Image is from Futurama.
Happy holidays, fellow godless communists. We are in year three of the Five-Year Plan to eliminate all Christmas cheer and create a world free of the joys and festivity of Christmas. Nobody should have to be reminded that in our concrete brutalist communist strongholds, NO ornaments are allowed in December. Please report any Christmas trees, snowflakes, baubles, and presents to the evil secret police, and anybody caught violating their Volcel Pledge by having a tentative kiss under a mistletoe will be shot on sight.
Developments lately have been grim. Our Supreme Communist Dictator Brandon is being removed from office by Christmas-loving patriots, and soon, Christmas will adorn the White House for another four years. This is obviously very disappointing, but while Christmas joy is strictly prohibited, good vibes are still strongly encouraged. Revolutionary optimism (a term we only bring out when things are going very badly and we need to be delusional) shall triumph over defeatist rhetoric by stooges of the Christmas regime.
We must have hope. Our foreign allies aiding us in destroying Christmas now possess hypersonic weaponry, allowing us to compete with and overcome the engine technology powering Santa’s sleigh. Abroad, they have destroyed factories and hit cities with missiles travelling at unimaginable speeds into precise targets, while the Christmas regime struggles to produce their own such missiles, as they are still reliant on aircraft bombing campaigns. Precision has a quality all its own, or something along those lines. We just have to hold out another two years or so, and I swear to you: we will live in a world without this accursed holiday.
No current struggle session discussion here in the news megathread please, you will be banned from the comm and your comment will be removed.
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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.
In some huge news we \have footage of what probably is the maiden flight of China’s 6th Generation manned fighter/bomber aircraft, and the first one of its kind that has been caught on camera (unclear if the US has even flown a working prototype of their current design, whatever that might be after a dozen requirement revisions). Flown on the birthday of the great helmsman, Mao Zedong no less. (links at the end)
One of the most (only) credible PLA watchers in western circles is posting about it (RickJoe_PLA on twitter, PLARealTalk on reddit) so its most likely legit. The obvious implication here is that China has overtaken the US in terms of next-gen airframe development. This publically flew before NGAD or F/A-XX (US) the status of which is very unclear, and you can argue that this is proof that China now holds the lead in next-gen R&D. For reference F-35, F-22 (US) , Su-57 (Russia), J-20 and J-35(China) are the only 5th Gen platforms around. Based on past timetables an optimistic guess is that this might enter service in 2029-31
Copying some of the stuff posted around. It is seen flown alongside a J-20S as a chaseplane. Not an expert but ppl seem to notice it to be 3 engined, quite big and thin relative to size. J-20 is already decently voluminous as fighters go , but the “J-XD” alongside looks like it’s a whole other level. Even with three engines, this thing will have a lot of internal volume to play around with, whatever its role might be.
https://x.com/RickJoe_PLA/status/1872197785040359930
https://x.com/Rational314159/status/1872198848455815332
https://x.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1872210704914366565
https://x.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1872207504807272541
https://x.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1872202725439778856
EDIT: Unconfirmed as of right now, but it seems like Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (They developed the j-35, Chengdu AC developed the j-20 and the 6th Gen this post is about. Both practicaly different divisions under state owned umbrella company AVIC) might have also flown something similar this week. Likely a second distinct 6th Gen platform on a similar stage of development!!
I’m thinking it will be a something like a “heavy tactical bomber”, which is to say, halfway between a fighter-bomber and a strategic bomber.
Maybe it could carry hypersonic missiles internally, kinda like a stealth MiG-31K.
It seems like it will be focused mainly on high altitude long range flight and over the horizon targeting of air/land/sea assets while also retaining an A2A profile. After all the (probably) 4-engine H-20 strategic bomber from Xi’an AC is probably at a later stage of development so this shouldnt step too much into that role
Beyond high altitude operations the three engines on this likely are there for internal electronic and systems energy demands . DEW , Much more powerful radar, large computation power, leading UCAVs on long range & endurance missions without tanker support. Range/patrol time are huge for a Westpac conflict. This can be a B-21 neutralizer for example. Satellite tells you when B-21s take off from Alaska or wherever. High Power+long endurance+UCAVs allow you to detect it & then establish weapon grade targeting from far out for whatever last gen missiles you carry on board.
Sounds an awful lot like a MiG-31 ;)
Who knows, maybe it could fill both roles.
Who would have guessed that tight state control over weapons development would mean that you can field the designs much faster than if you let private companies lead you by the nose