A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like “in Minecraft”) and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of Rixi Moncada of the LIBRE Party voting in the election.

On November 30th, Hondurans voted to choose their next President, as well as deputies to the Congress, councillors, and other candidates. Like all elections in Latin America, the looming shadow of American intervention will be a major factor in deciding the winner. In this election, that intervention has been fairly naked, with Trump literally stating who he wishes to win (the far-right nationalist guy, Nasry Asfura). Asfura has said that if he does not win, American funding to the country will dry up - a clear threat - and Trump has additionally pardoned the former Honduran president and US ally Juan Orlando Hernández, imprisoned for smuggling cocaine into the US.

The other candidates in this election are Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, who is essentially running on the same platform as Asfura with some differences (such differences would inevitably vanish if he were to win); and Rixi Moncada of the progressive (self-described as democratic socialist) LIBRE Party. The narrative about this election is - try not to yawn - the neverending battle of democracy against communism. This narrative is obviously very important to uphold in the current environment of accelerated aggression against Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and others.

Who is going to win? As of me writing this sentence, the results have not yet been fully reported. However, there has been something of a scandal in regards to a plot - with recorded voices, though those guilty plead AI tampering - to show the best possible preliminary results for the right wing, so as to manipulate the narrative and morale of the population. The idea, is presumably, that if LIBRE were to win, the fascists could say “How did LIBRE go from 20% of the vote (which is what the preliminary results showed) to a victory?! It must be communist meddling!”

Of course, it’s entirely possible that LIBRE won’t win anyway, or get particularly close. We shall see how things turn out very shortly.

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

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

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.

  • Tervell [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    19·
    2 hours ago

    https://archive.ph/g5cHE

    Czechia offered Ukraine T-72 tanks. One problem: they can’t shoot straight

    Ukraine won’t be getting 30 T-72M4CZ tanks—the fire controls are broken beyond repair. But in the age of FPV drones, Kyiv may not miss them much.

    more

    The Czech Republic had every intention of donating its roughly 30 T-72M4CZ tanks to Ukraine. Just one problem—the three-person tanks, deep upgrades of the Soviet-designed T-72, don’t work. So Ukraine won’t be getting the tanks, even though it could surely use them. The Ukrainian armed forces went to war in February 2022 with around 1,000 tanks. They have since lost more than 1,000 tanks and received another 1,000 or so as donations. That should mean the Ukrainians have as many tanks as they started with 45 months ago. The problem is that the Ukrainian armed forces have doubled in size. At the same time, hundreds of surviving tanks are badly worn out after nearly four years of hard fighting. As a consequence, there’s a tank shortage in Ukraine—one those Czech T-72M4CZs won’t be helping to solve.

    Italian fire controls failed—and can’t be repaired

    The problem with the T-72M4CZs—which underwent an upgrade in the early 2000s—reportedly lies with the TURMS/T fire control system from Italian firm Selex Galileo, according to Novinky.cz. The TURMS/T helps the crew aim the tank’s 125-mm main gun. Something is broken inside the fire controls. “In the summer and autumn of this year, control tests were carried out repeatedly and without success,” the Czech defense ministry told Novinky.cz. “The problem occurred with the so-called rectification, i.e. the accuracy of the firing of tanks.” “Repairing these components is not technically possible, as confirmed by their Italian manufacturer,” the ministry added. Unable to shoot accurately, the T-72M4CZs are almost certainly destined for scrapping. The Czech army is re-equipping with 44 modern German-made Leopard 2A8 tanks.

    The broken tanks won’t dent Prague’s overall military support for Kyiv. Outgoing Prime Minister Petr Fiala revealed last week that Czechia has sent Ukraine military support worth $832 million since February 2022—and actually profited from the effort, receiving $1.19 billion in return through foreign aid and defense contracts. The Czech-led ammunition initiative has delivered over 1.5 million large-caliber artillery shells to Ukraine.

    Why tanks matter less in Ukraine’s drone war

    Tanks aren’t the most important vehicles in the Ukrainian inventory—and not just because tanks are best at offense while Ukraine is on the defense. Tanks are vulnerable to the tiny explosive drones that are everywhere all the time along the 1,100-km front line. According to NATO officials, FPV drones have been responsible for destroying more than two-thirds of Russian tanks in recent months. The Russians still deploy tanks in an offensive role, but only after wrapping them in layers of anti-drone armor. The Ukrainians deploy a few tanks for swift counterattacks against Russian incursions, but for the most part, Ukrainian tanks hide out kilometers behind the front line—leaving their dugouts only briefly to fire a few rounds at distant targets, like artillery. Forbes described this shift as the “era of the cautious tank”—a complete overhaul in how Ukraine deploys its armored forces after losing over 1,000 tanks to Russian drones.

    Ukraine’s restructuring cut tank requirements

    Meanwhile, the Ukrainian ground forces have reorganized in part to make more efficient use of their dwindling tank holdings. Starting in late 2024, the ground forces converted 11 tank, mechanized, and territorial brigades into heavy mechanized brigades by reducing the number of tank battalions in each brigade and increasing the number of infantry battalions. Each Ukrainian corps now has a heavy mechanized brigade. The reorganization resulted in lighter and easier-to-support brigades better suited for the kind of war Ukraine is waging right now. But the restructuring also reduced Ukraine’s overall requirement for tanks—at least for now. So, no, 30 old Czech tanks won’t make or break Ukraine’s war effort.

    I love how this reorganization is painted as being totally about efficiency and adaptation and not at all related to all the vehicle losses the Ukrainians have suffered, but when Russians use motorcycle assault tactics, now that of course is an indication that they’ve ran out of tanks, if it’s the other side then the explanation could never be adaptation to the specific conditions of the war.