Image is of Cuba’s National People’s Power Assembly.
The most recent geopolitical news around Cuba is the arrival this week of four Russian vessels, including a nuclear submarine - not carrying any nukes, (un)fortunately - to Havana. This will, in Putin’s words, merely be a visit celebrating historical ties and no laws are being broken. Nonetheless, it’s not hard to imagine how American politicians and analysts are taking the news, especially as it comes shortly after Russia promised an “asymmetrical” response to further NATO involvement in Ukraine (notably, officially allowing the use of US weapons such as missiles in Russia, albeit in a small part of Russian territory, near the border).
Meanwhile, China has been increasingly co-operating with Cuba to overcome the economic hardship created by American sanctions. China has recently re-allowed direct flights to Cuba and has recently donated some small photovoltaic plants as part of an initiative to eventually boost the Cuban energy grid by 1000 MW - and any electrical expansion helps as Cuba is plagued by blackouts which last most of the day. Additionally, the EU has made meaningful contributions to Cuba’s energy situation too, with large solar installations. Hopefully, the Belt and Road Initiative will help preserve the Cuban revolution against reactionary forces as the power of US sanctions wanes. The proximity of Cuba to the United States makes this much more challenging than it would be for countries elsewhere, however. Similarly to the situation in Mexico, it seems unlikely that the US’s influence over Cuba will massively diminish for decades to come unless there is a catastrophic internal collapse in the American authoritarian regime.
The Havana Syndrome will continue until American morale declines.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Cuba! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
What do hexbears think about Putin’s recent peace offering?
All the major MSM had a headline story for Putin’s speech but didn’t go into any details and all rejected it out of hand. I had to go back to Mercouris june 14 video and transcribe them:
1)All Ukrainian troops completely withdraw from annexed territories - they are Russia now
Donetsk Luhansk Kherson Zaporizhzhia
-Russia will guarantee Ukrainian troops safe passage out of the territories
2)Formally declare abandonment of Ukrainian plans to join NATO, no nukes in Ukraine, de-militarisation, de-nazified leadership, non aligned with West
3)Drop all financial sanctions against Russia
As other hexbears have said, simultaneously extremely generous and impossible to accept.
The west will never accept this until Ukraine is in total collapse, but it’s useful to have the Russian peace proposal explicitly stated and publicly visible so that people can see why they hundreds of thousands must die… to allow Ukraine to join NATO and keep Nazi leadership
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I often disagree with your perspective on the Biden admin but I think you’re dead right with this. I don’t think there’s any voice of reason in this administration. I think there’s a good chance they actually think Russian nukes won’t work, and if they do the blowback is acceptable to them as well.
Semi agree, I don’t think they care. The competent ghouls realize that nuclear war is better for empire than a total loss. Wiping the slate, shaking the etch-a-sketch, ect had a “chaos under heaven” aspect. Inexorable decline as the current world their folly has built mandates is the only unacceptable outcome.
I think Biden is basically saying “If you wanna end this empire, then we’ll hit this fucking button. We’ll do it. We ain’t no pussies.” and is acting consistently with that viewpoint, but at the last second, as his fist is coming down on the big red button, it’ll hover and the red telephones will call and civilization will continues. The US probably still has institutional knowledge that MAD is still a operational concept (at the deep state level with the actual empire custodians in the actual rooms where actual decisions are made, not rhetoric or propaganda), but the last three decades of near-total non-opposition has made their restraint atrophy, and in the smoke-filled rooms they are battling it out between “it would be completely counterproductive to end the world even if our world empire is under threat, in the worst case scenario we can still be a very strong capitalist power in a capitalist world system, we can do business with the Russians and Chinese, I’ve got the CEOs of multiple megacorporations on speed dial and their businesses would be really hurt by cutting off Russia and especially China, it’s all fine, we just need to make sure NATO remains intact so we have a market for our weapons” and “we’re the goddamn USA, we can bomb anywhere and infiltrate anywhere and allow our monopolies to dominate anywhere, why shouldn’t we just march in with our forces? what’s the big problem here? are you old fuckers who experienced the Cold War scared of little old Russia? are we seriously letting Putin beat us, that guy we installed as leader?”
the warhawks in and outside the Biden admin are very clearly deeply afraid of losing their hegemony, which explains why they’re acting increasingly brazenly and starting wars in as many places as they can and threatening the use of nukes (or actions that would clearly lead to nuclear exchanges), but I think it’s just (extremely dangerous) bluster in my opinion. it’s a wounded animal that is snarling and lunging. of course, however, the closer you get to the nuclear threshold, the greater the risk of accidents, so intentions might not matter at the end of the day.
But regardless of whether it is bluster or not, geopolitics has to continue and the contradictions will keep mounting. Russia can’t, and more importantly realistically won’t, be like “Well, shit. The nuclear superpower is threatening us in our existential war. I suppose we’ll just give up and become yet another American neocolony.” The DPRK didn’t decide to give up just because their invader had nukes, nor did the Vietnamese. It’s not the ultimate trump card that stops history itself from progressing, America is still perfectly capable of eating shit despite having nukes. So nuclear war isn’t really something I worry about. If America is truly, totally committed to just nuking the planet if their empire is in the process of disintegration, and if that disintegration is inevitable because of the contradictions prying the empire apart just like every single fallen empire in human history, then why worry? If it’s definitely going to happen, we might as well just get it over with right now so we can rise out of the ashes faster. If America isn’t ready to press that button to save their empire, then why worry? The empire will fall and socialism will, hopefully, soon follow. I think Mao was basically right on this point. He was also correct about Italians, which is always good.
Of course, from the most important position - which is, obviously, that of winning internet arguments - the best part of the nuclear-war-won’t-happen side is that I am undunkable. If it happens and I’m wrong, then I and most of us here are probably dead, dying, or have much better things to worry about, and the internet is dead so I can’t be owned. Whereas every year that goes by, the nuclear-war-will-happen side has to continually justify their position and lack of said nuclear war.
When Truman threatened to nuke China if the PLA crossed the Yalu river, Mao reasoned that if Truman actually wanted to nuke China, he would’ve already done so, so the fact that China hasn’t been nuked meant Truman wasn’t going to do shit. And so the PLA rebranded as the PVA crossed the Yalu river.
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Gog and Magog are at work in Europe
She Gog on Magog til I Corncob
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Nah, the Ukrainians were obscessed with captuing the ZNPP exactly because they thought this would be a secure energy source the Russians wouldn’t dare fighting over. The Russian warnings of a dirty bomb were always within this context. The Russians were mostly afraid Ukraine would sabotage the plant and claim the Russians did it.
Besides there is further context, like when the Ukro nazi atrocities were still being uncovered, the Bucha shit, the Mariupol “sacrifice” etc. Ukrainian strategy was to rally support by blaming Russia for these while feeding this to their own nazis as a morale boost. It is still their tactic e.g their SAMs fail and hit their own civilian buildings = “oh no ebil Russian orcs killing our innocent people!” while simultaneously claiming to shoot down 50/50 Russian missiles every time lol.
The US was not particularly involved in any of this IIRC.
Nixonmaxxing
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This is psychotic sentiment. Get a grip.
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Who knows, but the answer isn’t cheering for global nuclear war.
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Russia obviously does not expect NATO to accept these terms. They are there just to say “We offered peace and they didn’t want it”. NATO ain’t giving up on all those new Blackrock holdings.
The NYT just dropped a big article about the 2022 peace talks, even going over specific points. I think this means the Americans are ready to negotiate. If this continues the average redditor lib will be discussing the specific concessions Ukraine could be making instead of talking about how Russia is eventually going to collapse from getting owned too hard.
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Maybe someone other than
would accept. I think it’s only a matter of time the people of 
turn on his ass. He seems to spend more time being an international weapons marketing pitchman than giving a shit about his people.
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God willing, little Z on a lamppost might bring some solace to mothers he stole sons from.
This might happen on paper, but it’s doubtful they’ll stick to it legitimately. Even if Zelensky wants it, he can’t because this would certainly mean being killed by the now jobless Nazis roaming the streets. Unless they mean a Japan type situation where it’s “demilitarized” but it still has a “self defense force”
I think it’s smart to articulate it now as a reference point, particularly when it can be compared to whatever the plan coming from the Switzerland summit will be. Whenever this ends being able to see what was offered by both parties against the final result will be illuminating, whatever that result is.
God damn point 2 is weak ass shit. They’ll just betray you again. They clearly don’t deserve sovereignty, they’ll just re-nazify.
The alternative is nuclear war.
I think there are still other alternatives that actually cement the gains. Such as full annexation so the banderites can be properly purged (which is a generational project given the inseparable nature of their national project and fascism). Those school kids praising Nazis are going to grow up and need to exist in a society that properly pushes back and tries to rehabilitate. I don’t think that’ll happen in a remnant state that’ll likely create some sort of lost cause narrative much like the American south did after an incomplete and soft handed post war period.
It’s probably a problem on my end, but I can’t help but view the impending post-war period through the lens of reconstruction and its failure.
The gains are already cemented because nato cannot really do anything to stop Russia. Overall I agree with what you’re saying and yeah under normal circumstances you’d be right, but unironically we are closer to nuclear war than humanity has ever been. If Ukraine uses f16s, which we have every indication that they actually will, Russia is going to nuke Europe, which means the world is over. That’s why Putin keeps reiterating their peace proposal because that is all there is left to do.
The Kiev regime and their American masters are not the intended audience of this offer. Russia knows as well as anyone else that the chance of them taking the deal, or being allowed to take it, is miniscule.
There are two audiences for the offer. One audience is the Ukrainian public who are feeling the hardships of war. Knowing that a reasonable peace is possible will wear down their morale even more, disrupting Ukrainian war efforts.
The second audience is the international community. Russia is showing that they’re being realistic and reasonable by offering a deal that mirrors reality in the ground. Meanwhile the golf course countries are meeting in Switzerland to make outlandish demands of Russian capitulation. To neutral third parties Russia comes out as being the most sane.