Image is sourced from this Economist article.
Most of the information in this preamble is from the Cradle; notably here, here, here, and here.
The features of an effective American war (proxy or otherwise) is that it is a) against opponents with much less military power than you; b) with very low American losses; c) with victories you can visibly show off from time to time to justify involvement, and d) with a profit margin beyond merely giving money to military corporations. The war against Yemen was none of those; airplanes tumbled off aircraft carriers, and the navy complained of the hardest fighting conditions in decades. Conquering Yemen for its resources was inconceivable given the terrain, lack of good intelligence, and the strength of Ansarallah, and all that seemed to be visibly harmed were empty patches of desert and civilians.
Apparently, the ceasefire last month merely stipulated that they stop attacking merchant vessels in the Red Sea; it said nothing about attacking Israel. Therefore, Yemen is absolutely free to create a new blockade of Israel by just striking their airports and seaports, and all Israel can seem to do is try and bomb them in retaliation, a futile strategy which has failed to produce a military or political change in Yemen for the last decade when many other countries have tried it. And if America directly attacks them in response to attacks on Israel, the ceasefire is off, and expensive equipment will continue to be lost.
Across the strait from Yemen is an interesting array of countries. Egypt’s position in this war is well-known, and Somalia is under a kind of US occupation under the guise of fighting terrorism (Trump withdrew most troops, but they were then sent back under Biden). The other three are Sudan, Djibouti, and Eritrea. All three are increasingly being drawn into the anti-imperialist camp, as they cooperate with Iran, Russia, and/or China. Sudan is undergoing a civil war, but the rebels fighting the government are famously backed by the UAE. Djibouti has refused to allow themselves to be a launchpad for US strikes on Yemen.
Eritrea has a fascinating history of flip-flopping between West and East over the past few decades, but has, since 2020, sided with the East. It was one of the five countries to oppose the 2022 UN resolution condemning Russia’s war with Ukraine. Eritrea sends two thirds of its exports to China, and Iran has reportedly supplied them with military equipment. If a stronger link could be reforged, then Iran would have significantly less trouble sending military technology to Ansarallah, and to other friendly groups throughout the region.
Naturally, the lidless eye of the imperial core is shifting its gaze onto Eritrea. Meanwhile, Ethiopia - a country that has experienced frequent conflict with Eritrea - is part of BRICS+ and their economy is increasingly reliant on China (as is most countries’ economies nowadays). If a permanent resolution between the two could be created, it would be a victory for themselves and the Resistance, and a defeat for America, which thrives on conflict and destabilization.
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.
Russia is in the process of launching potentially the biggest Geran/Shahed one way attack drone attack of the entire war so far. There are currently around 100 Geran/Shahed drones in Ukrainian airspace, according to posts over the last 45 minutes. Long night of attacks incoming, anyone in the area and vicinity of Ukraine should be prepared to seek shelter. 600 Shahed/Geran drones are expected to be launched over the entire night and early morning.
Ukraine air raids altert telegram channel
AMK mapping telegram channel, provides English translation of Russian and Ukrainian sources
Russian strategic bombers are now airborne, 5 Tu-95MS and 4 Tu-22M3. Each Tu-95 can carry a maximum of 8 Kh-101 subsonic low observable low altitude cruise missiles, and each Tu-22M3 can carry 3 supersonic Kh-32/22 supersonic high altitude cruise missiles. 3 Russian guided missile frigates are also present in the Black Sea, each can carry 8 3M14T Kalibr subsonic low altitude cruise missiles. This means that a maximum volley of 76 cruise missiles (40 Kh-101, 12 Kh-32/22, 24 3M14T Kalibr) is possible, although this is highly unlikely. More Geran/Shahed launches hsve also taken place.
Russia just lobbed 4 Kh-32/22 supersonic cruise missiles at Snake island. The Tu-22M3s are now going back to their bases, Kh-32/22 attacks over for the night, it was one missile per plane. As expected, aircraft are not carrying maximum loads. Don’t know exactly why Snake island was hit by these missiles again, Russia did the exact same thing about a year ago. This was followed up by 2 Kh-31P anti radiation missiles targeting Teplodar, Odesa. So by best guess is that this was a preliminary strike to take out air defence systems and radars stationed at Snake Island and Teplodar before an attack on Odesa, which may come in the next few hours. Another guess is that the Kh-32/22s hit the oil facilities/platforms near Snake Island.
All 5 Tu-95MS bombers just conducted launch maneuvers for launching Kh-101 cruise missiles. Unknown if real or simulated launches at this time.
Second launch maneuver by the Tu-95s, and around 20 ballistic missiles were just launched at Ukraine over the last half hour, including Kinzhal air launched ballistic missiles from MiG-31K aircraft, and Iskander-M ground launched ballistic missiles. The first Kh-101 missiles are currently flying over Belarus to avoid Ukrainian airspace.
It sounds like the Ukrainians are expecting a big attack on energy infrastructure. I may be way too cynical, but it almost feels like they want that.
I think there’s a very good chance that it’s another fake-out where Russia instead focuses limited strikes on military targets.
You’d need a lot of Geran-2s/Shahed-136s to do that, their warheads are much smaller than cruise and ballistic missiles, they impact targets much slower, and they suffer from a high shootdown/interception/attrition rate. It would be very difficult to fly a group of Geran-2s into Western Ukraine and do significant damage to large targets like power stations, gas or oil storage, factories, etc. This is also the problem Ukraine has with their one way attack drones. They’ll successfully hit a Russian oil field with multiple drones, but only one or two of the 18 oil storage tanks at the oil field would be destroyed or significantly damaged.
Editing to say that AMK is saying that the Gerans are flying to Western Ukraine, which would explain the very high numbers of Gerans launched so far. Russia is expecting a lot of them to get shot down on the way there, plus they would need a lot of direct hits to cause significant damage.
As for the cruise missile numbers, the numbers are not that high right now, 76 maximum (40 Kh-101, 12 Kh-32 and 24 3M-14 Kalibr). We’ll probably see around 30-40 launched. Maybe some ground launched Iskander-K and air launched Kh-59 or 69 for 10 more missiles.
Big question mark is on the ballistic missiles, how many Iskander-M, Iskander-1000 and Kinzhal will be launched, if all three types even get launched. Iskander-1000 and Kinzhal have the ability to reach deeper into Ukrainian territory.
Multiple Kinzhals launched it seems. First time they’ve been deployed in a while.
this might be the response to the airfield strikes - daily tightening of the noose via increasing waves of saturation attacks.
Considering the update from AMK about the Gerans flying to Western Ukraine, that would explain the very high amount of Gerans launched. A significant amount of them will get shot down on the way there, and a lot of them would need to achieve direct hits to cause significant damage to large area targets there.