Image is of a destroyed American AWACS plane in Saudi Arabia, of which there is a very limited supply and each of which is enormously expensive both monetarily and in terms of components. Iran hit this with a precision drone strike that likely cost ~$20,000.
I don't have much to add from the last megathread description. This isn't to say that nothing has happened or has changed since then - decades are still happening in weeks - but the general flow of the war is remaining the same. Trump sometimes threatens to open the Strait with troops and flatten Iran to rubble, and other times threatens that he's gonna back off and let other countries handle it if they really want little trifles like "fuel" and "energy" so much. Iran continues to strike across the Middle East. The West continues to bomb civilian infrastructure due to their relative inability to affect the missile cities. In all: things are generally getting worse for America and the Zionists.
April is the month where the last ships that left Hormuz before it was closed will arrive around the world, so the last month of economic turmoil has been a mere prelude to what's going to occur in the near-future. The silver lining is that Iran appears to be formalizing the new state of affairs in Hormuz, creating a rial-based toll to allow passage between a pair of Iranian-controlled islands where they can be monitored, meaning that, as long as the US doesn't do something exceptionally stupid, the global energy crisis may "only" last a couple years instead of simply being the new reality from now on. Some countries have already agreed to this arrangement, and others will inevitably follow despite their consternation as their economies increasingly suffer.
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.
The Zionist Entity'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 the Zionists' 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
Elsewhere? The only 3 games in town are USA, China and Russia. Do you really think EU would buy weaponry from Russia? Not a chance in hell. I’m very skeptical that China would even agree to it either
They'll buy Shaheds from Iran
The EU+UK alone account for over 25% of global arms production.
and their stocks are completely depleted because they gave it all to Ukraine, and they are undergoing energy shocks and deindustrialization due to the loss of russian and middle eastern energy and complete reliance on American LNG imports. Their future trends are down, not up.
And Nixon went to China.
Germany to Review Bringing Back Reserve Coal Plants Online
This community broadly has a bad habit of assuming that things will remain on the trajectory they are on indefinitely. History repeatedly has shown that is not the case, and that capitalist states, and even more so fascist ones, are often willing to break with ideological orthodoxy to accomplish their goals.
We have been sitting here for years talking about the logistical and economic assymetry of shooting down $10k drones with $10m interceptors, a policy driven by defense contractor greed and and government corruption. Despite that, the US eventually responded with the $20k-$40k APKWS, because necessity won out.
Trump just effectively imposed price controls on a number of pharmaceutical drugs in the US, something sent every orthodox neoliberals mad and that Democrats have been telling their voters is not possible for years. If someone four years ago had said a GOP president would impose price controls on drugs, no one here would believe it.
That Europe currently finds itself in a state of disarray around its industrial production does not mean it will necessarily remain that way. Europe has reindustrialized before under worse conditions than the one it finds itself in now. Hard decisions will have to be made. Losers will have to be picked. Friendships will have to be discared. But not even the US is locked in on its current path.
If these EU states are so pragmatic and rational when it comes down to necessity, why did they repeatedly make massive strategic failures that led to the situation they are currently are in? There's been no change in leadership in the EU or in ideological positions. They all still hold the exact assumptions that got them into this mess, there has been no reckoning or sea change. It's still russia-hating warmongering zionist market neoliberals who are unable to resist America's creeping take-over of their entire economies. The Germans tried to be sovereign with Russian gas, but then America blew up their pipeline and they sat by and did nothing. Didn't even offer a word of protest. Then they tried to be sovereign by diversifying into Qatari gas and getting their oil from the gulf states, and America/Israel destroy that too by starting a war in the region that blocks the straits and destroys all the gulf infrastructure. You don't think European coal plants will face similar American sabotage? Or coal supply? Get real, America is taking over Europe and Europe has allowed it. It's over, there's no sovereignty for Europe. They have been captured in the same way that Canada is.