Image is of protestors in Nigeria in 2024.
As I’m sure everybody is aware by now, Trump’s accusation that Nigerian armed groups are unfairly persecuting Christians in the country is a rather bizarre lie, seeking a justification to go in, to quote Trump, “guns-a-blazing”. Whether this is likely to actually occur or is merely a threat, who can really say nowadays? But Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province are targeting people in Nigeria fairly indiscriminately; insomuch that there is a target, it is farmers whose land is being raided and taken in resource conflicts, and their religious affiliation is not usually questioned by those groups before they are pillaged and/or murdered from what I can tell.
The President of Nigeria, Tinubu, has no small responsibility for this state of affairs - enacting IMF “reforms” which have exacerbated hunger, poverty, and unemployment in the service of Western financial institutions. Those who have protested against this state of affairs have faced repression by state security forces. Meanwhile, Tinubu allegedly has strong connections to the DEA, paying large amounts of money to avoid a trial for his actions; the DEA released this statement: “We oppose the full… release of the DEA’s Bola Tinubu heroin trafficking investigation records,” which is certainly not concerning at all - followed by “While Nigerians have a right to be informed about what their government is up to, they do not have a right to know what their president is up to.”
It must be a shame for him that such a loyal subject of empire is facing such scrutiny, and it likely has everything to do with Nigeria’s inexorably growing connections to China (just like pretty much every country on the planet), especially in relation to Nigeria’s massive mineral deposits. It could also perhaps be retribution for Nigeria’s failure to adequately oppose the growing independence of the Sahel.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity'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.
Not much. Venezuela have advanced air defences, but in very limited numbers. Their most numerous air defence systems, the S-125/SA-3, are modernised cold war relics. The Venezuelan F-16s lack radar guided missiles, and the Su-30s are outclassed by F-35s. Maintenance and spare parts are an issue for both aircraft types. Anti ship capabilities are limited to shorter range missiles launched by Su-30s, or Iranian made patrol boats. Venezuela doesn’t have any ballistic missiles, also the range to hit the continental US is almost double that of Iran vs Israel, and greater than Yemen vs Israel. Some kind of air bridge from Russia or Iran for supplies is not feasible, neither state has the airlift capacity. Russian government officials were bragging about maybe sending one or two Pantsir S1/SA-22s over, and repairing existing air defences last week.
The biggest bargaining chip Venezuela has to play are the 5000 Igla-S/SA-24 Man Portable Air Defense systems (MANPADs). That’s a big number and could complicate low altitude flights/operations by helicopters and close air support. It could also end up outside of state control in the case of a collapse of the Venezuelan government.
What Russia could do at most is supply Venezuela with longer range anti ship missiles, a P-800 Oniks battalion with ground launchers for instance. Or the air launched version, the Kh-61. Or some ground launched Kalibr cruise missiles. But I think that’s very unlikely. It has just as much of a potential to start a conflict as it has to deter.
I see. So even if a ground invasion would likely be a disaster, there’s not much stopping the Americans from just bombing until one of their planes crash and they decide to go home. Grim.
How come? Doesn’t russia have enough IL-76s lying around?
Russia have a lot of IL-76s. But range is an issue when fully loaded, and with the war in Ukraine Russia can’t fly over Europe or the Black Sea. So the IL-76s will have to take multiple stops on their journey to Venezuela. I think the recent flight to Venezuela had a stopover in Libya, and then Mauritania, before crossing the Atlantic, and took multiple days to arrive. Russia doesn’t have the mid air refueling capacity to dedicate to non stop flights on such cumbersome routes. The IL-76 is a big aircraft (and very loud, I hear them before I see them overhead where I live), but it isn’t the biggest airlifter, if you were to compare it to US equipment it’s more similar in payload capacity to the C-141 than the C-17. This means that the biggest pieces of equipment, such as say large components of an S-300 or S-400 air defence system, need to be transported using the An-124 if being done by air. Russia has 12-13 of those.
Resupply by air would be difficult considering that.