Image is Israeli interceptors trying and failing to intercept missiles over their cities.
Israel just carried out a widespread bombing of Iran, which has killed a number of senior officials inside Iran (though it seems the leadership is more-or-less intact) as well as a number of civilians. Important facilities have been targeted, but the amount of damage is unknown so far (note that many important Iranian facilities are deep underground, making them both hard to damage but also hard to determine if they are damaged from just satellite imagery, so reports of damage will be he-said-she-said).
It appears the attack took Iran by surprise, given that a residential block was targeted that contained some senior officials - if one saw an attack coming, one would imagine they’d be in bunkers. Nonetheless, like the rest of the Resistance Axis, I suspect that Iran has adapted their military structures to be resistant to decapitation strikes by ensuring that replacement figures are ready to take the place of killed officials.
Iran has delivered a massive missile barrage in response to Israeli aggression, even though Israel is continuing to bomb Iran. Iran is now aware of the location of many important Israeli sites, including secret nuclear sites, due to their recent intelligence haul, giving them a distinct edge.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
im not gonna lie and no offense this but idk to what i can respond to in this whole comment. “things may not be the way they seem because some other things also werent exactly like that and something opposite might have happened in another situations and some “bad” forces were underestimated and some good where underestimated and this tone sound like something some people who where wrong in another situation” is like, sure everything can and may be anything.
Any analysis that turned out wrong about some party’s relative standing in military and intelligence strength in a specific theater and situation may sound like any other analysis that turned out right. Should i not say and analyse things as i see them based on concrete hardware and tech trends and development and logistics ? If any positive and confident acessment china’s military development and relative balance of power (off its fucking shores no less) is unconvincing simply because Russia somewhat underperformed its “on paper” strength on some aspects of because mossad had spies and agents everywhere in shitass lebanese and iranian politics and everyday life and did looney tunes shit in incompetent, corrupt and split three ways arab states to fuck over axis of resistance groups i dont know if i can help that feeling and fear.
You can make your own judgements about the expansion, strength, hardware competency and technological edge of various PLA branches and PRC civil functions relative to american ones as it relates to a hot conflict on the pacific theater based on whatever you can find and on whatever assumptions and relavant lessons you think Ukraine or Israel teaches us. I never based anything of what i said in a percieved incompetence of the US military or any definite inferiority they hold on paper right now compared to China. On the contrary the US military holds many advantages on a lot if not most sectors still on paper. What i said relates to the specific most likely scenario of a US engagemnt with China and against some assumptions the original comments made. China would get its ass beat by the US 5 times worse in any engagement of american shores and in 80% of the world right now than what even an optimistic US defeat to china in the pacific theater in idk 2028 would look like. But it doesnt matter because my analysis only applies in a specific theater with specific innarguable advantages and disadvangaes, with armed forces and magazine build and massively expanded for specific purposes, based on hard numbers of trends in production, technology and all around capabilities
(exaggerating here) Sure the CIA could activate 10k shanghai and chengdu liberal secret cells and do operation spiderweb or whatever on Chinese airbases and ports and pla generals and pollituburo members may be car bombed by rigged BYD electric batteries. Sure the US navy lobbing tomahawks on Yemen and dodging drones and missiles a decade behind what China fields or them idk destroying some incompent arab state armies 20 years ago may actualy be the deciding experience factor against China. Or the US may reverse trends in missile development or any type of procurement with some big discovery and that makes some decisive chinese advantage or build up useless. I cant lie and do a disclaimer that china may in fact not be holding the decisive upper hand in the near future in any conlict in the pacific because of any of that