One year on. Hundreds of thousands are dying or dead, millions are displaced, the Middle East is undergoing its greatest changes in a generation, Iran has directly attacked Israel twice in one year, and Yemen has proven that the US Navy ain't worth shit. We are the closest we have been to nuclear war (discounting accidents) in decades, but also the fall of Israel.
Because one day, the prisoners of a concentration camp paraglided over a wall.
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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.
This makes sense on multiple levels, both from an ideological level and also from a pragmatic standpoint.
This end of detente visibly began with the demolition of that Unification Arch a while back and pausing the reconciliation initiatives like the "unified Korea" Olympic teams since the 2010s. This recent turn away from the goal of "unification" is a rather important ideological step for the DPRK because that aspiration, while noble, had always risked putting the cart before the horse, as the history of 20th century socialism showed.
In the DDR, the desperation for "unification" highlighted by the reception to BRD Ostpolitik prevented the development of an independent national identity. This meant that when capitalist restoration succeeded, the DDR was unilaterally annexed into the BRD by Kohl, who infamously managed to warp the "We are the People" protests into a "We are One People" color revolution. Any semblance of bargaining power for these "one people" of the DDR disappeared with the state. There was then the disgusting phenomenon of BRD landlords swarming into the former DDR to reclaim their "old" property and land, a kind of "Nakba" narrative except the fascists were the ones holding onto the keys. The DDR is a cautionary tale that unification cannot be done at any cost. In truth, it would be better for the Korean peninsula to be permanently fractured for the foreseeable future if the only alternative for the DPRK is a DDR-style "unification." As such, it wouldn't hurt to ideologically de-emphasize the concept of "unification" within Korean society, which ending this detente will contribute towards.
From a pragmatic level, there is actually little benefit for the DPRK to maintaining relations with the current regime in South Korea. Its present leadership has completely embraced South Korea's vassal status not just to the US but also doubly to Japan, surrendering unilaterally on longstanding issues like comfort women and just this week inviting Japanese troops to be stationed on Korean soil without requiring its legislature's permission. This disregard for South Korea's dignity is plainly to forcibly bind South Korean foreign policy to the US-Japanese military bloc in the New Cold War. Remarkably, this is happening under a Korean Milei who won the 2022 election by a mere 0.73% - who has eliminated any South Korean foreign policy autonomy through the stirring electoral mandate of a 247K vote margin of 32.5M.
Given this context, the DPRK faces minimal downsides in reducing relations. This opens the door for future engagement if a more reconciliation-focused leader, similar to Moon Jae-In, comes to power. In such a scenario, the DPRK could easily propose reconnecting severed ties, including these literal severed roads, which would generate positive headlines in South Korea for that counterpart's approval ratings without making significant concessions.