Image is Israeli interceptors trying and failing to intercept missiles over their cities.
Israel just carried out a widespread bombing of Iran, which has killed a number of senior officials inside Iran (though it seems the leadership is more-or-less intact) as well as a number of civilians. Important facilities have been targeted, but the amount of damage is unknown so far (note that many important Iranian facilities are deep underground, making them both hard to damage but also hard to determine if they are damaged from just satellite imagery, so reports of damage will be he-said-she-said).
It appears the attack took Iran by surprise, given that a residential block was targeted that contained some senior officials - if one saw an attack coming, one would imagine they'd be in bunkers. Nonetheless, like the rest of the Resistance Axis, I suspect that Iran has adapted their military structures to be resistant to decapitation strikes by ensuring that replacement figures are ready to take the place of killed officials.
Iran has delivered a massive missile barrage in response to Israeli aggression, even though Israel is continuing to bomb Iran. Iran is now aware of the location of many important Israeli sites, including secret nuclear sites, due to their recent intelligence haul, giving them a distinct edge.
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.
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.
Like just take Iran for example. It would greatly benefit irans capabilities and standjng if they had chinese air defences and jets and a couple of awacs , even if it was j-10c and downhraded versions of hq-9s and hq-17s. Its one of the more non science fiction ways that china could dorectly change the balnce in the axis of resistance against israel. First of all china only in recent years has gotten to the level and attitude of exporting such systems to whoever othe than pakistan but the important thing is to not assume that this hasnt happened or isnt happening because of china and not because of Iran. Sure china is to a degree lamely cautious as to where it would sell modern military equipment to not anger the us etc , or at least this was the case pre the intensification of this new cold war in recent years. But from whatever coverage from iranian and chinese sorces i have seen on the matter the iranian government factions, both reformers and to a lesser extent hardliners, where the ones more ambivalent and feet dragging in attempting closer alliances with China and earnestly attempting to aquire modern relevant military equipment beyond drone components and electronics. I really believe its possible iran could have had j-10c with pl-15s right now if they attempted that procurement especially when chinese equipment was still considered shit by the west. We should consider Irans agency here before whining about how china doesnt arm the axis of resistance and see if iran actually showed enough lack of naivity and willingness to be armed by china and prepare with the relevant ereas chinese military systems would make a difference other than waiting for a single su-35 and a s-300 to be available after every year of russian production.
To be honest in terms of what China should do, I was thinking more about sanctions against Israel, rather than China copy-pasting the US Ukraine strategy but for Iran
As you pointed out, the Iranians unlike the Ukrainians wouldn't really go for that, or at least that used to be the case before last week
I took that angle because given Chinas global trade and foreign policy in the last few decades, its the way way more realistic way for China to make a decisive impact in the balance of power in the region in favor of iran and against israel. By taking advantage of and zeroing on what iran could buy, trade, smuggle and collaborate with china militarily, not hoping china to stop trading with Israel in commercially. Its much more realistic for iran to greatly strengthen their position against israel by taking advantage of china that way and chase that at all costs than to achieve an equal and sustained weaken of israels position by expecting china to sanction them while 95% of the arab world doesnt give a shit to
As far as the latter and the question of how much it would even work i had some thoughts here. https://hexbear.net/comment/6199174