Image is the famous photograph Raising a Flag Over the Reichstag, taken during the Battle of Berlin.
On Friday is May 9th, which is the 80th anniversary of Victory Day, which Russia, among other places, celebrates as the day when the Soviets defeated the Nazis. Naturally, one of the current hotspots of fascism in the world today, Ukraine, is essentially threatening that they might strike Russia or even Moscow itself during that timeframe. Any such strike would almost certainly be symbolic and not aimed at anything too important, as I doubt even Zelensky and his American handlers would actually want to kill a world leader, not least somebody like Xi Jinping. But I would not be surprised if they tried something nonetheless, if only to disrupt the event in some way and not actually kill anybody.
And, as we’re on this topic, @EllenKelly@hexbear.net has reminded me that Tuesday is the anniversary of the Nazis burning the Institut für Sexualwissenschaf in 1933, an early institute advocating for the rights of LGBT people, and which also provided early forms of gender-affirming surgeries, as well as hormone therapies. We are currently seeing a crackdown on LGBT rights throughout swathes of the imperial core (as well as countries in the periphery, to the extent that those rights existed there already), and this Nazi-inspired movement will be similarly defeated in the future.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
From the looks of India’s drone attack on Pakistan this morning with Israel Aerospace Industries Harpy and Harop one way attack drones/loitering munitions, it looks like India was trying to carry out a Suppression/Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD/DEAD) mission using the drones. The Harpy has a anti radiation seeker in the nose, while the Harop has a electro-optical sensor, a camera that can transmit footage back to the operator. India were hoping that Pakistan would light up the drones with their advanced air defence systems, such as the HQ-9 and HQ-16, turning on their radars and maybe even firing at the drones, thus revealing their position and opening them up to being targeted by the Harpy anti radiation seeking drones, and potentially ROCKS/Crystal Maze 2, and Rudram-II Air Launched Ballistic Missiles with anti radiation seekers.
IAI Harpy:
IAI Harop:
However, Pakistan quickly wised up to what was happening, turned off the radars and stopped firing from their advanced air defence systems that were targeted, and moved them quickly out of harms way, should their position be comprimised after firing and engaging initially. There are photos of Pakistan quickly moving an HQ-16 battery around to prevent a hit, with a seperate 4x4 truck not part of the HQ-16 system getting hit by Harop drones afterwards. Pakistan made the right choice here, sure India landed some hits as a result and the HQ-16 abandoned it’s primary mission of defending those assets that got hit (so SEAD was accomplished for a limited time, system suppressed in fleeing the area) but saving a high value asset like an HQ-16 from damage or destruction during this kind of attack is worth the trade off (DEAD not accomplished, system still operable and undamaged to fight on another day).
4x4 truck taking hits:
HQ-16 command post or radar vehicle fleeing the scene:
HQ-16 command posts or radar vehicle during peacetime, for identification purposes:
Pakistan then resorted to using jamming and anti aircraft guns against the drones, including the ever reliable Soviet era ZU-23, the AK-47 of anti aircraft guns. So while India landed a few hits and accomplished a limited amount of SEAD, they were unable to get a fix or hit on their primary targets, the HQ-16 and HQ-9, long term SEAD and DEAD not accomplished.
Just for interests sake, hexbear users months ago were talking about the added mobility Chinese air defence systems like the HQ-22 and HQ-16 offer, and how that would be crucial to surviving a modern day SEAD/DEAD campaign in the context of drone warfare.
Thank you for this analysis, love your posts here. Really interesting to watch the development of Chinese anti-air performing in this conflict.
I second this, because I have no clue about military hardware!
If you’re thinking “wow, the Harpy looks really similar to the Iranian Shahed 136/Geran-2”, you’d be right, they are very similar. If your next question is “How did Israel and Iran develop this technology concurrently?”, that’s an interesting question. I did some research, and apparently the source of this idea (to use loitering munitions/one way attack drones for SEAD/DEAD or to bait air defence systems) comes from apartheid South Africa of all places. More explanation below:
During their border wars against Angola and now Namibia (both of whom had Cuban and Soviet support), the South Africans had a serious issue. Because of international sanctions, their fighter aircraft lacked the technology and munitions for typical SEAD/DEAD, and struggled to deal with Soviet air defence systems like the 2K12 Kub/SA-6. The solution was, at the time, to fire whatever they could into the air, from rockets to weather ballons, to try bait the SA-6s into firing, revealing their position to forward observers, who would call in artillery strikes on the position of the SA-6. However, this was insufficient, so there was a competition between defence companies to produce a better solution. One company Kentron, now known as Denel, came up with the ARD-10 drone:
The ARD-10 looks very similar to many things we see today.
Reportedly the blueprints for this drone were sold to Israel during the late 80s before the downfall of the apartheid system (IAI Harpy first flight was in 1989), and under the democratic government, the blueprints for this drone ended up being sent to Iran during the early 2000s. Atonement for previous actions by the apartheid regime?