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.
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.
I slept through this event but it seems to be being presented as an Israel counterattack in the british media but the reality seems to be Israel hasn't claimed the attack?
If that's the case then it's been coordinated to be something Iran can't respond to while it can allow Israel to pretend it responded.
Rafah invasion will be next if the leaks suggesting the US traded accepting their Rafah plans for Israel not performing a counterstrike.
this is exactly what I expected to happen. Israel was never going to respond with some grand bombing campaign, they were gonna try and find the seams and launch a counterattack which makes Iran hesitate about whether responding is justified or worth it, or if Israel even did it. it seems Israel has successfully found that seam.
Iran: "oh no, see, these were drones of unspecified origin, they could have come from anywhere" yeah bro okay
that's always the problem with making statements like "if you do ANYTHING then we'll respond with massive force." really? ANYTHING? if Israel fires a few tiny drones over your border then that proceed to destroy nothing, you're responding? things so far suggest that no, as a matter of fact, Iran will not respond to "ANYTHING". it's a material victory for Iran - they got to hit major targets and gain valuable intel about the structure and timing of Western defense systems, whereas Israel gets to fly a few paper airplanes into Iran - but a propaganda victory for Israel. the former is obviously infinitely more meaningful than the latter, and it doesn't change my opinion of who's winning the war by one iota, but I am reminded of the less... admirable days of the Ukraine War for Russia, where they would make statements and claims and threats and then they simply weren't true, or weren't that serious
Israel absolutely was going to respond with a huge bombing response but was talked down by the US in exchange for support for another wave of their genocidal campaign, this time in Rafah. I completely believe that they were going to respond and escalate otherwise. The US allowing the Rafah campaign to go ahead was too juicy to pass up though.