Image is from Wikipedia's article on the war..
I've wanted to cover Myanmar for a while now but haven't had the needed knowledge to write much more than "This situation really sucks." After doing a little reading on the situation, I feel even more confused. A decent analogy is the Syrian Civil War, at least while Assad was in power (though it's still pretty true today) - many different opposition groups, some co-operating with the United States, others not. The main government supported partially by an anti-American superpower, but who could live with that government collapsing if there are deals to be made with the group coming into power. A conflict kept going and exploited at least partially by the United States and other imperial core powers, though with plenty of genuine domestic animosity and desires for political independence.
Recently, the Myanmar government - the mainstream media uses "junta", which is probably accurate despite the connotations - has promised elections at the end of 2025. This doesn't seem likely to happen, and even if it did, how this would work in a country as war-torn as Myanmar is unclear. The government is losing territory and soldiers at a quick pace; they now hold only 21% of the country, though that 21% does at least comprise many of the cities. It's difficult to get a handle on the number of people affected because civil wars and insurgencies have been ongoing in some shape or form for decades, but we're talking at least millions displaced and thousands of civilians killed.
Here's a comment by @TheGenderWitch@hexbear.net from fairly recently that covers the situation in Myanmar:
comment
The military government of Myanmar is losing to the Rebel Groups, and badly. https://www.voanews.com/a/myanmar-s-rebels-closing-in-around-junta-into-fifth-year-of-civil-war-/7958145.html
somethings really afoot though, news about myanmar from western outlets and channels have suddenly all remembered myanmar exists and written quite a lot about them in the last few days. Its suspicious, it could be capitalists trying to signal their want for US involvement in the civil war. It could also be a targeted propaganda campaign already pre planned in order to make sure people are clued into the conflict.
I think this seems to be another Assad situation. The Military government is pretty unpopular domestically and is losing quite a bit of ground. I would be surprised if they lasted to 2027. Supplied by both Russia and China, theyve been able to keep some flow of weapons, but are suffering a lot from manpower issues. Conscription has been enacted, but conscripts are a poor replacement for trained soldiers. According to reports, they only hold about 21% of the land and are losing lots of territory. They also have extended their emergency rule for another 6 months, throwing doubt on the ability to follow through with their 2025 election. They've lost large amounts of territory, thousands of soldiers, and 2 regional commands. They're not dead yet though, as they have some ability to retake some territory and win some battles, but again 21%. Rebels currently are making steady progress towards the second largest city in the country.
while I don't like the rebels, they are western aligned, they have popular support and are allied to many of Myanmar's ethnic minority defence groups. Im wondering who really has the power in this situation though, since many of the gains seem to be made by the Ethnic armies, not the NUG. This revolutionary energy could be fueled to establish a socialist federation, but won't, and the popular revolutionary energy is fueled toward the NUG. It'll probably be another pro-west bourgeoisie democracy. It will probably then turn against the ethnic rebels and we'll end up basically where myanmar was pre coup. Probably will have a strong military influence on politics as well, since the rebel forces seem to be made up of officers and very little political groups. By then, people will be extremely tired of war and more likely to accept any conflict resolution than another civil war. In the midst of "It Happened" stands a stronger, unmovable "nothing ever happens". Would be neat if the Communist Party of Burma could somehow come out on top, but they have only around 1000 soldiers and don't control a large amount of territory.
China's interests in the region are still secure, but siding with the Junta is a bad idea, one I understand though. China doesn't want a western aligned power to take over a china aligned state, and is trying to make sure their economic investments in the area are protected and their mineral income is continued. They have deep ties with many Ethnic Minority states, especially on their border, and the NUG forces, mostly again to protect infrastructure investments and keep the minerals flowing. They might flip back to the NUG as the Junta starts collapsing over the next year or so, especially since the new US administration seems to be really cutting back on foreign aid. The General in charge of the rebel government forces complained quite a bit about how much aid ukraine got and how much he wanted that aid. He was basically begging for anti aircraft systems "like in ukraine" lol. China could definitely swoop in and back the rebels, which while hurting their reputation, is probably the best move long term. China's only interest is to keep Myanmar from being pro-west, keep control of Myanmar's mineral flow, and protect other investments in the area.
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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.
Did that end up accomplishing anything for Ukraine materially, other than temporary PR?
In the beginning (the first two to three weeks in August 2024) it was a well executed operation, being able to take some Russian territory (around 1000km²), not marauding forward into Russian defensive traps. If Ukraine had immediately retreated back into Ukraine afterwards it could have been viewed as a success. But instead they decided to double down, first trying to take the nuclear power plant in the region (main strategic objective) in a failed offensive, which led to Ukrainian mechanised units falling into Russian defensive traps and being destroyed by Orion and Forpost UCAVs, along with Russian artillery (the Ukrainian forces pushed too far ahead, outside of their own artillery and air defence coverage). This was the first mistake. Ukraine really should have retreated after failing to take their main strategic point. Holding onto some random villages and farms in Russia doesn't accomplish much.
Then the Ukrainians made the mistake of tripling down, choosing to occupy the 900 or so square kilometres of Kursk that they held at this point, instead of retreating back to Ukraine, hoping that they would be able to exchange hundreds of kilometres of land in Kursk for thousands of kilometres in Ukraine. This was the biggest, and in the end fatal, mistake. Although the Ukrainians were able use their best units in Kursk to attrit Russian forces initially (Russia has lost over 400 armoured vehicles in Kursk, around 350 IFVs and APCS, and 60 tanks) and were able to hold onto the territory, this was a big strategic mistake as it allowed Russia to make rapid (in the context of this war) advances all along the eastern front from September 2024 to January 2025, while Ukraine's best units were occupied in Kursk trying to inflict maximum damage on Russia (and increasingly failing as the battles wore on). Multiple Ukrainian fortress cities fell in the east, and Russia was capturing more territory in Ukraine in a couple of days than Ukraine held in Kursk in total. It also gave Russia and North Korea the perfect excuse to deploy North Korean artillery and rocket troops to Kursk, given their mutual defence pact, with North Korean artillery, air defence, and ballistic missile systems visible within Russia, and eventually in combat positions. The fantasy that Russia would perform some unequal/asymmetric territory exchange, instead of just kicking the Ukrainians out of Kursk eventually, started to collapse.
From then on after this massive strategic error by Ukraine, it just continued to get worse. Ukraine's best units were worn down and being destroyed by Russia as slowly but surely, they took more and more territory in Kursk back. Before this massive offensive by Russia, Ukraine held onto around 360km² of territory in Kursk, just over a third of what they originally had. Then the supply situation became complicated as the Kursk salient became operationally encircled, with only one supply road in and out, that was under complete fire control by Russian by Russian artillery and FPV drones. At this point, the fate of the Kursk salient was sealed, even an organised retreat would face massive losses.
Ukrainian air defences then collapsed, with Ukraine losing one of their rare and their most valuable air defence systems, an S300V battery in Sumy (they only had around 6 batteries from the USSR). This battery was destroyed in two seperate Iskander-M ballistic missile strikes. With this S300V system destroyed, Russian Orion and Forpost UCAVs were able to fly within Ukrainian airspace themselves, conducting drone strikes in Sumy, flying over 10km inside of Ukraine. The Russian Air Force was then able to bomb the Ukrainian salient in Kursk at a scale never seen before, with FAB-3000s raining down on Ukrainian positions in Kursk. By then it was too late for an organized retreat, and now it's an every man for himself situation with the Ukrainians retreating back to Ukraine as fast as possible. Ukraine controlled about 180km² of Kursk 10 hours ago, now they probably control much less.
Thanks for the detailed write-up, comrade! This megathread is one of the best parts of this site, and comrades like you make it so.