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.
Don’t you think Russia is stalling because of the confidence it has gained from its territorial gains on the battlefield? They recently advanced in the Sumy region but are also slowly moving forward in the east. Meanwhile, your elite units are forced to operate a separate Spanish-language recruitment platform, presumably targeting Latin American mercenaries rather than Spanish citizens.
You’re painting a generalized picture. It might seem like the end of the world is approaching from here, 10,000 kilometers away…
… Russia is not gaining territory on the battlefield?
If Ukraine stops resisting, that 10,000 kilometers could shrink considerably, and we would face much greater challenges. As for Western soldiers, the Ukrainian army operates on a contractual basis, supplemented by mobilization and the joining of volunteers. At the beginning of the war, soldiers arrived from several countries to fight for Ukraine, but their numbers are incomparable to the 12,000 North Koreans recruited by Russia, for example. In our country, including Russians and Belarusians fighting for the freedom of their own homeland, we are not talking about thousands.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is struggling with mobilization, and the recruitment of people aged 18–24, which began in February, is not progressing as hoped.
Mobilization is a problem in every war. Ukraine is no exception, as we want the war to end. People are getting tired. We can mobilize 27,000 people a month, while the Russians can mobilize 40,000 to 50,000 because their losses are greater. Mobilization is possible in our country because of the state of war. No one else has any experience in how to stop Putin. We were the ones who stopped him. You are right in that this is a difficult period. We did not mobilize 18- to 24-year-olds, but offered them one-year contracts. I have never spoken about this before, but since you asked, I will tell you what I think, because it is a sensitive issue: I do not believe that we should mobilize people from the age of 18, as the leaders of other countries have thought. Operation Spider Web has shown that it is not the number of people that matters, but weapons and technology. And money and exerting pressure. The sanctions would target the money that the Russians are using to finance the war. However, when it comes to sanctions, as Western partners list the reasons why they did not decide to impose them, they include that Ukraine did not mobilize people aged 18 and above.
To be honest, we gave 18- to 24-year-olds the opportunity to show that they can serve if our partners want them to. We have now given them that opportunity, in accordance with our legislation. But in the meantime, thousands are fighting on the front lines without adequate weapons.
Zelensky gave an interview