Image is of Putin and Scholz sitting on opposite ends of a frighteningly long table back in 2022. Folks, the table is gonna get ten feet longer.
The latest round of US-Russian diplomacy is taking place on August 15th in Alaska, where Putin and Trump are meeting in-person to maybe try and bring an end to this godforsaken conflict. While I don’t want to totally discount the possibility that they may come to an agreement - you truly never know! - there’s a lot stacked against this encounter yielding much of anything.
Russia appears to have demanded a land swap; that Ukraine fully withdraw from Kherson and Zaporozhye oblasts (in exchange for unspecified Russian gains, but probably parts of Sumy and Kharkov) as a precondition for a ceasefire that could perhaps lead to a permanent resolution of the conflict, and Ukraine seems completely unwilling to do anything of the sort, saying that even if they wanted to, the process of just giving up a couple oblasts would take significant time and require referendums. I say that Russia has appeared to demand it, because there’s been a lot of confusion - probably in bad faith - about what Russian diplomats and Putin himself have said and what the demands even are. There are some who speculate that Trump will sell out Ukraine and blame Zelensky for refusing to agree with Russian demands, and there are others who say that this just the latest of many examples of the US and Russia meeting up with such fundamental differences that a deal is impossible, and that Trump fully expects to put sanctions on Russia after Putin declines some harebrained American scheme.
Anyway. After the summit, in late August, Putin is due to arrive for a visit to India, at Modi’s invitation. Previously, I was unsure exactly what India would do in response to American sanctions pressure, and now we appear to be receiving an answer, as Modi has made public statements that suggest that he is only getting closer to Russia. Fascinatingly, Modi will soon make his first visit to China in seven years at the annual SCO summit at the end of August, and Putin will be heading to China too on September 3rd. There is an increasing amount of dismissal about the potential of BRICS (especially one that contains India), and that dismissal is certainly rather justified, but I am still deeply curious about what developments may occur as the global south braces to face the remaining ~85% of Trump’s presidency.
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Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
BREAKING: 🇧🇴 Neoliberal candidate Rodrigo Paz has come 1st in Bolivia’s presidential elections. Without Evo Morales, the left has collapsed. The MAS party expelled him and now has just 3.2%. After 20 years of hegemony, the left has lost power. How did it all go so wrong?
Evo Morales’ MAS won every election from 2005–2020 with huge majorities, thanks to nationalizing resources, redistributing wealth, and turning Bolivia from the poorest to the fastest-growing economy in the region.
The party was led by indigenous movements, allied with unions and the progressive middle class. That coalition shattered after 2020 when President Luis Arce empowered the middle-class faction and banned Evo from running again.
The split wasn’t ideological at first, but about access to state jobs and contracts. Evo’s faction was excluded, while Arce’s supporters feared losing their new privileges if Evo returned to power.
The dispute exploded over who would be the presidential candidate. Arce stacked the courts, which granted his faction legal control of MAS, shutting Evo out.
This split cost Arce his majority in Congress, leaving him unable to pass economic policies. This led to crisis & inflation. The economic collapse drove voters away from MAS. Rural indigenous communities largely stayed with Evo, while the urban middle class shifted to the right.
Driving the war against Evo was Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo, now MAS’s presidential candidate. His personal ambitions destroyed the party, now polling at barely 3%.
Due to their candidate being banned, Evo’s mostly indigenous supporters decided to boycott the elections. They have today shown that they’re still the largest section of the left (and that banning Evo was a disaster).
This defeat wasn’t inevitable. It’s the result of the left tearing itself apart over who reaps the rewards of the state - a fate that can face any movement once in govt. Arce’s use of the state (police & courts) to settle the dispute through persection was the nail in the coffin.
Is all hope lost? Of course not. Evo’s soiled ballots are set to win more support than any candidate. Something new will grow out of that movement. In fact, I predict that the new neoliberal govt will be toppled before its term ends, pro-US elites never survive long in Bolivia.
Hillary was just on some podcast, praising Trump’s foreign policy and his “approach to NATO”. Very cool.
Iran would probably have like 2000+ nukes by now if it wasn’t for traitors within their political class like these:
https://xcancel.com/fresh_sadegh/status/1956834013726781574Zarif has revealed his plan in an article in FP. The main point of his argument which he hides under the expansion of ties with neighbors and regional partnership is: “renewed dialogue with the U.S. and EU”.
Zarif isn’t alone in propagating necessity for a new shift: President Hassan Rouhani in a video, uses another term: “a change in strategy” and as if he doesn’t want to show his hand, he says this change must come “through a national strategy based on the will of people”.
Been hearing a bit about Tamil genocide and Redditors who claim to be from the global south saying every AES country supports it with only anarchists doing anything worthwhile.
I can usually tell it’s some astroturfed bullshit when anarchists from the global south claim to be the only leftists doing anything for indigenous people.
Still, do any newsheads know much about the topic? I really don’t know much about South Asia.
Bolivia’s presidential elections are today. Since 2005, the socialist MAS party has won every single vote with huge majorities. Now they’re set for a massive defeat due to internal splits, currently polling at just 1.5%.
We’ll need to wait for the results for a full analysis, but for 4 years there’s been a rift between Evo Morales and the middle-class faction that took power in 2020, over who controls the party. Evo lost the internal struggle. Luis Arce’s faction used state power to seize control of MAS, but they’re now heading toward a devastating defeat as Evo calls for a boycott of the elections.
This division has opened the door for the neoliberal right, who will hand Bolivia’s natural resources over to US interests. The consequences could not be more dire.
The current MAS candidate, Eduardo del Castillo, was the one who led the factional war against Evo Morales and pushed for him to be banned from standing. As the poll above shows, it’s only a pyrrhic victory for him, the MAS is over without Evo.
Triumphing for the oppressed Palestinian people and their dear Mujahideen, and in response to the crimes of genocide and starvation perpetrated by the Zionist enemy against our people in the Gaza Strip and in retaliation to the Israeli aggression against our country.
The missile force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a qualitative military operation targeting Lod Airport in the occupied Yaffa region using a hypersonic ballistic missile, “Palestine 2.”
The operation has successfully achieved its objective, and caused millions of herds of usurping Zionists to flee to shelters, suspending airport operations.
What has been happening in Gaza for nearly two years is a clear confirmation of the enemy’s disregard for the blood of our people in Palestine and its disregard for the blood of Arabs and Muslims.
The unprecedented crime of genocide has not stopped, and the siege and starvation continue in full view of the entire world. How long will the nation, with its peoples and countries, continue to remain silent and in such a state of abandonment?
Has the blood of children and women in Gaza become insignificant to everyone? How long will this crime, this injustice, and this aggression continue?
We will persist to fulfill our religious, moral, and humanitarian duty toward the oppressed Palestinian people until the aggression against Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.
Sana’a: Safar 23, 1447 AH August 17, 2025 AD
Issued by the Yemeni Armed Forces
SouthFront has a new collection of recent Palestinian resistance combat footage from Gaza:
https://southfront.press/hamas-islamic-jihad-are-still-resisting-in-gaza-videos/
Lots of pics of cool chinese platforms in Beijing streets in preperation for the 80th anniversary Victory Day parade. Someone covered armored vehicles bellow but it there are some other, arguably bigger stuff. Some never or rarely seen before.
Anti-Ship missiles YJ-15, ramjet compact supersonic?
YJ-17, waverider hypersonic glide?
YJ-19, maybe scramjet hypersonic?
YJ-20, biconical hypersonic/aeroballistic?
Air Defense systems convoy
HQ-11: 0:18 - 0:35, HQ-26/32 (designation still unknown): 0:43 - 0:59, HQ-22: 1:00 - 1:26, HQ-9: 1:29 - 1:46, HQ-19: 1:49 - 2:16, HQ-29 (designation still unknown): 2:20 - 2:50
Some new subsonic surface-to-surface cruise missile?
Some long range torpedo or a UUV ?
Some loyal wingman thing and some combat UAV: 1 2
same big ass laser air defense system
and there are more stuff too. Maybe we should do a group watch for the parade
British actor Terence Stamp, best known for playing the villain General Zod in the Hollywood blockbuster “Superman II,” has died. The artist passed away at the age of 87 on Sunday.
- Telegram
Remember when Corbin got dragged for saying Zionists have no sense of irony? Then there’s this Israeli hooliganism
AMK Mapping reports that the Ukrainians have launched a successful counterattack against the Russian breakthrough at the new Donetsk defensive line, and stemmed the Russian advance, along with retaking territory, at least for now. This involved a large amount of Ukrainian reinforcements.
The Russian advance in this area was an infantry only assault heavily supported by Russian airstrikes beforehand and close air support, which is quite rare for Russia. If they attempted to reinforce this advance with mechanised elements, it’s unknown at this time.
What really saved Ukraine here is the fact that Russia’s FAB glide bombs can only hit static targets, can’t readjust their flight path mid flight, lack dedicated precision guidance seperate from GNSS (satellite navigation), and the targeting pods for their strike aircraft like the Su-34 are not high fidelity enough to track targets at stand off distance. If Russia had targeting pods with the fidelity of something like the Sniper XR, and if Russia had glide bombs in the class of the GBU-39 Laser SDB, GBU-53 SDB II, or SPICE 250/1000/2000, they could have picked off Ukrainian formations on the move that came to support the counter attacks, and provided much more effective close air support for Russian infantry behind Ukrainian lines. The only weapon Russia has in this class for their strike aircraft is the Kh-38ML, a missile.
An Su-34 equipped with high fidelity targeting pods, 3 external fuel tanks for increased loitering time, and over a dozen FAB-250 glide bombs with laser or TV guidance would have been able to provide very effective close air support, but that capability does not exist currently.
🚨 Sirens ring repeatedly across central occupied Palestine following the launch of a missile from Yemen.
🚨 Intense clashes are taking place east of Gaza City, following the zionist’s announcement of the evacuation and occupation of the city.
The IOF has been instructed to evacuate all of Gaza City by early October, preempting the entry of at least four new divisions that include tens of thousands of reserve soldiers.
🟢 Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades: — Al-Qassam Brigades targeted a zionist “Merkava” tank with a “Yassin 105” shell yesterday, Saturday, near the Dawla intersection, south of the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City.
