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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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.
Great point by Branko Milanovic regarding Moldova's EU referendum.
Same thing I was thinking, there is no guarantee that any more countries, even ukraine, will actually get to join the EU even, they're just going to get in line forever. Which affects the countries' politics negatively (in the eyes of europhiles), ie Georgia
I'm going to disagree here, unlike Macedonia or Georgia,there is a concerted push by Romania on this.I fully believe the end goal here is reunification and even if it will not happen under direct EU tutelage,it will probably look something like Moldova further chaining itself to Romania(we already supply most of their energy and are buying their only Danube port) with the border between the two becoming less and less tangible with them eventually becoming de facto united after Pridniestrovie and Gagauzia leave.
Yeah Romania being willing to push for it internally is different than the other cases, and there being a reunification movement in both countries is important too, but then again how much pull does Romania have in the EU? Especially with the countries that are likely to oppose new countries joining, like, in my head there needing to be a referendum in FRANCE makes it seem impossible for countries to join
Also is it possible to fully reunify without the EU's permission? Even if romanians want it wouldn't romanian elites, who I assume are just as eurocucked as they are here, be very sensitive to EU opposition to it, would the EU allow the de-facto reunification you describe?
I think Milanovic's point is pretty strong basically it's, since no one REALLY invited them, nor has it been presented a credible accession process, to do a referendum which BARELY passes and write the goal of joining in the constitution (which will tie future administrations to the decision and I wouldn't be surprised if the supreme court overthrows a government that takes steps against joining), is silly. And I think it's a fair prediction that it will probably just lead to destabilization in the future when people get frustrated with the process, and then who knows that might lead to more agressive moves towards reunification or to move against transnistria or whatever idk. It's just as likely to backfire on "pro-european" people as it is to succeed
This is an aside but idk if you know this but here in portugal the main image of romania is "POOR COUNTRY" and when right-wing politicians want to say portugal is also poor, or getting poorer under the socialists, they go "WE'RE LIKE ROMANIANS", there was also big drama for a week over romania overtaking portugal in some economic indicator or another. Ironically though it seems like it's a romanian company, Digi, that is trying to break the telecomunications cartel here, which is likely to lower internet and service prices.
What I'm saying is that as the EU frays and breaks, Romania will pursue this on its own.That was my idea,that we'll do intercountry agreements that will act as a roundabout way of making them a member but not really a member. Way I see it,the elite isn't EU-cucked,it's NATO-cucked. In Europe,as everyone knows,NATO is king.I think we'll let the US station even more troops and hollow us out even more,with Moldova being the compensation. We're already building the largest NATO base in Europe at Kogalniceanu (everytime I go to Constanta I drive by it,I'm seeing they've already put the walls up) and we're gonna have those bullshit American SMRs here that will probably do some minor Chernobyls. Also, Moldova has no juice.Its not Ukraine,there's no Azov,and the military is miniscule. If a conflict is to break out, Romania will fight for them.
Also,HAHAHAHAHAHA,the Digi thing is fucking hilarious,I believe they rose out of the ad hoc internet networks that were built in the 90s and 2000s because we had no infrastructure and initially, like you said they offered very good prices for stellar internet. I use Digi now,but it's become a bit more expensive,but the internet is still good from my experience. Still,fucking hilarious thing.
Also,yeah,here we have that with Bulgaria,to a lesser extent.
yea its less to join the EU itself and what Moldova 'must do' to be let in.