this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 23rd to June 29th, 2025 - Iran, Harden Your Deep Military Sites
(hexbear.net)
Now in our second week of the conflict, we have seen continuing damage to both Israel and Iran, as well as direct US intervention which nonetheless seems to have caused limited damage to Fordow and little damage to Iran's nuclear program. Regime change seems more elusive than ever, as even Iranians previously critical of the government now rally around it as they are attacked by two rabid imperialists at once. And Iran's government is tentatively considering a withdrawal, or at minimum a reconsideration, of their membership to the IAEA and the NPT. And, of course, the Strait of Hormuz is still a tool in their arsenal.
A day or so on from the strike on Fordow, we have so far seen basically no change in strategy from the Iranian military as they continue to strike Israel with small barrages of missiles. Military analysts argue furiously - is this a deliberate strategy of steady attrition on Israel, or indicative of immense material constraints on Iran? Are the hits by Israel on real targets, or are they decoys? Does Iran wish to develop a nuke, or are they still hesitating? Will Iran and Yemen strike at US warships and bases in response to the attack, or will they merely continue striking only Israel?
And perhaps most importantly - will this conflict end diplomatically due to a lack of appetite for an extended war (to wit: not a peace but a 20 year armistice) or with Israel forced into major concessions including an end to their genocide? Or even with a total military/societal collapse of either side?
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
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.
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IAEA chief Grossi gave an interview on French radio today, link here. What I find most interesting is this statement:
So that's all the centrifuges at both Fordow and Natanz gone according to the IAEA. Over 15 000 of them were in active operation, 13 000 at Natanz and 2000 at Fordow, with Fordow being especially costly as the advanced IR-6 centrifuges were located there. So the blast pressure and overpressure through the ventilation shafts directly into the enrichment halls destroyed the centrifuges, according to Grossi. Also pretty clear why Iran no longer want to co operate with the IAEA.
I didn't consider the impact of vibrations on centrifuges but this tracks. I used to work with much smaller centrifuges for much less dramatic purposes and if they got unbalanced it was a real problem. Unbalanced, they would start rattling like fuck and you'd have to turn it off before it hit full speed or you'd risk spills.
I wonder if any of the centrifuges were hardened against explosives with shock dampeners. I know the americans did that with the titan missile silos - they built the control/crew system module with a big vibration control dampener to prevent missile launch/earthquake/missile strike from fucking up the silo.
Most likely yes. But each GBU-57 has around 5300lbs, or 2500kg, of plastic bonded explosives, from the one image we got of an unspecified variant. There are seven publicly known variants of the GBU-57: -57/B, -57A/B -57B/B, -57C/B, 57D/B, -57E/B, and -57F/B. All of these feature various differences to the warhead, fuzes, design, and are likely customised for a specific target set, rock/soil type and mission. 10 of those (unknown what variant, I'd guess GBU-57F/B as it's the latest publicly known) going down the 2 main ventilation shafts (5 per shaft, and the other 2 were used to blow through the concrete cap on top of each shaft, for a total of 12 according to the Pentagon) is over 53 000lbs of plastic bonded explosives, each exploding at a set point, to clear a way for another bomb or to cause damage. I don't think any shock dampener is built for that. If the blast wave and subsequent overpressure went through the ventilation shafts and into the centrifuge halls as Grossi seems to suggest given his knowledge of the facility, it's not looking good.
I can see how vibrations might wreck them if they're operational and spinning at bajillion RPM or whatever, but is this still such a high risk if they had been switched off? The attack on Fardow was telegraphed as fuck, it stands to reason they were not running when all fissile material had already been squirreled away somewhere safer in anticipation of the attack. Or is this just cope on my end?
No I agree. I think if vibrations themselves can destroy a static centrifuge then a simple earthquake could destroy the facility easily, which the facility should be planned for.
if they aimed for ventilation shafts like I'm pretty sure I read here at some point, then you'd get an air pressure wave I imagine is way more damaging than an earthquake
well a centrifuge is a machine that is supposed to spin extremely extremely fast. in order to spin something extremely fast, it needs to be well balanced. if a machine (centrifuge or not) gets jostled, like by say a giant bomb strike happening a few tens of meters away, then internal components could be vibrated out of alignment or pressure waves could stress the system in weird ways (different materials deform under stress different amounts, which can affect tolerances). Those kinds of effects could happen even to a visibly fine piece of equipment.
none of this is a guarantee that this kind of damage has happened, but certainly iran would be wise to test all these machines to see if things are fucked before just spinning them up at full blast.
a kinda silly example of this is an unbalanced top loaded washing machine - even though the washer looks fine, if you put all the clothes on one side it'll make a lot of crazy noises when you start it up.
With the caveat that it is under operation
It’s like a movie script!
He can barely contain his glee at that attack. Compare that to the serious condemnations the IAEA issued against Russia for seizing ZNPP
Guy's giving out precise BDA on public French radio which he can do thanks to his intricate knowledge of the Fordow facility from inspecting it. While a lot of what Grossi says is publicly known (US hit weak points above enrichment halls with massive bombs, centrifuges are very sensitive to vibrations), it's still quite shocking that he just comes out and says all centrifuges are destroyed due to his knowledge of the facility. Explains Iran's animosity towards the IAEA. Who wants to co operate with an agency like this?
But - to play devils advocate here - how does he know this? I can see how having this knowledge can lead him to the conclusion that, given how sensitive the equipment is, it’s likely they were made inoperable. But without seeing things firsthand, Grossi’s very definitive statements seem odd to me.
Edit: I suppose these statements could be made if Grossi knows for a fact that the facility itself is much more shallow than the numbers discussed, or if there is much less reinforcement. But still, the context clues indicate he is pointing out that it doesn’t take much to make these thing inoperable, but “destroyed” to me implies to be rendered completely and totally beyond repair.
My question is how does anyone know the layout of the facility from above? How do people know where X or Y room is located under that Earth? Assuming no maps were given, even in person you'd have to have precise and detailed measurements and geolocation data to make decisions on "weak points".
Unless these are things Iran MUST tell the IAEA just as other countries must do (I dont know the rules on "declaring" facilities), I cannot fathom a scenario where IAEA staff were not part of covert attempts to map the facility for such an opportunity.
You could map out an entire facility with the sensors on a cell phone between the pedometer, gyroscope, and magnometer. I would hope that Iran would take the cellphones away from the inspectors in the facility, but 1) Mossad seems crazy enough to do something to get around that and 2) I don't have the greatest faith in Iranian internal security at the moment. This is also assuming they haven't compromised someone in the facility or with access it's plans.
The existence of Fordow has been known since 2009 (Obama did a big public reveal) and the US has been wargaming it ever since, which led to the invention of the GBU-57. Documents hacked and stolen by Mossad in 2018 publicly revealed the layout and blueprints.
Probably some CIA and Mossad spies got the Intel.
As someone in this thread said, IAEA stands for "Israeli Atomic Espionage Agency"
Fucking pig