday evening, succeeded.

    So the only part they claim to be doctored is the estimates for the casualties in the conflict. They say the documents being leaked are significant, so much so that the Biden team is trying to get them scraped off the internet.

    To the trained eye of a Russian war planner, field general or intelligence analyst, however, the documents no doubt offer many tantalizing clues. The documents mention, for instance, the expenditure rate of HIMARS — American-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems, which can launch attacks against targets like ammunition dumps, infrastructure and concentrations of troops, from a distance. The Pentagon has not said publicly how fast Ukrainian troops are using the HIMARs munitions; the documents do.

    One aspect of the pro-Ukraine casualty estimates that never made sense was how so many Russians could be dying from Ukraine's lack of artillery, to maintain this narrative the Pentagon never talked about how many shells Ukraine launches per day.

    One of the slides said 16,000 to 17,500 Russian soldiers had been killed while Ukraine had suffered as many as 71,500 troop deaths. The Pentagon and other analysts have estimated that Russia has suffered far more casualties, and that closer to 200,000 soldiers on each side had been killed or wounded.

    Nonetheless, analysts said parts of the documents appeared authentic and provide Russia with valuable information such as the timetables for the delivery of weapons and troops, Ukrainian troop buildup numbers and other military details.

    These estimates seem a little low balled, analysts such as Col Macgregor put Russian dead in the 20-25k range and Uke dead in the six digits. This seems more like the values pre-Bakmut siege. BBC calculated around 16k from Russian obituaries so maybe they were closer to reality than given credit for, or the numbers in the document are confirmed KIA only and MIA is not included. The document in question. More from: https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1644122549909848070?t=J87R-_jIb11q9sFMfcB-XQ&s=19

    The leak is the first Russian intelligence breakthrough that has been made public since the war began. Throughout the war, the United States has provided Ukraine with information on command posts, ammunition depots and other key nodes in the Russian military lines. Such real-time intelligence has allowed the Ukrainians to target Russian forces, kill senior generals and force ammunition supplies to be moved farther from the Russian front lines, though U.S. officials say Ukraine has played the decisive role in planning and execution of those strikes. ["plausible" deniability]

    But early on during the war, Ukrainian officials were hesitant about sharing their battle plans with the United States, for fear of leaks, American and European officials said. As recently as last summer, American intelligence officials said they often had a better understanding of Russia’s military plans than of Ukraine’s.

    The intelligence sharing between Ukraine and the United States loosened up considerably last fall, and the two countries have been working closely on options for a Ukrainian offensive.

    So now the US is running the show. I wonder if the mole is related to Sy Hersh's source on Nord Stream?

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