A week ago, the Bolivian left-wing party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), currently led by Luis Arce, decisively lost the round of elections against the right-wing. This comes after a prolonged period of "infighting" between Arce, and Morales, who previously led the MAS prior to the 2019 coup which briefly installed Jeanine Anez.
I put infighting in quotes because despite the nominal similarities between Arce and Morales, it is clear that this is not merely a counterproductive battle between two men - instead, the Bolivian left has arrived at a time of unavoidable conflict between two competing strategies. The electoral strategy is represented by Arce, who has aligned himself with a more middle-class-oriented campaign that is more economically liberal, whereas Morales represents a more working-class-oriented campaign that seeks to go further than tepid reform.
Such a conflict between electoralism and revolutionary action is inevitable in any and every developing country that 1) possesses a functioning left-wing party or organization, and 2) is under internal and/or external pressure by capitalists. This crisis must be resolved eventually - and this electoral failure is how such a crisis is manifesting right now. So while the Bolivian left has indeed lost the election, it is not yet defeated. The revolutionary campaign can, if it is willing, still ultimately stand triumphant. But what must be done is a real movement towards socialism, which goes beyond technocrats reforming from above, and instead transforms the state into a full political project of the working class, in which their movements, organizations, and protests are genuinely empowered. Such a project will involve repression by the forces of reaction, not least by the United States, but it is the only road left to take.
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Israel'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.
Ukraine long range strike capabilities, Part 2.
~~This one will be short and sweet, because there's not much to talk about.~~ The above was wrong. The topic is Ukraine's "Long Neptune" cruise missile.
What is it? Long Neptune is an enlarged version of Ukraine's Neptune anti ship cruise missile that can also hit ground targets deep inland. The original Neptune is a Ukrainian made version of the Kh-35 Bal/SSC-6 Sennight Soviet and Russian made cruise missile. The specifications for the Kh-35 in ground or ship/helicopter launch configuration are well known, 4.4m length, 0.42m body diameter, 1.33m wingspan, 145kg warhead and a 610kg Max Takeoff Weight, with a 300km maximum range. Guidance is INS, with terminal active radar guidance for hitting ships. It can cruise at an altitude of between 10-15m over the sea, at a maximum speed of between 980kph and 1040kph. 90kg and 0.55m of that consists of the solid fuel rocket booster at the rear of the missile that initially launches it up into the air from the missile battery on the ground, and detaches afterwards.
What Long Neptune does is it significantly widens the diameter of the missile and lengthens it, to accommodate more fuel and extended the range by over 300%, to 1000km. The cruciform wings and control surfaces are also proportionally enlarged, which does provide more lift, but also more drag. It's interesting that there is no change to a planar wing, like with the Kh-55 that uses the same engine. In this respect the Long Neptune is essentially an enlarged Kh-35, similar to variants of North Korea's Kumsong-3/Kn-19. The missile is the exact same, just bigger.
The real difference between Long Neptune and the original Neptune/Kh-35 is the seeker, and how good this new seeker is will determine how effective the Long Neptune is at striking ground targets. The INS and active radar seeker has been ditched, likely for a GNSS(Satellite navigation) + INS solution, potentially with DSMAC or TERCOM navigation to allow the Long Neptune to fly close to ground over variable terrain like it does at sea, and navigate independent of GNSS should jamming occur. While Long Neptune is significantly smaller than the FP-5 Flamingo and significantly harder to detect, it's still far from a true stealth or low observable design, and will rely primarily on flying low to the ground to remain undetected and survivable. So just how effective it is all depends on the performance of this new seeker, both in accuracy and survivability. Remember, the maximum range of an S-300P air defence system against nap of the earth/very low flying cruise missiles is 25km, and the original S-300P systems were designed with such a cruise missile in mind as the primary target over 40 years ago. S-400 systems, if equipped with newer missiles, have a longer range against such targets, but are still limited by the radar horizon/curvature of the earth without third party tracking from an aerial sensor such as an A-50 AWACS or Su-35 datalinked to the S-400.
S-300PMU-2 engagement zone:
S-400 engagement zones:
1000km range will allow it to strike targets deeper into Russia and to be launched from deeper within Ukraine to avoid Russian left of launch defeat, via Iskander M ballistic missile strikes, the first of which occurred today. The 145kg warhead impacting at high subsonic speeds can do considerably more damage than a one way attack drone impacting six times slower, and with half of the payload. But not as much as two FAB-500s from an FP-5 Flamingo. Production capacity will rely on all newly built components, so there won't be a surge in production from ready made off of the shelf components. The Neptune/Kh-35 type threat is well understood by Russia now, this was the missile that sank the Moskva at the start of the war after all. They just have to defend against it at significantly further range and over land now, something the Soviets did in the 1980s against Tomahawk/Gryphon and AGM-86.