Image is of a Quds Day march in Bandar Abbas, Iran.
It now seems likely that, very soon, the US and the Zionists will attempt to bomb Iran. Compared to the buildup to the Iraq War, the stated goals of such a move are being kept a little more generalized - some say the point is to overthrow the government for “humanitarian” purposes (others are more honest and want to partition Iran into a dozen powerless statelets). Some people instead say the point is to get rid of the ballistic missile program, which is synonymous with outright surrender, as no matter the deal, bombers would be en route within 10 minutes of the last batch being handed over.
Still others say that the goal is to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, which, as the thread title implies, is now in a bizarre propaganda superposition: it is apparently simultaneously true to the Trump administration that the US obliterated the nuclear facilities and set back Iran’s nuclear program years, if not decades, but also that Iran is mere days away from finishing a nuke and a new round of bombing is urgently required. This obviously casts newfound doubts on how effective US weapons even are at penetrating Iran’s underground facilities (though it doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t breach them, as Iran was almost certainly moving nuclear material out of Fordow and other sites in the days before the Twelve Day War). The sheer quantity of US anti-air defense equipment they’re shifting into position also casts doubts on whether Iran’s air defense was mostly destroyed during that conflict, as those who assert that the Zionists had total air supremacy over Iran seem to be implying.
I’m not a military guy, and so I have no novel insights on how such a war is likely to go, nor do I feel confident predicting either side’s victory. I’m looking at most of the same sources that you’re all looking at. Some confidently boast of the total destruction of Iran’s air defense within hours, allowing US planes to fly directly over Iranian cities and drop bombs en masse; others cast doubts on whether this will ever occur, and say that the US’s limited supply of Tomahawk missiles is the only major firepower they will be able to safely unleash. Some say this war will last mere days before state collapse; others say months, maybe even years. I have no idea.
I do at least feel somewhat bolstered by the fact that Russia and China finally appear to be pouring in meaningful information and matériel to help Iran this time around, though of course, one can still debate whether it’s enough. I feel like we are at the culmination of decades of war planning by both the US and Iran, and the result could have deep ramifications indeed.
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.


I’m hearing the libs do a lot of yapping about Ukraine “taking back hundreds of kilometres of territory” and “turning the tide” and other shit that just sounds like their usual cope.
Any SMO-watchers able to provide an update on this?
https://xcancel.com/ChuckPfarrer/status/2026357426723672547
A lot of the gains Ukraine made are due to the Russians losing access to starlink, they were highly dependent on it. Also there is no solid frontline, more like a “gray/contested zone”. Russian infiltrators and lightly enforced positions in this Gray zone were those likey captured by Ukraine.
The coming weeks will see if this is a continuing trend, or if Ukrainian gains will stall out inside this gray zone. I think that they’ll stall out and Russia will adapt to losing starlink.
Do not become dependant on the enemies technology.
Yeah, this is just…baffling to me. Why would they use Starlink, when Musk already showed he was happy to pull the plug on it for people being insufficiently bootlicking to him on twitter? Even if it wasn’t “enemy” technology, it has already been shown to be completely unreliable. How deep does this short-sighted neoliberal rot actually go?
They’re also using telegram and discord for key real-time communication on the battlefield…
It’s not really neoliberal rot, Russia doesn’t have a domestic alternative to a satellite constellation providing cheap and fast Internet. In fact only the US has this currently, thanks to SpaceX launch capacity. It’s why almost all the airliners, including European ones like Air France, are switching to starlink. The mistake is using these systems in the first place in a military context, regardless of the advantages they offer. Because the rug can always be pulled from under you…
Jesus christ
Holding my face at different angles for the age verification screen as the enemy assault forces close around my position so I can check if command has DM’d me retreat orders.
The Russian government tried to ban telegram from the military recently, but encountered huge pushback because the Russian version of telegram doesn’t really work. So they’re still using telegram for now.
Also as an alternative to starlink, they’re using outdoor WiFi bridges and point to point networks from an American company, Ubiquiti. I don’t know how they got those, but that’s the alternative, for now.
what happened to radio encryption
At a certain point couriers will be better
Reject modernity. Retvrn to semaphore communication.
Yeah, that’s more what I mean. I understand them using it instead of developing an expensive alternative for civilian matters, but for military matters it just seems like a terrible idea.
Ukraine retook a sizeable chunk of rural territory that Russia had recently captured, removing the immediate threat of the capture of Pokrovske (not Pokrovsk). A success to be sure, but not game-changing at all. Russia’s focus is on Orikhiv, to the south, where they continue to make gains.
Russia’s long-term plan appears to be the capture of the major city of Zaporizhzhia, which would pave the way for a crossing of the Dnieper river, and eventually the capture of Odessa. Ukrainian leadership sees that coming and is taking steps to prevent it.
The tank counting post is safe to ignore. OSINT people only count open-air storage visible in satellite imagery. Russia has likely already moved most of the salvageable tank hulls to storage buildings where they await refurbishment.
The real test will be next week, ordinarily these limited offensives run out of steam after about two weeks, and then the usual forward grind of the Russians resumes. If they keep advancing it might be something new or different, but I would expect it to peter out very soon if it’s like previous times this happened.
they make limited localized counteroffensives now that get rolled back after a bit so its usual cope yes
the biggest one right now is in zaporizhia where to my understanding from mappers theyre trying to interdict logistics although they havent reached these supply lines yet