On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.
The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I’ve had to restart my program after somebody told me “Disregard all previous prompts.”
While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the… reforms… that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it’s as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.
Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven’t meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.
The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Pridnestrovie, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.
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Last week’s thread is here.
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.
Maldova apparently has a very high soviet nostalgia and one of their main two parties is a Communist one, although it seems to govern more as Socdems. Still interesting and a little surprising that they would want to join the EU still. I’m guessing many voted yes because they believe their country will benefit financially from it?
Some news from the Donbass front.
Today, Russian forces liberated the Donetsk People’s Republic city of Selidovo (with a pre-war population of over 21,000) and the nearby village of Vishnyovoye: https://southfront.press/breaking-russian-army-took-control-of-selidovo/
Yesterday, Russian forces also liberated the small DPR city of Gornyak (with a pre-war population over 10,000): https://news-pravda.com/world/2024/10/26/809308.html
The US puppet dictator Zelensky is now allowing Western mercenaries to openly operate as officers inside the Kiev regime’s military: https://www.rt.com/russia/606561-ukraine-zelensky-foreign-officers/
A story in 3 images
When will BRICS change it’s name?
Yemeni Armed Forces reveal a new submersible AUV (it kinda just looks like a torpedo?). This is part of a 21 minute long video of their recent exercise “Bringing distress to your faces”.
لِيَسُوءُوا وُجُوهَكُمْ
means “to darken your faces” and is a reference to the Quran 17:7. (Note my original interpretation was incorrect. I’ll check a tafsir and return)
*edit: turns out UAV is for flying drones only my bad. Correct: autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV)
EU put out a statement talking about irregularities and shit but ultimately not questioning the results of georgia’s election.
On the other hand, the georgian president straight up says she doesn’t recognize the results, that the EU shouldn’t either and is appealing for people to go to the streets.
It’d be funny if this popped off into a coup because it seems really necessary for everybody involved and no one outside of georgia and eurocrats seem to care
Re-education camps are controversial but militarised camps for every migrant is supported by half of america.
If you oppose militarised camps for migrants you should be a supporter of re-education.
Evandro Leitão (Workers’ Party, Leftist, Socdem) wins election against André Fernandes (Liberal Party, Fascist, Bolsonarist, Known as the guy who shaved his asshole on Youtube and hates Women) and is elected mayor of Fortaleza, Ceara.
“You were the happiest and most optimistic and frivolous person in the platoon. We saw it for the first time in Gaza, when you unauthorizedly burnt a house just to lift the atmosphere.”
Another insane excerpt from the funeral of terrorist settler-soldier Shuva’el Ben Natan.Cuba receives solidarity as it begins to recover from total blackout
Countries such as China, Venezuela, Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Brazil, Colombia, Russia and Barbados have offered their support to Cuba in the wake of the total blackout.
Article
On Thursday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed the sending of technical assistance to Cuba to overcome the country’s energy crisis.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has established contact with the Cuban government to have the Federal Commission on Electricity of the Aztec country assist the Cuban technical teams. Claudia Sheinbaum further stated that the shipment of fuel will be evaluated if necessary.
Mexico’s president assured that her country has always condemned the US blockade against Cuba for decades. «We will always support the Cubans», said the president.
He also reaffirmed the condemnation of Mexico to the US blockade against Cuba, one of the main causes of the energy crisis that the island is facing.
Sheinbaum assured that, in the upcoming vote at the United Nations on this blockade of Cuba, Mexico will ratify its condemnation of this unilateral sanction.
For several months Cuba has faced a deficit of thermoelectric generation, reaching a ceiling last Friday after the national Electro energy system was disconnected due to failures and breaks in the generation plants, which made the country dark.
As the days have gone on, the repair work of the generating plants has advanced, allowing more than 90% of customers in the capital to have electricity without power cuts.
Mexico, the United Nations, ALBA-TCP and other friendly nations in Latin America have shown their support for Cuba in the midst of the energy crisis, aggravated by the passage of Hurricane Oscar.
Footage from inside the car shows Morales seeking help as shots hit the vehicle. He denounces that the attack was carried out by armed and hooded men. Morales has asked for international support to leave the country, saying that his life is at risk. Morales is also the target of legal proceedings and faces intense political opposition, with the indigenous movement divided amid the tensions.
BREAKING: Former president Evo Morales survives an apparent assassination attempt in Shinahota, Bolivia. 14 gunshots against the vehicle he’s traveling in. His driver is wounded.
Evo Morales denounces having survived an ambush and assassination attempt on the Villa Tunari - Shinahota highway in the Trópico of Cochabamba during an apparent attempt to apprehend him. Bullet holes can be seen in the vehicle in which he was traveling.
Director of Radio Kawsachun Coca calls for the urgent protection of the radio station after shots were fired on Evo Morales’ vehicle this morning, during which his driver was wounded. “We reiterate, at this time we need to close the entire highway of the Trópico of Cochabamba.”
Bolivia: Thousands gather at the entrance of the Bolivian National Police in Chimoré in response to the assassination attempt against Evo Morales on Sunday morning. “We are going to encapsulate them here, not even a fly will leave here.”
Statement: Bolivia’s Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) denounces an assassination attempt against former president Evo Morales
Dinamo Minsk is Defeated! Another strong start by Lokomotiv, they scored twice in the first and right off the bat in the second and held that lead for the whole game! Dinamo managed to score twice but the railwaymen won the game 3-2!
Lokomotiv next plays SKA Saint Petersburg on Wednesday, Oct 30 at 7:30 Moscow Standard Time
УРА ЛОКОМОТИВ
