Mike
qui transtulit sustinet
There are tons of good sources giving daily updates on the war, e.g. the Military Summary channel on YouTube. The purpose of this thread is to share resources that provide background understanding and historical perspective. My own contributions on this thread will mostly treat the post-Soviet (2013/2014) Maidan protests as t=0, but if you have relevant stuff from deeper history -- Soviet policy, Bandera, Russian empire demographics or whatever -- then feel free to submit too.
I. Mearsheimer's Crash Course
For a relatively brief overview of the Ukraine conflict starting in 2014, and what the future may hold, of all the stuff I've seen I would recommend the following two videos by Prof. John Mearsheimer, my favorite analyst of the conflict. These videos are worth sharing with normies as they're generally easy to follow.
The first one shows Mearsheimer in 2015, famously blaming the crisis on NATO expansion and predicting with noteworthy prescience that Ukraine will get "wrecked" if NATO persisted (which it did):
"Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer"
(Sep 2015, runtime 1h14m)
For a few months after the Feb-2022 invasion, Mearsheimer refrained from speculating about how the war was going to turn out. This changed a few months ago and now M is predicting a Russian victory of sorts, in an address to the Committee for the Republic:
"John Mearsheimer Ukraine Salon"
(May 2023, runtime 1:33)
I would say these two vids allow a person otherwise disconnected from the conflict to get up to speed in less than three hours.
I. Mearsheimer's Crash Course
For a relatively brief overview of the Ukraine conflict starting in 2014, and what the future may hold, of all the stuff I've seen I would recommend the following two videos by Prof. John Mearsheimer, my favorite analyst of the conflict. These videos are worth sharing with normies as they're generally easy to follow.
The first one shows Mearsheimer in 2015, famously blaming the crisis on NATO expansion and predicting with noteworthy prescience that Ukraine will get "wrecked" if NATO persisted (which it did):
"Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer"
(Sep 2015, runtime 1h14m)
For a few months after the Feb-2022 invasion, Mearsheimer refrained from speculating about how the war was going to turn out. This changed a few months ago and now M is predicting a Russian victory of sorts, in an address to the Committee for the Republic:
"John Mearsheimer Ukraine Salon"
(May 2023, runtime 1:33)
I would say these two vids allow a person otherwise disconnected from the conflict to get up to speed in less than three hours.