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The ukraine war and godawful sources a problem
Samo Burja (sadly can't find the tweet) once said that we rely on defense ministries of the individual nations for information but at the same time lying about the state of affairs is considered respectable propaganda in a time of war.
Onto the sources
The Bad
Ukranian ministry of defense: These guy's obviously can't be trusted, they would totally lie about things if it means more american aid, lying about success in offensive operations, lying about goals and motives, or lying about defensive strategy, especially due to operational security concerns.
Russian ministry of defense: Exactly as untrustworhy as the UKR MoD but we hear less from them. What the UKR MoD and RU MoD agree on is likely "true".
Basically propaganda
The new york times: Something I wasn't expecting was how god awful the NYT's actual coverage of the ukraine war actually has been. reading their reports has been surprisingly low value. very little description of what is happening at any reasonable level. Maybe this shouldn't surprise me, the actual events of the war don't really improve how something looks narratively so you end up with little information about the facts on the ground
(this applies to most of the western print press and I won't mention any further, though Matthew chance of CNN was pretty good)
Better than most
Wikipedia: Wikipedia continues to keep winning. While it both does a good job explaining the history (talking about the invasion and conflict really starting in 2014) it also has some great parts that go unnoticed. Casualties? Reports vary widely what a great line to just throw out. Wikipedia's reporting is way above average and has better timelines than any reporting I've seen in the mainstream western press. They still have issues but sadly little actually can beat them. (I definitely find their UKR coverage worse because it's less contentious on english language groups than say their isreal gaza coverage but thankfully i'm not forecasting isreal gaza so i don't have to worry about it)
The institute for the study of war This is probably the most accurate source that you can call "respectable". Unlike other sources they do a good job of citing their sources and their citations stem from far more credible sources than the UKR MoD. The main problem with them is Bias, General David Petreus is a pretty solid general overall and while I tend to like the reports, I find the reports are slightly more anti-russian than the facts on the ground typically indicate. But unlike other reporters they actually accurately report the facts on the ground to a degree that nobody else except 1 group does. I may dislike sentences like "We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting." because they really should have just deleted the word Russian in that sentence. overall I like these guys and think they are the best reporting I can get regularly
The best (but so infrequent)
The AUSTRIAN ARMY Youtube channel The austrian army's reporting on the battlefield situation is top notch, I think that since they only post updates every 6 months or so their reporting tends to be a lot better at not missing the larger scale operations. Of course it's harder to cite the austrian army youtube channel and call it "respectable" but many probably would accept it.
Analysis and speculation
William spaniel While mostly a channel about strategic implications he actually does a pretty good job talking about how leaders can actually think. The Naval war college regularly cites him so I consider him much more credible than average. (though the naval war college also plays Polis to discuss the Peloponnesian war so they're definitely more willing to be a little less hinged than you'd expect)
Perun IDK how this guy got so big but /r/credibledefense loves him and I like his powerpoints.
So onto the actual conflict.
Right now the big story is that the russian army is making a move from the north while Ukraine is slowly losing territory on the southeast, not much to be sure, if this were mar 2022 you'd call the approach a massive slowdown. However the long slow push of russia into ukr territory is happening after a failed UKR 2023 counteroffensive. The war continues with what I would call world war 1 tactics with 2024 weapons. Trenches, Artillery, and spotters dominate the war, while in WW1 it was biplanes, in the Ukraine russian war it's the drone. The drone is creating this weird war where visibility is at an all time high, if you look at the survivability onion you'll notice that stealth comprimises most of the survival tactics Evasive manuvers are almost a last resort. This means it's much harder to conduct certain operations without getting troops killed. I wonder how much the conflict will change in the coming months, the 1 prediction which tends to hold true is that almost nothing happens because this is the second coming of world war 1
Wikipedia is full of Ukrainian partisans. They waited about 6-9 months after Ukraine lost Bakhmut to declare it a victory for Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Battle_of_Bakhmut/Archive_5#Result
The ISW put out a report (written by two Ukrainians and a neocon) saying that Russia's only chance of victory was its efforts to manipulate our perceptions of Ukraine and that we can and should mobilize our economic resources to win Ukraine the war. They cite a nominal GDP graph to back up this point. This is pretty dubious - despite a high GDP the West apparently lacks the industrial power needed to compete with Russia in munitions production. A lot of our GDP is in services, finance and real estate, not heavy industry.
Furthermore, Russia has thousands of tactical nukes. The US seriously considered using nuclear weapons in Korea and Vietnam, peripheral wars with fairly low stakes. Why should we assume that Russia would not go nuclear in a much more serious conflict in its core area of interest, should it seem that they were on the back foot?
Besides the contested logic of the matter, it's pretty perverse for two Ukrainians to be writing an article decrying Russian propaganda narratives and psy-ops while asking for unconditional, near-blind faith in Ukraine.
https://x.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1772941705903313328
I don't know about the other sources but I recommend serious caution on wikipedia and ISW. This is a hard war for anyone to be objective on.
Given how Putin sat at the far end of these comically huge conference room tables during COVID, one can surmise he is afraid of death. I believe the US made it clear to him if he uses nuclear weapons they will assure his death.
True, but there’s a history of leaders who lose wars dying anyway. I think if he’s cornered and he thinks his only options are nukes or being executed, he’ll choose the nukes.
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