Image, and a considerable amount of the preamble’s analysis, comes from this article in People’s Dispatch.

A week ago, the Bolivian left-wing party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), currently led by Luis Arce, decisively lost the round of elections against the right-wing. This comes after a prolonged period of “infighting” between Arce, and Morales, who previously led the MAS prior to the 2019 coup which briefly installed Jeanine Anez.

I put infighting in quotes because despite the nominal similarities between Arce and Morales, it is clear that this is not merely a counterproductive battle between two men - instead, the Bolivian left has arrived at a time of unavoidable conflict between two competing strategies. The electoral strategy is represented by Arce, who has aligned himself with a more middle-class-oriented campaign that is more economically liberal, whereas Morales represents a more working-class-oriented campaign that seeks to go further than tepid reform.

Such a conflict between electoralism and revolutionary action is inevitable in any and every developing country that 1) possesses a functioning left-wing party or organization, and 2) is under internal and/or external pressure by capitalists. This crisis must be resolved eventually - and this electoral failure is how such a crisis is manifesting right now. So while the Bolivian left has indeed lost the election, it is not yet defeated. The revolutionary campaign can, if it is willing, still ultimately stand triumphant. But what must be done is a real movement towards socialism, which goes beyond technocrats reforming from above, and instead transforms the state into a full political project of the working class, in which their movements, organizations, and protests are genuinely empowered. Such a project will involve repression by the forces of reaction, not least by the United States, but it is the only road left to take.

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's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

  • Tervell [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    46·
    2 days ago

    doggirl-tears sorry, I just wasn’t ready for my weapons to be used in, uh… a war? https://archive.ph/D8SGM

    ​KNDS Was Not Ready For Wartime Repairs, Delayed PzH 2000, Gepard Fixes by a Year

    KNDS Deutschland admitted that the real war realities were far from its expectations, and establishing proper repairs of German weapons was delayed for a whole year — the main reason was conceptual. Criticism towards German defense manufacturers about their organization of heavy military equipment repairs dates back to at least 2022. Back then, up to half of all PzH 2000 self-propelled artillery systems could be waiting for or in repair instead of service, and the leadership could not tell where the repair hubs should be opened until they ultimately decided to set up the vital facilities right in Ukraine. First, Rheinmetall opened its service center in Ukraine, then KNDS Deutschland, the German offshoot of the international defense giant, followed suit. The process took an extra year, said Ralph Ketzel, CEO of KNDS Deutschland, and named the key reasons for such a delay in an interview with DW. The principal problem was that the German side did not fully understand how combat equipment is repaired during wartime, Ketzel admitted, and pointed at the PzH 2000 as a good example of that:

    "I must admit that conceptually we are about a year behind [schedule] in terms of repairs. Why did this happen? Because we are used to the ground forces, unlike the aviation, treating their equipment as consumables. In other words, when we supplied the first systems in early 2023, we thought we would have to supply completely new self-propelled guns afterward, not repair them. About a year later, we visited Ukraine, and it became clear that the repairs carried out directly by the company are only the tip of the iceberg. Here, in Ukraine, a lot of work is taking place in the field conditions." Ketzel said they weren’t ready to provide field repairs in Ukraine. It would be fair to note, however, that setting up such services in another country is a lot of work. For one, to train specialists and stockpile spare parts on the spot. Here, it’s worth recalling that in 2022, the Germans had to cannibalize some of the PzH 2000 in order to get those spares. The aforementioned KNDS service hub in Ukraine, opened late January 2025, was primarily seeking to address the pressing matter of sustaining the Ukrainian fleet of Gepard mobile anti-air guns. Contrary to the statements of the Ukrainian government, over these past six months, the joint venture has repaired not three but actually more Gepard systems, according to Ketzel. Seven units were fixed right in the field.

    “Now we have created a spare parts stockpile here and are moving on to the implementation stage. Not only will we save time on transportation, filling out declarations, etc. — it’s also about motivation and speed of work. In this regard, Ukrainian workers make a very strong impression, since they work with an unparalleled enthusiasm. These are people who know what they do it for.” The journalist asked if Ukraine’s bureaucracy was in the way of creating the service center — a callout from Rheinmetall chairman Armin Papperger who blamed paperwork for slowing down the opening of local ammunition plant. The KNDS Deutschland chief, however, disagreed: “Why, I don’t think that’s an argument at all. We’re not in the Wild West, we can’t work in a legal vacuum. There are rules in both Germany and Ukraine. Sometimes it takes time to reconcile them. People on both sides feel a great responsibility and want to do everything properly,” Ketzel replied.

    • darkcalling [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      17·
      2 days ago

      It really is a failure of Russia that they haven’t achieved intelligence capabilities strong enough to find and strike these repair facilities. Even just killing a large number of their trained repair techs without totally destroying the buildings/facilities (e.g. taking out a bus they all take leaving or going to work) would do immense damage and hampering to Ukraine’s ability to repair things and that of the German arms industry to continue servicing things and psychologically strike an incredible blow to the happy go lucky murderous German arms companies.

      Targeting foreign specialists and foreign trained specialists should be a very high priority for Russia if they’re serious about demilitarizing and rendering harmless the Nazi state of Ukraine and of course taking out repair capabilities will seriously hamper Ukraine militarily. The Germans should be taken a lot more aback by furious Russian destruction of their capabilities to service their equipment in Ukraine at all.

      • Tervell [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        18·
        2 days ago

        But, Russia is regularly striking all kinds of targets in the Ukrainian rear. Ukraine is indeed seriously hampered military, which is why the Russians keep being able to advance right past ostensibly fortified areas. Have we actually seen any indication that Ukraine is managing to repair a notable amount of vehicles? By and large, stuff is being repaired outside of Ukrainian territory, at a dreadfully slow pace.

        These vaunted facilities have, according to the Ukrainian government itself, in the span of 2/3rds of a year repaired a grand total of three vehicles. This guy is saying it was more without specifying anything, so maybe it was like, five instead. So, presumably this isn’t some big factory complex, it’s a tiny workshop somewhere, which would be much more difficult to find and strike, and also a lot less worthwhile to even invest resources in striking in the first place given how few people must actually be there to be taking an average of several months to deal with one vehicle.

        Ukraine is a lot more hampered military by the massive losses of troops at the frontline, rather than the destruction of a handful of hidden away repair hubs. Ukraine is going to be demilitarized not by the destruction of its military industry (which has already been heavily damaged, and its death doesn’t really matter anyway if the West just keeps supplying them), but by the simple killing of enough of their soldiers that they can no longer maintain a coherent front.

        In terms of trained personnel, this doesn’t seem to be that large of a project - this other article has more details, but it states

        Over 100 Ukrainian specialists have been trained in Germany

        First and foremost, we needed a partner with experience working with anti-aircraft systems in electronics and weaponry. … We were then told that there was a company, not present at this forum, but which was specifically working on air defense. We visited this company, and found that they were well-versed in Soviet-era air defense systems and were actively involved in Ukraine’s air defense efforts. We saw these people, their equipment, and their technical maintenance, and decided that this would be our partner.

        So, “over 100” guys, with it not being clear what exactly this training entailed - it could have just been basic maintenance for most of these guys - and also seeming like the Germans may not have actually done all that much training to begin with, but rather found a Ukrainian company that already had trained personnel.

        And finally, the idea that such strikes would have any sort of impact on the West’s willingness to keep engaging in this conflict is based on… what exactly? Is there anything about the last several years which has indicated that the West is governed by rational actors with a sense of self-preservation? The Germans are literally announcing that their welfare state can’t be funded anymore and then a couple of days later saying that they’re giving billions to Ukraine. There’s European countries with barely any artillery left, why would a bunch of guys getting vaporized at a repair hub impact anything?