There's way too much going on right now for me to really focus on any one country this week. The aftermath of the fall of the Nepal government has, somewhat surprisingly, reverberated around the world, and not only in countries that are enemies to the West as you'd expect; for example, Morocco's government battle fiercely with Egypt's and Jordan's to be first in line to lick the dogshit off the boots of Zionists, and yet Morocco is currently embroiled in a large protest wave based primarily around a youth unemployment crisis (though their population is also remarkably pro-Palestinian, which generates additional friction). We're also seeing similar protests in Madagascar, Peru, and Paraguay, and perhaps more will come. I'm personally fairly doubtful in the potential for meaningful economic results from these protests (the current imperialist system seems too deeply embedded for a movement that isn't explicitly communist and anti-imperialist to alter conditions), but it is quite possible for new political results at least.
Outside of the developing world, it appears that the unpopularity of western leaders, such as in the UK, France, and Italy, is creating new levels of unrest. In Britain, the political system has become so utterly moribund that even the artificial democracy of a two-party system (more-or-less; the Lib Dems do exist I suppose) no longer suffices, with both Conservatives and Labour gradually sinking. The Reform party appears like it may become the new standard-bearer of the capitalists and petit-bourgeois - that is, the historical wellspring of fascism - and the Left Party (whatever name they eventually choose) may or may not rise to meet the occasion. In France, they're on their fifth Prime Minister in two years, after Lecornu lasted about a month, attempting the liberal classic: promising change, and then appointing the exact same people who have ruled for the last few decades. And pro-Palestinian protests and general strikes have erupted in Italy, in defiance of their rightwing government under Meloni.
While there's plenty of other events (e.g. continuing aggression against Venezuela that might soon erupt into a war) it would be remise of me not to mention the very much ongoing events vis-a-vis Palestine and a potential peace deal there, seemingly supported to some degree by Trump. It could be legitimate, and it could be some big act (very likely the latter, IMO). Both Trump and Netanyahu seem to believe that they're very talented political masterminds, producing manoeuvres and feints that would make Machiavelli blush. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I trust the militant organizations inside Palestine to outplay these American failsons. Hamas and similar groups are not nearly as gullible as the Iranian reformist faction - though few people are!
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The Zionist Entity'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.
Assessment of their capabilities relative to what the US would be likely to use? Can they shoot down what they need to shoot down?
The Buk family of systems (SA-11, SA-17, SA-27) are very good systems that have performed well in Ukraine for both sides. However, we have just come off of the back of two conflicts (Yemen and Iran) where their Buk analogues (Khordad, Raad, Barq) have gone up against modern US and Israeli airpower, stand off weapons, and stealth technology, and not a single manned aircraft was shot down, only unmanned aircraft. The number of Buk systems Venezuela have is also relatively low, and will only be able to defend key locations like the capital in a hypothetical conflict. If the performance is similar between Iranian analogues and the Russian export grade systems Venezuela have, we'll likely see similar results in a hypothetical conflict against fixed wing aircraft. If helicopters are part of it, that could change as helicopters are quite vulnerable to both these systems and man portable air defence systems. (MANPADs).
Against modern US airpower, the best system Venezuela have is the S-300VM/SA-23, a completely different system to the regular S-300P/SA-10/SA-20. It's also a threat that US aircraft have never faced directly, Iran didn't have the S-300V, they had an S-300P variant. For an "anti stealth" air defence system, it's the best shot. Very powerful radars designed to detect low radar cross section targets, like ballistic missile re entry vehicles and stealthy cruise missiles. You can almost think of it as a land mobile version of one face of the US AEGIS SPY Radar. However Venezuela only have 1 battalion (2 batteries) of the S-300VM, and if it can be located, it can be overwhelmed and destroyed. So their low number doesn't give me a lot of hope, but it is the best shot. Both Ukraine and Russia have incurred S-300V losses in the Ukraine war, so it's not an invincible system or anything like that. The US also purchased elements of the S-300V (an earlier variant called the SA-12) from Belarus at the end of the cold war. So they probably have some understanding of how it works.
As for the YJ-27 "anti stealth radar" (or any other large VHF arrays) I have very little faith in those, much less than the radar components of say the S-300VM. These VHF arrays (including the YJ-27 itself) have been destroyed multiple times in battle by the US and Israel, in Syria and Iran. Large immobile targets whose doctrine is based on misunderstandings about the F-117 shoot down over Yugoslavia and have a poor battle record against the very thing they're intended to track.
Overall I don't have much faith in the Venezuelan air defence systems or fighter aircraft against US airpower. Aircraft like the F-35, in both low observability and their sensor suite, are designed to fly in environments contested by double digit SA systems. Overall this force structure is more about deterring a conflict than actually fighting in one. Low numbers of equipment are the biggest issue. However constructing a force that could actively fight the US military is way too expensive and an unrealistic endeavour for most countries around the world. It's more about making yourself difficult to fight against, at least more difficult than other potential targets of the US empire, establishing deterrence that way.
Do you have a source for further reading on air defence? Particularly interested in what the misunderstanding of the serbian F-117 shoot-down were on the part of systems design.
The misunderstanding is that "low frequency radars" played a key part in the shoot down of the F-117 and that said radars can be used to accurately track or even potentially cue surface to air missiles against very low observable aircraft, because the S-125 battery used to shoot down the aircraft had a P-18 radar as a part of it. It's a misunderstanding that is still quite prevalent, I also believed it before reading further on the matter and thinking about it more deeply after that, given the poor combat record of said radars recently. The theory does make some sense (low observable aircraft are optimised against X band fire control/engagement radars, in theory the radar cross section and detection range should be higher when lower frequency radars are used), which is why Russia, China and Iran built a lot of these large arrays, they're rather cheap and easy to build, so they might as well have tried it. China will probably move (and already has most likely) to more advanced methods. These are all PDFs translated from Hungarian to English:
F-117 vs S-125
S-300VM
Buk, SA-11 and SA-17
S-125
The F-117 was also essentially a "reusable manned stealth cruise missile". It had no radar, no radar warning receiver, no missile approach warning system/sensors (MAWS), no electronic countermeasures, no datalink with other aircraft, and could only pull 5G turns at subsonic speeds. It went in on missions on pre planned routes, relied on other aircraft to provide support, dropped two 1000 or 2000lb bombs on target, and exited enemy airspace. A very useful tool in the era it was built, but outdated against double digit SA systems. I'm sure you can already spot one major vulnerability (pre planned flight paths). The F-35, with all of it's advanced sensors like the DAS, EOTS, barracuda self protection system, AESA radar, is something entirely different.