Image is of a Russian missile impacting Ukraine.
As we rapidly approach the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Ukraine War (an anniversary I absolutely did not expect would occur while the two sides were still in combat), we have seen Russia turn to a new strategy, starting late last year but intensifying in December and now January.
Russia seems intent to disconnect Ukrainian cities from the electrical grid by focussing bombing on thermal, gas, and hydro stations, causing major power blackouts across the country. Russia is also bombing substations relatively close to Ukraine’s three nuclear power plants (Zaporzhye, the fourth, remains under Russia control), studiously avoiding hitting the premises of the NPPs themselves for obvious reasons. Even if they’re far away from the NPPs, striking the substations does have risks, because if the nuclear reactors aren’t shut off before the substations are bombed, there is a possibility that there will be insufficient backup power to prevent a meltdown - hence why Russia hasn’t really attempted to do this for four years.
Most of the electricity generated in Ukraine comes from the nuclear power plants, both because of the infrastructure they had initially (Ukraine was 7th in the world in nuclear electricity generation before the war) and because Russia has bombed most non-nuclear power stations and substations already. Over the last couple weeks, we have seen Ukrainian media fly into a frenzy about long-lasting blackouts, especially in the middle of winter. After the Zionist entity destroyed virtually all civilian infrastructure in Gaza while the West cheered on, they now appear to have changed their mind on whether such strikes are an effective and humanitarian option to subject millions of people to.
Regardless of whether you personally believe these Russian strikes are justified (I’m pretty iffy myself), it must be stressed that Ukraine has been bombing Russian tankers and oil refineries and power stations for a long time now, so in a sense, this is a retaliation. It’s also remarkable, compared to Western wars, that Ukraine was even still allowed to possess a functioning electrical grid for nearly four years into a war of this magnitude. That all being said, while Ukrainian strikes have been somewhat but not overly impactful on the Russian oil sector, the response is clearly very asymmetrical: Ukraine’s power grid is, according to Ukrainian energy corporations, now 70% degraded and is virtually impossible to now repair, and blackouts can last most of the day.
For everybody’s sake, I hope a ceasefire and peace deal will be reached soon. But after four years of seeing opportunities for an end to this war squandered over and over, I’m not holding my breath.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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 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.
The strong effort post what they can, the weak suffer what slop they must. DM me to feature effort posts and good threads in the newsmega/newscomm here (including your own).
@xiaohongshu@hexbear.net and @QinShiHuangsShlong@hexbear.net on at the buzzer with corruption and contradictions in China. They continue this topic in this subthread this week.
@MelianPretext@lemmygrad.ml on the message of Maduro’s kidnapping to leaders in the Global South: “…that there are also no true consequences to breaches of [the taboo against the personalization of geopolitics] against them and their loved ones.”
@CarmineCatboy2@hexbear.net on peace agreement/ceasefire between the SDF and STG in Syria
@MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net is one step closer to earning their Hexbear-Tom Clancy branded aviator sunglasses and ball cap this week, continuing their excellent logistical analyses of US materiel getting moved towards Iran in one post after another after another, and a bonus procedural on missile loadout sleuthing.
Previous posts of the week:
2025: Oct 27 | Nov 3 | Nov 10 | Nov 17 | Nov 24 | Dec 1 | Dec 8 | Dec 15 | Dec 22 | Dec 29
deleted by creator
Alex Pretti’s coworkers taking a moment of silence in his memory this morning.
https://bsky.app/profile/strictlychristo.bsky.social/post/3mdedbdxcoc2g
Really feel for bro on the left
If ICE get injured slipping on ice then they’d likely get treated here, right?
US is tightening the sanctions on Cuba.
https://x.com/i/status/2017025377177129445
Long live the Cuban Revolution!
So last Friday we saw a general strike in Minneapolis - the first such action in the US in 80 years. This Friday?
has assessed there is the opportunity for a nationwide one-day general strike. Branches across the country are going to be mobilized based on the lessons from last week to immediately massify this call. Shit’s going down.
Wonder what the libs will do when they actually have to do something.
I get needing to capture the current momentum, but the short notice of this feels difficult to pull off. I’m super down, but there are people on our side that would be significantly impacted if I cancelled on them for a day they’ve already booked.
I don’t know if it will translate into a mass nationwide general strike, probably not. However, there were already pretty large protests last Friday in solidarity and they will likely be bigger this week.
PSL seems to be following a mass line strategy of amplifying calls for shutdowns by other organizations (last weeks shutdown was originally called by clergy and unions, the student groups are calling for it this week) and building them up to the level of a full general strike. No doubt they will be able to accomplish this again in the Twin Cities area, solidarity protests in other cities will grow.
I don’t think its a bad idea to push for this even though it likely won’t be a “successful” nationwide shutdown, because that is what these will eventually build to.
Yeah. This sounds like the only thing that’s going to work. Practice. Repeat. Make it grow locally and get larger and longer, along with the support networks, and spread to other areas organically (not without encouragement, but without trying to push it on everyone, everywhere, all at once, and feeling like the result is a failure). It’d be great if we were ready to do it on a dime, but it just ain’t gonna happen.
Good to note this is scientific marxism. There is no amount of reading to help a person organize a general strike. Sometimes you must learn by doing, even if failure might be likely, that failure will likely bring important insights towards a future success. It is the necessary second half of theory and practice, or the phrasing I prefer: Action & Reflection.
NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE/DAY OF ACTION CALLED BY SOMALI AND BLACK STUDENT UNIONS IN MINNESOTA FOR FRIDAY
I can’t give a source for this part (I guess this is a bit of a leak) but PSL is helping organize at least 200 high school walkouts across the country. Everyone please look into this call to action and organize like crazy this week. We are at a point that hasn’t existed since 2020 where concessions (and perhaps more) can truly be won.
lmao US Rare Earth stocks just ate shit because of a Reuters report that claimed Trump behind closed doors “won’t guarantee a minimum price for U.S. critical minerals projects”
This generation of US capitalists are so ideologically blinkered they can’t stomach the idea of state financing or state planning of critical resources lol, China has won, it fuckin won
Liam Conejo Ramos, the bunny-hatted 5-year old that Ice abducted along with his father and used as bait to try to lure more people out of his house, is apparently very sick in the Texas concentration camp where he’s being held due to the poor quality of food https://www.huffpost.com/entry/liam-conejo-ramos-sick-ice-detention_n_696fd209e4b0559a85915488
France to ban officials from US video tools including Zoom, Teams
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-ban-officials-us-video-tools-zoom-teams-visio/
TikTok did have lots of issues for the past two days (after the official US takeover), so zero views and other weird stuff can happen. But now the main app is not having any problems and some accounts are still at zero views, despite having millions of followers. If nothing changes, this is another great self-own by the Dems.
Biden basically surrendered the most left wing social media platform in the US to Nazis just to look cool for like 2 days.
I wouldn’t frame it this way, Biden and the democrats had as much to gain as republicans by making sure they could censor one of the media platforms that was broadcasting the genocide in Gaza
I also wouldn’t frame it that way because Biden and the DemoKKKratϟϟ are as much Nazis as are the RepubliKKKanϟϟ. I will never stop pointing out that the Dems are Nazis because they worked tirelessly to genocide Palestinians in Palestine.
Also the one with the least censorship. And this happened years after TikTok did everything that the US wanted - they moved all their data to the US (Oracle) and employed a bunch of government officials to “moderate content”.
Now the only hope is that TikTok crashes and burns.
Can’t enjoy a clip of Copmala going “I’m speaking” in neon green anymore, smh.
My feed is mostly pro-pali and anti-ice stuff anyway, but I have been seeing an issue of comments not loading that seems to only affect that type of content
The comments section on this type of material is typically full of anti-maga and anti-israel gifs/pictures with thousands and thousands of upvotes, and the amerisraeli bot farms getting at best 20 upvotes.
This might just be coincidence, but I do get plenty of normie content and never had an issue with the comments on those. It makes me suspicious that they are implementing some filtering mechanisms for comments on certain topics.
Also, the other day my entire fyp was giving me repeat content all day.
Maybe I should get off TikTok tbh
Ellison explicitly said that using the term Zionist in a negative sense is hate speech and will get your comments/videos removed and a ban.
Meanwhile, open pedos are creeping on children’s videos with sexually explicit comments and they are never removed or banned when I report them.
TikTok is a vile place and will soon reach X levels of depravity
You should, the new TikTok TOS includes consenting to them collecting GPS data, racial origin, citizenship status, financial information, and whether or not you are trans and queer.
(They are always using every tool to get that information on anyone anyway, of course, but it isn’t great to have the app that they explicitly have laid out that they will use to help track people for the pigs and train the pigs’ truffle-hunting AI software to help them more quickly and easily digitally profile their latest victims)
Yeah fuck I really should. Especially because of recent edgy comments. Im probably fucked regardless from liking to much Palestine shit on Instagram though
There is no time like the present to pollute your own algorithm by engaging with reactionary content for a while before deleting your account, preferably over a few months.
I already just deleted my account. I left TikTok after it got shut down and saved by Trump last January, I made a new account to see the red shambala memes, but most content that is actual useful to my organizing remains on Instagram.
My sister keeps getting Charlie Kirk merchandise ads.
WE ARE CHAAAARLIE KIRRRKKKK
Novelty Charlie Kirk scarf. Its red and has some wires so one end will stick up in a crimson arc.
They didn’t even bother blacking out Elon’s name in the newest batch of Epstein files lol
Mexico will maintain oil shipments to Cuba: Sheinbaum - Tiempo
Article
President Claudia Sheinbaum clarified that PEMEX decided to halt oil shipments due to contract issues; however, humanitarian aid will continue as Mexico has been providing it for years.
During her morning press conference, the president clarified that the confusion arose after the publication of a news article that misinterpreted a supposed suspension. “I never said it had been suspended,” she emphasized.
He explained that, on the one hand, Petróleos Mexicanos maintains commercial contracts with the Cuban government, where delivery times and volumes are determined according to the contractual terms. On the other hand, he explained that Mexico also sends fuel as humanitarian aid, as it does with other countries facing energy emergencies or crises.
Sheinbaum emphasized that humanitarian aid to Cuba continues, and that Mexican foreign policy is governed by historical principles of sovereignty, solidarity, and non-intervention. “Mexico has always stood in solidarity with the peoples of the world, and these are sovereign decisions,” she stated.
Finally, he reiterated that any decision related to Pemex contracts responds to technical and commercial criteria, while humanitarian assistance is maintained based on specific requests and needs.
https://xcancel.com/ArmchairW/status/2016380234354847744
Last week the Iranian government disclosed that 2,427 civilians and members of the security services and 690 insurgents were killed in the “riots” earlier this month, which recontextualizes what actually occurred - and explains the push to “manifest” a new Iranian government. Allow me to explain some insurgency theory. A “conventional” insurgency, as we saw in Vietnam, basically follows five phases per Galula:
- Creation of the insurgent party
- Cooption of all other opposition groups
- Guerilla war
- Conventional war
- Final overthrow of the government
This is the standard model of revolution by insurgency as used by the East Asian communist movements - China, Vietnam, et cetera. Critically, it involves the parallel creation of a communist state at the same time as the extant state is destroyed - the insurgent leaders will arrive at the abandoned government palace, sit down at the former El Presidente’s desk, and can immediately set about governing the country in an orderly way through the apparatus of the Party that is now spread root and stem through society at large. There is, however, an alternative method if you just want to seize power and don’t care so much about governing anything. Galula refers to it as the “bourgeois-nationalist shortcut” method, and it’s quite simple - the insurgent party replaces the years of boring organization and coalition-building in Phases 1 and 2 with a few weeks of MASS TERRORISM.
more
If the target state falters and fails to crush the insurrectionists during this critical stage, the insurgents will be able to rapidly organize a guerilla army using their newfound notoriety and political power and proceed to go about fighting the revolutionary war and eventually overthrowing the government. There won’t be a state apparatus left afterwards to let the revolutionaries govern anything, but generally the kind of people who use these methods don’t really care about little things like that.
There is a critical drawback to this model, however - if the state doesn’t buckle and cracks down effectively during the key terrorism phase, the insurgency is doomed. Unlike the communist model, in this phase the insurgency isn’t a broad-based social movement that can withstand official sanctions - it’s a plot involving a few hundred heavily-armed maniacs who can simply be killed by the police.
So how does this tie into Iran? Well, earlier this month organic protests about economic issues were hijacked by heavily-armed insurgents who proclaimed their general opposition to the government, fought running gun battles with police, caused a shocking amount of property damage, and attempted to organize public support for their movement via an intense social media push - all of this with some success! Then the Iranian government cracked down hard and the insurrection collapsed. All of this ties exactly into the model of a bourgeois-nationalist “terrorist insurgency” which was defeated during its period of maximum vulnerability - the terrorism phase itself - by a robust and agile state opponent. It also explains the sudden and massive push in the West to recognize the insurgency as a rival Iranian government almost immediately - all of this was very clearly orchestrated by Western interests (read: Mossad), and this insurrection had the clear aim of either overthrowing the Iranian government outright or starting a civil war in Iran. The people pushing to change the Iranian flag emoji on this website (which remains as the pre-1979 flag to this day) absolutely knew what their intended end-state was.
The key thing to realize is that the bourgeois-nationalist insurgency method does not require a large network and mass popular support. It requires a few hundred - or even a few dozen - hard men with guns, and a capable PR team capable of getting people behind the insurgents so as to build a mass movement and support for guerilla war overnight. This is what Mossad et al. was trying to do in Iran earlier this month, and that was in all likelihood the actual extent of their remaining attack network in the country after much of it was dismantled during and after the Twelve Days’ War.
More good news for European gas imports that are now mainly sourced from the US;
BREAKING: US natural gas prices extend gains to +40% on the day, now on track for one of the largest daily gains in history.
Natural gas prices are now up +240% since January 16th.
(Edit) Incredible timing!!!
when nord stream was torpedoed (by US intelligence) i remember explaining that this was switch to US LNG was going to happen to people in my circle and it was received conspiratorially.
like in what world does it make sense that russia would bomb their own $$$$$ pipeline? so funny
It’s so funny that these people talk about challenging Trump on Greenland when they can’t even bring themselves to admit the US blew up Nordstream 2.
That was daddy Biden not big bad evil Trump! Totally different!
Cartoon villains with cartoon machinations. What no materialism does to a mother fucker.
This is so true. I just experienced some WILD reactionary spiraling from a friends lib parents, like ethnic cleansing precursors. He was shocked and I had to mention that if you don’t provide your folks with an ideological pole to ground their analysis, they’re prone to drift wherever the propaganda/algorithm takes them.
RADICALIZE 👏🏻 YOUR 👏🏻 PARENTS 👏🏻
The libs tried to argue that Russia did a “false flag” on Nordstream
To what end? For what purpose? They can’t say. Russians just like to do false flags and then not capitalize on them for any real reason
Even the official narrative is that Ukraine did it, and people still believe Russia did it
official narrative was russia for a while, until nobody was buying it and they threw ukraine out as scapegoat
Poland straight up confirmed it on day 1 and people still believe that Russia bombed it for whatever reason.
funny to me that the Polish politician who tweeted “thanks for bombing Nordstream USA!” and then deleted it is married to anticommunist hack Anne Applebaum
‘securing control of our energy supply and strengthening our autonomy’
words are meaningless
They are literally doing the opposite lmao
jorjorwell
German industry must burn
They are dependent on the US on both sides of trade
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Imports, obvi fossil fuels.
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Exports to the US which prop up local capitalist profit and employment.
Very cooked. All the rhetoric about dumping Treasuries or Dollar assets is just that, rhetoric.
-
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1398-9995.1996.tb04624.x?sid=nlm%3Apubmed
The incidence of skin-tested sensitivity to olive pollen allergens among subjects with suspected atopic respiratory allergy was investigated in various populations of Israelis. This incidence was correlated with the olive cultivars, with the abundance of trees in the patients’ neighborhoods, and with the history of exposure of the studied populations to olive pollen. Positive skin reactions to olive pollen, among atopic patients of the Jewish population, is rather high where olive trees are abundant (66%), and lower (29%) where trees are scarce (P<0.003). Sensitization was significantly lower (P< 0.003) among a population of Israeli atopic Arabs (16%), though these Arabs have lived in an olive-rich area for several generations.
