Image is of one of the six salvos of the Oreshnik missile striking Ukraine.
The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that appears to split into six groups of six submunitions as it strikes its target, giving it the appearance of a hazel flower. It can travel at ten times the speed of sound, and cannot be intercepted by any known Western air defense system, and thus Russia can strike and conventionally destroy any target anywhere in Europe within 20 minutes. Two weeks ago, Russia used the Oreshnik to strike the Yuzhmash factory in Ukraine, particularly its underground facilities, in which ballistic missiles are produced.
Despite the destruction caused by the missile, and its demonstration of Russian missile supremacy over the imperial core, various warmongering Western countries have advocated for further reprisals against Russia, with Ukraine authorized by the US to continue strikes. Additionally, the recent upsurge of the fighting in Syria is no doubt connected to trying to stretch Russia thin, as well as attempting to isolate Hezbollah and Palestine from Iran; how successful this will have ended up being will depend on the outcome of the Russia and Syrian counteroffensive. Looking at recent military history, it will take many months for the Russians and Syrians to retake a city that was lost in about 48 hours.
Even in the worst case scenario for Hezbollah, it's notable that Ansarallah has had major success despite being physically cut off from the rest of the Resistance and under a blockade, and it has defeated the US Navy in its attempts to open up the strait. Israel has confirmed now that their army cannot even make significant territorial gains versus a post-Nasrallah, post-pager terrorist attack Hezbollah holding back its missile strike capabilities. In 2006, it also could not defeat a much less well-armed Hezbollah and was forced to retreat from Lebanon.
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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.
I guess it's Assadover? Unless Iraq, Iran and Russia somehow can reverse all of this, which it's not impossible, just highly difficult.
Nah, Russia and Iran have invested way too much into Syria over the last decade to allow Assad to fall; it would be akin to the US just deciding to let Israel fall if it looked like it was on the verge of political/military collapse
What you think it will happen with Syria? A 1980's Afghanistan situation, where the goverment control most major cities and roads but the terrorists control the countryside?
Well, if Iran and Russia go against their interests and do nothing then the Syrian government will indeed fall. Every day that goes by increases the pressure and yet they have so far not massively intervened beyond the usual airstrikes, so perhaps Putin and/or Pezeshkian are willing to let Assad fall and don't see a future where he can remain in charge.
My guiding geopolitical assumption is that countries and organizations follow their interests, and yet the last few weeks has put a real dent in that assumption. Either they are no longer following their interests for some reason, or they are, and are doing galaxy-brained strategies like signing ceasefires which equate to giving permission to ethnic cleansing, or letting your logistics be massively disrupted for some reason.
So under that model of reality, my current guess is that the rebel offensive is halted before they take Damascus and then reversed by Russian/Iraqi forces sent by Iran, resulting in a (faulty) return to the status quo pre-2024.
Partition and the return of french troops I mean peacekeepers. Imperialism is back on the menu, the country is about to be split between French, Turkish, American and maaaaaaybe Russian spheres of influence. (Isreal will probably attack the shia pocket.
Cough Afghanistan
If they manage to hold out for 6 months, the rebels will start doing their things and infighting, cause political economy is a bitch. If they don't, and say manage to lose damascus in 4 days then its joever.
I'm vaguely fascinated how will they reconcile (akin to isis) their peace with israel, after all muslim brotherhood in egypt was toppled over it (not being entity lapdogs that is)
Wow how will the people fighting for Israel reconcile their peace with Israel
The top guy sure, the little bottom guys think they are doing based islam caliphate, no?
I don’t think they care enough. Their Islamic principles didn’t matter enough regarding anything with Gaza, I doubt it’ll matter more than the liras in their wallets.
Case in point: https://www.timesofisrael.com/syrian-rebel-commander-urges-israel-to-support-uprising-strike-iran-backed-forces/
Russia, Iran, Lebanon these countries can help the Syrian Arab Army, but they can't fight for it. It would be like asking for Russia to deploy 100k soldiers to Tartus and conquer Syria wholesale. Syria is important to all of these people, but at one point it might be easier to, say, offer concessions to Jolani and Turkey in exchange keeping the port.
New advances by HTS?
Yes, towards Homs. Northern countryside already under HTS control.
If Homs falls it's over
Yes I agree
This is so aSad.
I completely forgot about Muqtada Al Sadr, it seems like not even the Iraqi shia are going to help enough. Might be time to look into which prices will go down once the Salafi Syrian State has its sanctions removed.
Never happening, the minute Trump pays any attention to Syria his response will be predictably opportunistic and brutal, "So Assad is gone but al-qaida is in charge of Syria, I want jets in the sky in ten minutes"
Instead of starting a hot war with Iran he can play "hero" and beat al-Qaida and ISIS a "second time"
Turkey will be satisfied annexing the north while Israel descends from the heights and gobbles everything west of Damascus and shit maybe even an Israeli incursion into Damascus itself
HTS will never get a UN seat, HTS ruled Syria spells the end of Syria as a coherent nation-state
Trump abandoned the kurds last time and literally prepped the abandonment of Afghanistan, he doesn't care.
If Homs falls, yes then it's pretty much the end.
I would argue damascus is the end, because again, for now rebels can do bread photoops and stuff while they are free to roam, but can turkey supply whole cities for months? Yes, assad is broke and shit, but so are the rebels