Image is of the Power of Siberia natural gas pipeline, which transports gas from Russia to China. This isn’t an oil pipeline (such as the ESPO) but I thought it looked cool. Source here.
Trump has recently proposed a 500% tariff on goods from countries that trade with Russia, including India and China (who buy ~70% of Russia’s oil output), as well as a 10% additional tariff on goods from countries that “align themselves with BRICS.” Considering that China is the largest trading partner of most of the countries on the planet at this point, and India and Brazil are reasonably strong regional players, I’m not sure what exactly “alignment” means, but it could be pretty bad.
Sanctions and tariffs on Russian products have been difficult to achieve in practice. It’s easy to write an order to sanction Russia, but much harder to actually enforce these sorts of things because of, for example, the Russian shadow oil fleet, or countries like Kazakhstan acting as covert middlemen (well, as covert as a very sudden oil export boom can be).
Considering that China was pretty soundly victorious last time around, I’m cautiously optimistic, especially because China and India just outright cutting off their supply of energy and fuel would be catastrophic to them (and if Iran and Israel go to war again any time in the near future, it’ll only be more disastrous). Barring China and India kowtowing to Trump and copying Europe vis-a-vis Nordstream 2 (which isn’t impossible, I suppose), the question is whether China and India will appear to accede to these commands while secretly continuing trade with Russia through middlemen, or if they will be more defiant in the face of American pressure.
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-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.
To be honest, I don’t think anyone here has in depth info on Iraqi Kurdistan. I do however have new advancements in machine gun loading ft. a red hot barrel.
https://t.me/nayaforiraq/34354
Caption reads “Fierce fighting continues between armed Kurdish tribes and Peshmerga forces in Khabat district, Erbil Governorate.”
Here’s an alleged summary
“A short explanation of what is happening in Erbil, Iraq:
The Kurdish Peshmerga forces’ attempt to capture a leader of the Harki tribe, Khurshid Harki, has escalated into a large-scale armed conflict between the Peshmerga forces, the Harki tribe, and allied tribes, with both sides continuing to mobilize their forces in the Khabat area of Erbil province in northern Iraq, where the fighting is currently concentrated.
[Since then,] Khurshid Harki announced that he would not surrender to the Peshmerga forces.
Other Kurdish tribes have joined on the side of the Harki clan against the Barzani-led Pashmerga government.“
https://t.me/RezistanceTrench/44638
“Many are asking which group to support in the conflict in northern Iraq. The answer is that the Barzani family is a strategic ally of Israel, and much of the equipment that Israel smuggles to Iran passes through Iraqi Kurdistan.
The current conflict appears to be more like a Kurdish civil war for power, and the Haraki clan fighting that is Barzani’s forces has no connection to Iran or the Resistance Front.”
Cw: antisemitism. If you ignore the part calling Barzani a “crypto Jew,” this is a pretty solid spread of historical connections between former leader of Kurdistan Mustafa Barzani and Israeli intelligence
https://t.me/RezistanceTrench/9136
More reading:
https://saradistribution.com/barzanisisraelresa.htm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–Kurdistan_Region_relations
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2017/10/7/why-is-israel-supporting-kurdish-secession-from-iraq
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/images-show-iraqi-kurdish-diplomat-at-reception-held-by-israeli-envoy-to-germany/
The crypto jew thing is pure anti-semitism, but the town of Barzan where the Barzani clan originates is a genuinely interesting place to study. Other villages and towns in the now Iraqi Kurdistan region were always domianted by one tribe or one religious group. You had Christian towns, Sunni Kurdish towns, Shia towns and so on. But Barzan is unique in the region, because it became some kind of refuge for all kinds of tribeless Kurds, Jews, Christians and other outcast groups. The Barzani clan itself isn’t a tribe or a clan in a traditional sense, but more of a Barzani “nation” that indicates allegiance to the pre-modern concept of the town itself. A Jew in a normal Kurdish town like Akre would be considered a foreigner or a stranger, but in Barzan they would be treated as a “first class” citizen. There’s a very interesting Jewish history that is connected with Barzan, that stretches all the way back to the Assyrian Exile chapter of Judaism.
There’s an interesting book that I read about Mulla Mustafa Barzani and his relations with Israel many years ago when I was a teen. One thing that I remember that still sticks out in my mind is that he sought the help of Israel in the first place because he genuinely thought that Jews controlled America, so in his mind he thought that being friendly with Israel meant that America would help him. The relationship then soured because Israelis kept dragging him into massive issues with the Iraqi state, while he just wanted some concessions. The Israelis for example helped him plan an ambush against Iraqi troops. He wanted to kill a few soliders and take some hostages, but the Israelis embellished later the scale of the ambush and claimed that they helped kill 2000! soliders, which would be a suicidal move for Barzani and drag him into a massive problem. When he was later in hospital in the US, they didn’t even help him with the hospital bills when he asked them.
Ah, the imperial Japan approach to antisemitism “these guys seem pretty powerful, we should be their friends”