Image is from the Wikipedia article on the Sudanese Civil War.
Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur (a little east of that deep red zone in the west of the megathread map), is the last major holdout of the Sudanese government in that state, and is currently under siege by the RSF. Losing it would be a significant blow to the SAF, though given how the conflict lines are shaping up, it seems increasingly plausible that there will be a de facto - if not de jure - partition of Sudan, unless the military situation substantially changes. This is because the RSF have been pushed out of central Sudan, while the SAF are being pushed out of Western Sudan - although, the situation is pretty complex and has been known to change rapidly before.
As has been a constant feature of the Sudan Civil War - perhaps the single worst humanitarian crisis on the planet right now when measured by numbers - the civilian situation pales in comparison to the military situation, with hundreds of thousands of children dead from famine, and tens of millions of people experiencing extreme food insecurity.
Al-Fashir has been the destination of many thousands of refugees fleeing genocide, and food and aid supplies into the town are being explicitly blocked by the RSF, resulting in scenes similar to what is happening in Gaza right now. The big difference is that fleeing from major battle zones is at least somewhat of an option, though people are often caught and robbed or enslaved or trafficked while moving to neighbouring towns and cities - and these cities are often experiencing similar conditions to places that refugees are leaving.
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's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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'm a little worried that the US will give Russia everything it wants in Europe in exchange for alignment against China, possibly taking India along with them.
Can only hope that the mutual lack of trust built up over decades and the massive Russophobia brainwashing campaign will prevent that outcome.
I think that the Russians have been way too burnt by the west to ever drink such a poisoned chalice.
Hopefully, but except for the period where they were part of the USSR, they've been wanting to be part of the West since Peter the Great.
I recently read an article about division in the bourgeois class in Russia between people who wants an alignment with Trump and people who think, they should keep an anti imperialist line and align themselves with the global south.
Far right Duguin is preaching for an alliance with Trump's USA while people like Lavrov and the valdai club are more partisan of a global south line.
The contradictions in the Russian bourgeoisie were dormant but have been awakened in the past years.
Edit: here is the article but unfortunately behind a paywall https://mondediplo.com/2025/08/07russia
Let me know if someone's interested and I could paste the text here.
His importance is exaggerated in the west.
Not only that, even Dugin has turned on Trump now. The above comment is weeks, maybe even months out of date on this.
Could you elaborate please? I'm not knowledgeable enough on Russian politics and would be interested in learning more.
The west made him into like this ideological guru of russia because his geopolitics fanfic (basically russia should invade china and fund nationalist in the EU, as well as "black radicals" in the us to archive the mackinder heartland theory) somewhat lined up with brexit and the blm movement and in response Russiagate was created. They also claim that russians cadets & officers "have to" read his books.
It was so successful that even Ukrainians believed it and assassinated dugin's daughter.
Oh OK, thanks for the context. I might .ave misrepresented the article as it was not presenting him as the defacto ideological guru of Russia just one of the ideologue of a faction inside Russia's elite.
Here is the article although it is behind a paywall: https://mondediplo.com/2025/08/07russia It was written by Boris Kagarlitsky and Alexei Sakhnin.
I'd give it a look
Here it is: Please note this is a translation as the original article I read was in french. https://pastebin.com/0gWRaXnf
Thanks!
what on earth could the US and Europe possibly offer that beats what China provides to Russia?
The possibility of a world dominated by capitalist powers instead of a socialist one? Definitely very attractive to the Russian capitalists who kept getting owned again and again with western duplicity ever since the 90s. Their greed and their youthful naivete (these are people who as a class did not exist in this area for a couple generations effectively)? As well as their foolish beliefs they can make in-roads with and control parts of Europe to get their own sphere of influence that will make them a great power again (they are right now a medium power at best with a lot of nuclear weapons and a lot of inherited knowledge).
Admittedly at this point I am somewhat doubtful that Russia won't try to hedge its bets if the west does make peace with it and try to straddle the US and China and manage both sides for their own benefit. But I'm worried the west might be able to slowly peel them from China. They'll slap on sanctions after sanctions. Russians will balk at the first one, protest but say to themselves hey not worth ruining all our western economic ties for just one sanction and we all bought new mansions in the west so don't want to risk losing those again! And then comes another and because they didn't react to and accepted the first one it would be silly to now escalate and ruin ties for the second. And on and on with each one given time to adjust as they salami-slice their way to Russia participating in sanctions on China.
China after all has not really fully supported Russia in the Ukraine conflict. They've probably helped them some but US/NATO spying visibility to supply chains is so great they didn't want to risk sending them a lot of stuff and getting heavily sanctioned. But Russia will remember that when the time comes for the US to attack China and may choose to do the same type of strategic compliance for their own sake.
It depends on a lot of things. The west instead of trying to appease India to use against China is trying the beating stick approach and if India bows down for them in terms of the Russia sanctions on top of any asks regarding China then we're in a worse place. Right now the west's strategy is divide and conquer. Keep countries self-interested in not getting hit with maximum sanctions and economic pain so unwilling to stand up for each other even as they all get hit with beatings because the bully threatens to hit hard anyone who intervenes or stands up for another.
I mean it's of course true from a rational standpoint it would be foolish for Russia to side with the west against China but capitalists are foolish. They might think for instance the US can be "tamed" by weakening it and that it and China will counter-balance each other to Russia's benefit.
The west betraying me? Violating their own agreements?
It can’t happen to me!
(It happens to them)
Pedophile cabals
Why purchase what you can take? realigning to the west, besides US/Europe not offering adequate replacements for what China has, is something Russia doesn't need to do to achieve it's long term goal. I mean sure it'd be nice to have a break from NATO warmongering on the border but chosing to become aggressive to China would just be moving the theatre, not achieving peace.
Hahahahahha... are we in the same media landscape... Trump is still arming Ukraine's ass, bragging about how only 8000 Ukrainian soldiers deaths to 112,500 Russian soldiers deaths, and sanctioning India for accepting Russia's oil
Whatever bridges Russia laid for Trumpist America... America burnt those bridges, slapped back, and called Russia a fool
Russia knows that the Americans are non-agreement capable
That will mean a complete rupture of relations with Europe, meaning China would much more easily influence politics there.
Europe will do whatever the US tells them to, and I'm sure they could find a way to sell it as something other than total defeat.