Image is of a destroyed American AWACS plane in Saudi Arabia, of which there is a very limited supply and each of which is enormously expensive both monetarily and in terms of components. Iran hit this with a precision drone strike that likely cost ~$20,000.
I don't have much to add from the last megathread description. This isn't to say that nothing has happened or has changed since then - decades are still happening in weeks - but the general flow of the war is remaining the same. Trump sometimes threatens to open the Strait with troops and flatten Iran to rubble, and other times threatens that he's gonna back off and let other countries handle it if they really want little trifles like "fuel" and "energy" so much. Iran continues to strike across the Middle East. The West continues to bomb civilian infrastructure due to their relative inability to affect the missile cities. In all: things are generally getting worse for America and the Zionists.
April is the month where the last ships that left Hormuz before it was closed will arrive around the world, so the last month of economic turmoil has been a mere prelude to what's going to occur in the near-future. The silver lining is that Iran appears to be formalizing the new state of affairs in Hormuz, creating a rial-based toll to allow passage between a pair of Iranian-controlled islands where they can be monitored, meaning that, as long as the US doesn't do something exceptionally stupid, the global energy crisis may "only" last a couple years instead of simply being the new reality from now on. Some countries have already agreed to this arrangement, and others will inevitably follow despite their consternation as their economies increasingly suffer.
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.
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 the Zionists' 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
One manned aircraft? They shot down two just two days ago, an A10 and an F15. They shot down an F35 earlier. They have shot down multiple F16s and F15s. I respect your comments but sometimes you say some completely incorrect shit with total confidence.
?
F-35 managed to make it back to base, damaged, not shot down. Will it fly again? Most likely not, it'll probably be scrapped. Effectively out of the fight. But it managed to make it back and land, which is an important distinction in aviation. (Heard of the saying "any landing you can walk away from is a good one". People joke about it, but there's a substantial amount of truth in it). Video from Iranian news agencies showed the airframe mostly intact after impact ,no missing wings, stabilisers or elevators.
No evidence of "multiple F-15 and F-16 shoot downs". Look at all the evidence we got for this one shoot down of an F-15E. We would've got similar, and yet none has been produced. All we have is video from Iran of these aircraft releasing flares while being targeted. No impacts or hits.
An F-18 had a close call with Iranian MANPADS while doing a gun strafe. Video from Iran showed that the warhead did not make a direct impact, rather exploded behind the exhausts of the F-18. The warheads on these are very small to make them man portable, a couple pounds at most.
The A-10 was shot down yes, most likely as part of the Rescue Combat Air Patrol (RESCAP) for the F-15E that was shot down. It managed to make it out of Iran before the pilot ejected. Yeah, that would be the second shot down aircraft. Most likely as a result of trying to rescue the shot down F-15E airmen (pilot and weapons systems officer). You'd be correct there, Iran did shoot down a second manned aircraft, I was focusing on the F-15E in the original post.
Very ironic, you're the one saying completely incorrect things with massive confidence. I'd recommend not believing everything you see online from the accounts who, before this war, couldn't tell the difference between an F-15 and F-35, or couldn't tell the difference between an Iranian 3rd Khordad and Khordad 15 SAM system, or Emad and Fattah-1 ballistic missile. This may include official sources on both sides. For instance, Sky News has been the usual rubbish. CENTCOM Twitter is calling air defence systems ballistic missile launchers. And Iranian offical sources like Fars are struggling with identification, misidentifying shot down drones, cruise missiles, aircraft targeted or shot down, etc. Beyond any propaganda or narrative shaping reasons, there's simply a lack of knowledge in this field. To most people, including journalists, a plane is a plane, a drone is a drone, a missile is a missile, an air defence system is an air defence system. They don't know the differences and intricacies between different systems.