Bulletins and News Discussion from December 2nd to December 8th, 2024 - May A Hundred Hazel Flowers Bloom - COTW: Russia
Bulletins and News Discussion from December 2nd to December 8th, 2024 - May A Hundred Hazel Flowers Bloom - COTW: Russia
Image is of one of the six salvos of the Oreshnik missile striking Ukraine.
The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that appears to split into six groups of six submunitions as it strikes its target, giving it the appearance of a hazel flower. It can travel at ten times the speed of sound, and cannot be intercepted by any known Western air defense system, and thus Russia can strike and conventionally destroy any target anywhere in Europe within 20 minutes. Two weeks ago, Russia used the Oreshnik to strike the Yuzhmash factory in Ukraine, particularly its underground facilities, in which ballistic missiles are produced.
Despite the destruction caused by the missile, and its demonstration of Russian missile supremacy over the imperial core, various warmongering Western countries have advocated for further reprisals against Russia, with Ukraine authorized by the US to continue strikes. Additionally, the recent upsurge of the fighting in Syria is no doubt connected to trying to stretch Russia thin, as well as attempting to isolate Hezbollah and Palestine from Iran; how successful this will have ended up being will depend on the outcome of the Russia and Syrian counteroffensive. Looking at recent military history, it will take many months for the Russians and Syrians to retake a city that was lost in about 48 hours.
Even in the worst case scenario for Hezbollah, it's notable that Ansarallah has had major success despite being physically cut off from the rest of the Resistance and under a blockade, and it has defeated the US Navy in its attempts to open up the strait. Israel has confirmed now that their army cannot even make significant territorial gains versus a post-Nasrallah, post-pager terrorist attack Hezbollah holding back its missile strike capabilities. In 2006, it also could not defeat a much less well-armed Hezbollah and was forced to retreat from Lebanon.
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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.
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Statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry:
'We are following the dramatic events in Syria with extreme concern. As a result of negotiations between Bashar al-Assad and a number of participants in the armed conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, he decided to leave the presidential post and left the country, giving instructions to transfer power peacefully
Russia did not participate in these negotiations. At the same time, we appeal to all parties involved with a strong call to renounce the use of violence and resolve all governance issues by political means.
In this regard, the Russian Federation is in contact with all groups of the Syrian opposition. We call for respect for the opinions of all ethno-confessional forces of Syrian society, and support efforts to establish an inclusive political process based on the unanimously adopted UN Security Council Resolution 2254.
We expect that these approaches will be taken into account by the UN and all interested players, including in the context of the implementation of the initiative of the UN Secretary General's Special Representative for Syria, Georg Pedersen, to urgently organize inter-Syrian inclusive negotiations in Geneva.
At the same time, all necessary measures are being taken to ensure the safety of our citizens in Syria. Russian military bases in Syria are on high alert. There is currently no serious threat to their security.'
Can anyone confirm this? I saw footage of what seemed like riots around the Russian Controlled-Syrian land. Also I saw some people talking about reestablishing a Alawite State, and some group called Alawite Muslim Defence League, no idea what was that about.
Iran is flying evacuation flights out of Latakia constantly with various Mahan Air 747s and A-340s. They always fly directly over Al Tanf and Latakia is being observed by US Navy recon aircraft, so I guess that safe passage has been negotiated for these Mahan Air flights, with the USA, Turkey and the HTS.
So no, I don't think Latakia is safe.
How big a loss is losing the presence in Syria to Russia? How big a win is it for the yanks?
The Tartus Naval Base is Russia’s only supply port by sea in the Mediterranean. Losing Tartus and Khmeimim would significantly curb, if not cutting off completely, Russia’s ability to supply Syria and the Middle East as a whole.
This is a huge win for the US empire because they have effectively eliminated Russia’s military presence in Syria and isolated Russia’s ability to support the resistance against Western imperialism in the Middle East.
And with Russia out of the picture, it will embolden the US and Israel to commit to whatever plans they have for the Middle East.
I guess it's a huge loss to Iran, sure they can land a deal with some warlords and the kurds for easy access to Lebanon, but they lost a state ally. Russia probably can keep their bases around the coast and they might even get a warlord ally to control that area, probably this Alaite Muslim Defence thing, and some baathist loyalists can make this rump state. This is a victory for the US but who knows what will happen in the future, this might turn into a bad situation for them just like Iraq and Afghanistan. Seeing that Israel is invading southern Syria, this is probably a huge victory for the Israelis who now can conquer a lot of land since these terrorists literally can't do anything to stop them, the terrorists are too deorganized.