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.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
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.
Some more self-important ravings from US-imperial chihuahua Estonia:
Politico: Estonia’s city at the ‘end of the free world’ stares across a frozen border at Russia
Selected excerpts
NARVA, Estonia — This snow-covered border bridge between two medieval fortresses in a Russian-speaking corner of Estonia might be where World War III starts.
“We are not intending to start a third world war, but we see the constant attempts to provoke us to do something which would have a higher impact,” said Egert Belitšev, the director general of Estonia’s Police and Border Guard Board, on a snowy December afternoon in Narva.
Few countries lust for WWIII more than Estonia.
About a quarter of Estonia’s population of 1.4 million is ethnic Russian. Most hold Estonian citizenship and a majority feel close ties to Estonia, but the Kremlin is a past master of exploiting ethnic differences to claim a special role in protecting the Russian diaspora. It’s done that in Georgia and Moldova and that was the pretext for its invasion of Ukraine.
A couple thousand murdered ethnic Russians in Ukraine might have something to say about that “pretext” if they weren’t murdered.
The worry is that the Kremlin could play the same card and try to seize eastern Estonia, with its large population of ethnic Russians, and then dare NATO to launch a global war in response. A failure to react would show that NATO’s Article 5 common defense provision is meaningless.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin even suggested in 2022, not long after Moscow launched its all-out war on Ukraine, that Narva is historically part of Russia.
ALL PUT WAR! ALL OUT WAR! PUTLER ALL OUT WAR!!!Narva, the third-largest city in Estonia, is closer to St. Petersburg than it is to Tallinn. Of its roughly 56,000 inhabitants, 96 percent speak Russian and a third hold a Russian passport
Took a while to bring up this extremely important figure, huh.
Describing the city as "the end of the free world,” Belitšev, an ethnic-Estonian security official, doesn’t think Estonia’s NATO allies are prepared for what might happen here.
There are some 900 British soldiers deployed in the country as part of a multinational NATO force at the Tapa air base west of Tallinn; France also has troops there. The British government has pledged to have its 4th Brigade Combat Team on stand-by for rapid deployment. NATO has created battlegroups in most eastern member countries, and plans to expand those groups in Latvia and Lithuania. It hasn’t made that commitment in Estonia due to a shortfall in the British Army, which has only two armored brigades available.
lol this irrelevant imperial pet would be steamrolled within hours if any world war were to actually break out
Lmao chuds are furious at El*n musk. He said country needs white collar immigrants and the chuds are fuming “NOOOOO! MUH ETHNOSTATE! YOU TRAITOOOOOR!!!”
Today’s combat footage and news from the Donbass.
An overview of recent Russian advances in the DPR, plus combat footage (some 18+): https://southfront.press/military-overview-on-december-25-2024-russian-forces-occupied-100-sq-km-in-ukraine-in-the-last-48-hours/
Russian forces have now liberated all the residential areas of the DPR city of Kurakhovo (only the industrial outskirts on the western side remain to be cleared): https://news-pravda.com/ukraine/2024/12/25/940941.html
Russian drones finished off an abandoned Kiev regime tank: https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/moddrone:4
Syrian forces suffer 14 fatalities in countryside clashes
Transitional administration said 10 police members also wounded by ‘remnants’ of Assad regime in Tartous Reuters Wed 25 Dec 2024 23.35 GMT
Fourteen members of the Syrian police were killed in an “ambush” by forces loyal to the ousted government in the Tartous countryside, the transitional administration said early on Thursday, as demonstrations and an overnight curfew elsewhere marked the most widespread unrest since Bashar al-Assad’s removal more than two weeks ago.
Syria’s new interior minister said on Telegram that 10 police members were also wounded by what he called “remnants” of the Assad government in Tartous, vowing to crack down on “anyone who dares to undermine Syria’s security or endanger the lives of its citizens”.
Earlier, Syrian police imposed an overnight curfew in the city of Homs, state media reported, after unrest there linked to demonstrations that residents said were led by members of the minority Alawite and Shi’ite Muslim religious communities.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the demands of the demonstrators nor the degree of disturbance that took place.
Some residents said the demonstrations were linked to pressure and violence in recent days aimed at members of the Alawite minority, a sect long seen as loyal to Assad, who was toppled by Sunni Islamist rebels on 8 December.
Spokespersons for Syria’s new ruling administration led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaida affiliate, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the curfew.
State media said the curfew was being imposed for one night, from 6pm local time (1500 GMT) until 8am on Thursday morning.
The country’s new leaders have repeatedly vowed to protect minority religious groups, who fear the former rebels now in control could seek to impose a conservative form of Islamist government.
Small demonstrations also took place in other areas on or near Syria’s coast, where most of the country’s Alawite minority live, including in Tartous.
The demonstrations took place about the time an undated video was circulated on social networks showing a fire inside an Alawite shrine in the city of Aleppo, with armed men walking about inside and posing near human bodies.
The interior ministry said on its official Telegram account the video dated back to the rebel offensive on Aleppo in late November and the violence was carried out by unknown groups, adding whoever was circulating the video now appeared to be seeking to incite sectarian strife.
The ministry also said some members of the former regime had attacked interior ministry forces in Syria’s coastal area on Wednesday, leaving a number of dead and wounded.
Buh buh buh I was told that after epic wholesome
Al QaedaHTS took over it was gonna be all sunshine and rainbows forever and people would be singing kumbaya in the streets until the end of time! CNN told me so!
Denmark boosts Greenland defence after Trump repeats desire for US control
The Danish government has announced a huge boost in defence spending for Greenland, hours after US President-elect Donald Trump repeated his desire to purchase the Arctic territory.
Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the package was a “double digit billion amount” in krone, or at least $1.5bn (£1.2bn).
He described the timing of the announcement as an “irony of fate”. On Monday Trump said ownership and control of the huge island was an “absolute necessity” for the US.
I don’t know if they already planned to do this beforehand and just leaned into Trump’s remarks, but in any case Trump just gave Denmark the excuse to do more austerity by spending more money into military.
The end result is still the same though: more public assets get privatized and eventually sold to foreign capital.
All of the crazy pre inauguration Trump stuff is just wrestling kayfabe.
Wake up babe new MH17 with KAL007 characteristics just dropped
(CW: Torygraph) Azerbaijan Airlines crash sparks speculation plane ‘accidentally shot down by Russia’
An Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash on Christmas Day has prompted speculation the plane was shot down by Russia after it took a detour of hundreds of miles in the wrong direction and crash-landed with holes in the fuselage.
The incident, which killed at least 38 people and injured a further 29, took place after a significant detour, which could have been caused by GPS jamming.
It was flying from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya in the north Caucasus.
Vladimir Putin’s forces have militarised the area the plane was flying over, on a detour that had not been planned by the airline.
Henceforth will be referring to all US military elements as “Joseph Biden’s forces”
Buried this tidbit quite a ways under the headline:
The plane was attempting to land at a Russian airport in Grozny, which at the time of landing was under attack by Ukrainian drones.
Rybar, an influential Telegram channel with 1.3 million subscribers, also confirmed Baza’s description, saying the damage to the fuselage resembles “striking elements of an anti-aircraft missile”.
He continued: “The plane itself was heading to Grozny - at that time, a raid by launched Ukrainian UAVs was actually being repelled over the region. Several drones were shot down over Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia and neighboring Ingushetia.”
GPS jamming being the culprit would be bizarre, considering GPS jamming is to be expected on such routes and would be immediately detected. In any case it should be a non-event for any commercial airliner as they would simply switch the nav system to INS-only.
If any GPS shenanigans are involved, spoofing would seem much more likely. The navigation system operates with inertial navigational information updated with radio beacons and GPS information. This is the only conceivable scenario where a gross navigational error would’ve gone undetected by the crew.
It’s not the 80s anymore. Cockpits have graphical displays of aircraft position, and a sudden jump across the world should immediately result in disregarding any GPS information.
A key difference from KAL007 is that this flight was well within radar range and this ATC would’ve had independent position information. How could they possibly not have noticed this “unplanned detour in the wrong direction”? We live in an age where any deviation from the planned route should sound an automated alarm. Not to mention, if you are hundreds of miles off course, you likely wouldn’t even be able to contact the appropriate controller on the VHF frequency. Being that far off course without realizing it is almost completely inconceivable anywhere other than over the Pacific Ocean, and even that would require deliberate and targeted GPS spoofing. I fly transpacific routes all the time - the position is regularly checked. The circumstances that allowed KAL007 to happen, the official version anyway, simply no longer exist.
Do airliners like this have inertial navigation systems? Seems expensive compared to GNS or terrestrial radio navigation.
Every airliner has had INS since the 70s. Up until the late 1990s it was the only system used to cross an ocean. The cost is negligible when compared to the acquisition and operating costs of the plane itself. It used to be that the position information would be updated with other data such as from radio beacons to prevent drift accumulation, and these days the nav system integrates INS, VOR, DME and GPS information to provide a fix. Any component of this system can be switched off at any time. You can still do a traditional “INS only” flight if you wanted.
GPS can fail, or be jammed or spoofed. Relying solely on radio navigation for the entire flight hasn’t been a thing in about 50 years and would reintroduce human error factors not seen for decades.
Not to mention, radio beacons may be down, and there may be areas that simply don’t have them - such as over the ocean. If you are in this situation and you lose your GPS without an INS backup, you are SOL.
Whole hosts of routes and airports become completely inaccessible without RNAV (aRea NAVigation; don’t ask) technology, of which the only systems still meaningfully extant in civilian aviation are GPS and INS, and maybe VOR/VOR/DME.
Air Canada, I believe, still had most of their airliners flying around without GPS until circa 2020.
In fact, for the vast majority, if not all airliners, passenger flights are not permitted with the INS inoperative.
Looking at the currently available evidence, I’d say that it’s highly likely that Russian forces, either air defences, or fighter patrols or escorts, mistakenly shot down Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243. GPS jamming is not the cause of this. There are entry and exit holes in the fuselage even visible from inside of the aircraft, part of the left wing was missing, and the vertical stabiliser was shredded like a piece of Swiss cheese. It was likely hit by a missile (not an oxygen canister or internal bomb, those are very unlikely to end up inside the vertical stabiliser), and only Russia has the capabilities in that location. They were either aiming at a Ukrainian drone close to the civilian airliner and the missile unintentionally tracked the civilian airliner or exploded in close proximity to it, or there was a case of mistaken identity and the civilian airliner was shot at directly. The detour could just be the pilots trying to regain control after the aircraft was hit, with damaged control surfaces and relying on the engine power to keep the aircraft stable and controllable.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight was operating near the Caspian Sea, and Russian bombers often perform cruise missile launch maneuveres over the Caspian Sea, and will be accompanied by fighter escorts and patrols. A Russian cruise missile attack on Ukraine took place shortly beforehand.
Then there’s the fact that Grozny was under attack by Ukrainian UAVs at the time, including remotely piloted Cessna aircraft filled with explosives, potentially giving out civilian IFF codes, and Russian air defences were active.
This incident, combined with the US Navy shooting down their own F/A-18F aircraft, and narrowly missing another, with the use of SM-2 surface to air missiles equipped with a terminal infrared (IR) heat seeker according to sources in the US Navy that gave information to US news outlets, should show that IFF is not some magic forcefield that prevents the shoot down of friendly or civilian aircraft, and that missiles can easily track unintended targets with improper fire control. I would do a write up on how the different types of missiles work and their guidance with regards to that, but that would take a lot of time, so I’ll just link this write-up on the subject here. It’s a good summary regardless of the source.
The IFF is just a transponder, that when turned on and used properly according to established protocol, allows you to designate a tracked target on the computer (or shared across the network, usually by AWACS or Ground Control Interception) as friendly or hostile (or neutral).
The missile itself cannot tell which target is which, and user error does happen in a chaotic situation when there are hundreds of air assets that they have to keep track of.
This is also why there have been debates about the proper air-to-air rules of engagement (ROE) where it has been argued beyond visual range (BVR) combat should not be encouraged and pilots have to visually identify their targets at a much closer range before releasing their weapons. Often times, you need to clear with the AWACS for BVR weapon launch (that’s for NATO air force though, I don’t know about the Russian protocol).
Reminder that Iran shot down its own civilian airliner in January 2020 during that heightened period that followed Trump’s assassination of Soleimani, and for a brief moment, some Iranian Twitter claimed they shot down an American F-35 fighter before deleting the tweet.
The telegraph article and some commentators are claiming, without any source, that the aircraft deviated from its planned route “hundreds of miles”. I still cannot figure out what they actually mean by this, considering that said attack was at their intended destination. Anyway, as I have said before, accidentally flying off-course over land is just not something that happens anymore.
Because of GPS jamming near the Caspian Sea the ADSB data is junk and so we have no information whatsoever as to the actual flight path of the plane until after it was stricken.
I would say that the deviation could be explained be the pilots trying to regain some control over the aircraft after being hit, or simply turning away from their intended destination of Grozny after being fired upon. I don’t know if it would be possible for the pilots to make any kind of controlled turn given their situation (damaged/inoperable control surfaces and relying on the engines to control the aircraft) without losing a significant amount of altitude, potentially over the Caspian Sea. So they could just be focusing on keeping it straight and level for as long as possible, until they were over land again or lost too much altitude to continue flying and were forced into a crash landing. Either way the pilots are heroes for managing to crash land in such a way that some people could survive. Landing this and coming out with the end result of 20+ survivors is incredible.
The telegraph describes the deviation as being hundreds of miles off course, which would involve flying off course long before there would be any indication of anything going wrong, which is why I find the claim suspect.
If they actually meant after being hit, then the author did not do a good job of clarifying that.
There is a new genre of crank who thinks every medium sized explosion is caused by small tactical nukes:
https://xcancel.com/Ben68638515/status/1871046543958331531The dude really thinks the Nordstream pipeline was sabotaged by nukes and even has an entire page on his personal site dedicated to this:
https://www.geophysical-forensics.ch/nordstream.htmlYou can’t keep saying everything is a small-yield nuke.
Points at seagull: “Small-yield nuke!”
Nordstream? Small yield nuke. 9/11? Small yield nukes in the basements. The burning of the Great Library? Believe it or not, small yield nuke
The sun is a small yield nuke
Not new unfortunately, the topics of nuclear weapons and depleted uranium have been bringing out the cranks for ages.
Let me know if I’m posting too much:
1 Syrian protests were apparently based on old news about the shrine burning. Nevertheless,
2 government forces are reportedly mobilizing to suppress (kill and maim) the protestors
There is no such thing as posting too much, keep posting. Christmas is now over for me and I haven’t been on here, or any social media, during the holiday, so the more information the better.
Per the cradle, the Syrian ministry of interior announced 24 regime casualties with 14 dead after an ambush near tartous, presumably by SAA remnants
Brazilian liberal, pro-Lula da Silva mayor upsets the Zionist community in Brazil with a Christmas message.
In a Christmas message, Alexandre Kalil, former mayor of Belo Horizonte, published: “Just a reminder that Jesus was Palestinian, a refugee, poor, persecuted, tortured and murdered for preaching equality, social justice and love”.
Alexandre served as president of Clube Atlético Mineiro, a football club based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil that competes in Campeonato Brasileiro, the top tier of the Brazilian football league system, as well as in the Campeonato Mineiro. Alexandre is of Syrian descent, he is the only son of former club president Elias Kalil. Alexandre Kalil’s career in Atletico started in the early 1980s, managing its volleyball team. He was also the football director and the president of the deliberation council.
Post from a Syrian Christian telegram regarding backlash to the mass protests
“🇸🇾 - “Homs for Sunnis, Alawites out!”
Sectarian protests begin in Homs. This is a prelude for something much uglier. Al Sharaa also personally called for the targeting of Alawite villages several times in recorded speeches, yet we’re supposed to be silent in the face of “isolated incidents”.
After the Alawites, they’re going to go after us.”
Very reassuring to hear that the ethnostate represents people from all backgrounds and faiths.
What am I supposed to be seeing here? Is this the summit of Mount Hermon? Did they fuck it up?
Yeah they fucked up the cross about a week ago, and repaired it just now
https://t.me/syrianchristian/242
reasoning
🇸🇾 🇮🇱 - Israeli soldiers destroyed a decades old cross at the summit of Mount Hermon in Syria. This was a known pilgrimage site for Christians including from Lebanon.
The soldiers’ explanation on why they did so:
“In the briefing, we are told that the point to which the climbers and the people are going to work and place things is at the top of the peak (it is literally a kilometer north of the highest UN post on the mountain) which they decided to call - listen carefully - “The Jesus” and why - because there is a cross there that was built there a long time ago and it marks the summit, the place there to this day is called - “The Cross”
We really didn’t like it and were worried that from now on, no one would have a reason to see a cross there and call this place that…”
While emphasizing the evil of other actors, we cannot deny the aggression and blasphemy that Israelis have committed out of hatred for Christ and the Cross, in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, south Lebanon, and now Syria.
If they were concerned about it being misused as a military post, they would have moved it instead of destroying it
Westoids love saying that Muslims are so sectarian yet they allowed a Christian monument to stand for decades and the IOF destroyed it immediately.
Most “progressive” country in the Middle East everyone, more bigoted than middle eastern “dictators”
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-341-on-thinking-in-medias
There is some small leftie infighting over tooze liberalism (re: mr anderson).
I’m linking the piece cause aside from that it’s interestingYemen deserves to be the leader of the Resistance. They are not corrupt and consequently their nation is more united than any other country in the Resistance. They also do not suffer from ‘self-overthrowing policies’ syndrome that Iran suffers from. I hope Hezbullah recovers from the damages that it received for supporting Palestine. And I hope my country, Iran, do fix itself before its too late. So many talented smart people leave this country because of what Zionists call “our assets in Iran”, that is extremists, especially the ones acting like one to get seats and ruin this country.
Merry Christmas. Wish you a happy year.
They deserve it but unfortunately they don’t have the economic base of power to be able to spread revolution in any way.
Just like how DPRK and Cuba “deserve” to be the global leaders of socialism but we are stuck with bigger, less principled countries like China in that role instead
I dread for the future and pray that the war in the region doesn’t escalate any further in the new year. Stay safe, comrade.
I do have a quick question though: do you think the Iranian people, in general, are willing to endure an even worse sanction to oppose the empire long-term (I mean, full North Korean style) or do they yearn for sanctions to be relieved even if it means making more compromises?
No one can tell for sure, I believe US did what it could under the Maximum Pressure campaign, that is what it could without raising moral questions among Western societies. Now the bar is muuuuuuch lower and West knows the limits weren’t real.
I worry that Iran is being hollowed out and weakened from within. By the time Iran realizes it needs to stand up and fight Israel, it will collapse. You can’t bargain with the West. Every deal is but another means to weaken the opposition just that much more.
