Image is of a crowd protesting in Athens.
Last week, on Friday, hundreds of thousands of Greeks poured into the streets to strike and protest on the second anniversary of the deadliest train crash in Greek history, in which 57 people died when a passenger train collided with a freight train. On this February 28th, public transportation was virtually halted, with train drivers, air traffic controllers, and seafarers taking part in a 24 hour strike - alongside other professions like lawyers, teachers, and doctors.
The train crash is emblematic of the decay of state institutions brought about from austerity being forced on Greece in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession, in which the IMF and the EU (particularly Germany) plundered the country and forced privatization. While Greece has somewhat recovered from the dire straits it was in during the early 2010s, the consequences of neoliberalism are very clearly ongoing. Mitsotakis’ right-wing government has still not even successfully implemented the necessary safety procedures two years on, and so far, nobody has been convicted nor punished for their role in the accident. The austerity measures were deeply unpopular inside Greece and yet the government did not respond to, or ignored, democratic outcry.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. 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.
A story in three parts: the pause of all US military aid to Ukraine, including that currently in transit: yes that’s right, the lastest reporting from Bloomberg states that all US military aid to Ukraine will be paused, until Ukraine’s leadership “demonstrates a good faith commitment to peace”, according to the reporting. In other words, US military aid is paused until Ukraine signs the natural resource extraction deal with the United States. So not a permanent termination, but a pressure tactic. I’ve been sitting on this post for a few hours now, just waiting for the official confirmation.
Part one: The New York Times reports of a meeting of senior Trump administration officials, taking place today (3 March 2025), to discuss the matter of aid to Ukraine, including the option of pausing it all.
Europe Races to Repair a Split Between the U.S. and Ukraine - New York Times - 2 March 2025
Part two: The final straw. Zelensky makes a statement saying that the end of the war in Ukraine is “very, very far away”. Trump does not take this well, posting about on Truth Social and sending a thinly veiled threat towards Zelensky during a press conference indirectly addressing Zelensky’s comments, reminiscent of Henry Kissinger threatening to coup Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, South Vietnam’s president back in 1972.
Trump: “A deal can be made very fast… If someone doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long”
Part three: Bloomberg News breaks the story. All current and future military aid to Ukraine had been suspended as of 45 minutes ago.
Trump Pauses Military Aid to Ukraine After Clash With Zelenskiy - Bloomberg News, 3 March 2025, 23:48 UTC
The last military aid flight to Ukraine landed in Poland at 15:19 UTC, about 9½ hours ago.
Russian security went into high alert, but was confused by the fact that Trump was invading in order to bring down the U.S.'s own anti-Russia regime. Russia’s military operations therefore ground to an uncertain standstill. NATO expansion Mission Accomplished™?!
One of the few pleasures of the Trump administration is when their petty vindictiveness is directed towards other ghouls. Like Hegseth cancelling his meeting with Kaja Kallas after her transatlantic flight had already landed in DC, or withholding military aid already in transit to Ukraine. Sadly for every humorous instance of base spite there’s another directed at the vulnerable.
What’s important to figure out is “how out in the cold are they”? Did we pull back intelligence? Are they relying on laughs Britain?
Like is the Kid Starver MI6 and Royal Airfarce supposed to be supplementing their field. The materiel is pointless without the actual intelligence. The US is essentially their lifeline to geostationary battlefield intelligence. Without that they have absolutely nothing in comparison.
Don’t worry, France has been running reconnaissance flights in the Black Sea as of late. I’m sure a couple of Mirages and Beach King aircraft with SIGNIT equipment can replace the entirety of the USA’s intelligence apparatus, don’t you worry now! The Ghosts of
KievParis will push Putin’s army back all the way to the gates of Moscow, Macron told me so.Fun fact: there is only one country in history that has developed, and later abandoned, orbital rockets: Britain. The critical technology for having fully domestic surveillance and they gave it up because they believed American promises about a general launch agreement.