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.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
You're viewing a single thread.
The loss of Syria creates a countdown for Hezbollah's collapse, probably a year or two, maybe even three, logistics is the god of war and cut off from Iranian supplies while simultaneously fighting off HTS/Israeli attacks and the political maneuvering of the French elites in Beirut is not something any org no matter how internally cohesive can sustain forever, and the new reality in Syria is definitely the beginning of a decades long process, which is too long for a Leningrad style siege
I don't think so tbh, maybe they'll have to infiltrate the army, but they are a party with political infrastructure and stuff, taliban wasn't eliminated in 20 years
Buying 5000 drone parts and some explosives doesn't require genius of logistics.
political infrastructure and stuff
That infrastructure needs a material basis to sustain itself, they're about to lose that base, which will force them to rely on domestic supplies and resources, but Lebanon is a small broke country only half loyal to the idea of resistance and the attacks will only increase from three angles now
The Taliban had the whole of Afghanistan to sink back into, with strategic depth deep into Pakistan, they had one real enemy concentrated in predictable locales and time on their side
Hezbollah is unfortunately in the opposite position
small broke country can afford drones, if they do some base building, they do banking and shit in lebanon, they are not just cells sitting in tunnels. Moreover, with correct spin (and 40% support) they can say we are the only one protecting you, army will work for occupation, and because pisrael cannot show its occupation is merciful (self-evidently), i doubt they could get all the hearts and minds of lebanon
I'm sure Hezbollah will do all of that, but time and the drain on resources remains, a year from now Hezbollah will still be fighting and there will be some glorious reversals and defeats for Israel and HTS
But five years from now? I don't see it with Syria destroyed
I don't think perception of them being bankrolled by iran is correct, is my point. Sure nice to have stuff to make rockets, but rockets are last decade
Drone swarms are going to hit industrial scale soon, we are still at the level of improvised armor carrier compared to ww2 panzer level crap that will come out eventually.
Lebanon won't be a state in thirty years, political infrastructure means nothing.
I'd even say that's optimistic with regards to Hezbollah. They are in a bad way as of now, being cut off from Iran is going to make it worse. Holding out for 2-3 years would be a miracle.
Ansarallah works even though they're more isolated
Yemen is a massive urban country with wonderful strategic boundaries, it doesn't look that way cause of the Mercator effect, Yemen is 2.5 times bigger than Syria, Ansarallah just has more to work with
Ansarallah are able to get supplies by sea. Geographically it's much easier for Iran to supply Yemen by sea than it is to supply Lebanon by sea. Iran to Yemen is a direct shipment. Iran to Lebanon involves evading the Israeli Navy in the Red Sea, going through the Suez canal, then shipping to an intermediate country like Italy or Greece (any direct shipment to Lebanon would arouse suspicion), and then shipping to Lebanon through some kind of back channel.
It's impossible to know exactly how much Iran manages to get through to Yemen via sea routes because they'd never tell us but I've been under the impression that Ansarallah's capabilities are mostly domestically supplied at this point, based on various statements by the government there
Hezbollah has some serious muscle, if Nasrallah was still alive I'd even push the timeline to five years before they lose the south, on top of that they literally have their backs to the ocean and the population remembers the massacres of the 80s, Hezbollah will bleed HTS white, but they can't fight on three fronts without even logistical support, no one no matter how Rambo a fighting force you got can pull that off
I don't expect Hezbollah to be around in any serious capacity in five years, and southern Lebanon and the plains west of Damascus will fall to Israel if they themselves don't implode by then
The question is how much of that muscle still exists, after the pager terrorist operations and other decapitation strikes. The situation is bad, there's no ways around it.
The fact even after the pager attack they still were able to repel five whole divisions of IOF troops is a good sign, that's where I get my one to three year projection from
Sidon is on the chopping block.
Hezbollah is giving out payments and rental assistance to families and giving out reconstruction funds for people who's homes were destroyed. If they can dole out tens of millions of dollars in under a year they aren't going anywhere.
Yes the ceasefire is a betrayal of their commitment to Gaza but it is a bigger loss for the IDF. Hezbollah can easily set up on the north side of the river where there will be no french or american troops and can still fire rockets 100km into occupied Palestine.
Things are changing and things might look bad but repression can't kill the resistance it can only delay liberation.