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.
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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.
Seeing that rat Pahlavi on the news giving his thoughts on how great Israel's unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran is really erases any misgivings I had about what happened to the Romanovs. I'm filling in the apology form right now.
Monarchies are resilient like cockroaches unfortunately. That means you need to end the line. That is dark as hell. I couldnt do it but it's the one thing that works. I have honestly thought what the solution to this dilemma is and tbh I have no fucking clue.
I think, an easy win is the forgiving Chinese. Just put the 'king' through re-education.
The important context here is that when the Chinese communists finally took power, it had been 38 years since the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. You already had two generations of people growing up in a republic without the presence of a monarch.
In fact, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, not CPC yet) wasn’t even established until years AFTER the overthrow of the Qing empire.
The Russian revolutionaries did not have such luxury on their side. There were still many Russian people who still looked to the Tsar with reverence when the Russian revolution took place and rallied behind the monarchy during the civil war.
Excellent historical materialist explanation, thanks comrade
This only works if the ex-monarch is a chill and seemingly good hearted person like the Chinese one was. Many monarchs are so stuck up and reactionary you will never fix them. It likely has to do with how involved said monarch was in governance and crushing rebellions. Young kids who haven’t done much and have others rule in their stead are reformable. People like the Tsar are not
Puyi had also been essentially held captive - albeit in luxury - in a hotel by the Japanese who sought to use him as a puppet and almost certainly would have killed him after he stopped being useful, compared to the stresses of that getting taught Marxist theory and then getting a gig at the Beijing Botanical Gardens was probably a relief. Not that ruling from a gilded cage excuses his actions as a collaborator, of course.
It’s complicated. He was a collaborator and known to be personally cruel and vindictive, but given his upbringing - a useless, in-name-only emperor from the age of 6 living in absurd luxury - might be expected. Even in the re-education camp at first people (his former servants) would do stuff for him but eventually they realised they didn’t need to and he was forced to learn to live like a normal human. He couldn’t even wash or dress himself, he couldn’t make matchboxes without fucking them up. I highly recommend his autobiography, good read.
I should read up on him more, definitely an interesting guy, I'll add his autobiography to the list!
Not really the same because part of Chinese dynastic history is sparing some sovereigns of previous dynasties as a way of flexing how they're so pathetic that they're not even worth killing. And Puyi 100% fits the profile of a pathetic sovereign not worth killing.
Saw a funny short about that the other day
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
They made their system be about lineages and bloodline, they are the ones who forced us to end their family lines to stop them
That really is the reality. Billionaires don't have the same pull with the public that monarchies do so monarchies have to be completely uprooted to be free of them. And Russia (and the USSR before them) were definitely far better off not having the spectre of monarchy and monarchists on their back
When a feudal dynasty gets overthrown, the expectation is that the overthrown dynasty's immediate bloodline will be extinguished, whether through executions or castrations of all males. If Nicky wanted to be spared, he could've done what previous sovereigns throughout eastern Europe had done, which is to gouge his eyes out, castrate himself, and retire as a monk. Him refusing to destroy his eyes and genitals means his abdication shouldn't be seen as serious by feudal standards, and I don't blame socialists in the middle of a civil war for not doing better than what feudalists had set as appropriate.
Also from what I recall the bolsheviks didnt even intend to straight up kill the romanovs just because, during the civil they had them secured in a castle or something and wanted to keep them there but then a czech anticommunist legion started getting very close to their location so in a panic they shot the sumbitches cos that was better than letting them escape.
Idk what would've happened if said legion didn't make them panic and they could do whatever they wanted with tje romanovs