this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2026
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Image is of rescue efforts at a damaged residential complex in Caracas on June 25th.


Weekly preamble in spoiler tags below.

preambleThe situation regarding both Iran and global oil markets is getting even more complicated, and that's without even including the regular injections of disinformation from people like Barak Ravid and Trump himself. In my current estimation, the negotiations are proceeding as if both sides would rather see a deal than not. At the very least, there have certainly been enough blatant violations of the MoU articles that Iran would be fully justified to end negotiations altogether, and yet they are not, which must mean that they really do want a deal. Until a few days ago, these were mainly issues that Iran has been prepared to show... "flexibility" on (others might say "cowardice"), such as Zionist aggression against southern Lebanon. Both at the start of the April ceasefire and at the start of the MoU, they made Lebanon out to be a red line issue, but ultimately seemed convinced by the US saying to them, via backchannels, that they'll yank the leash back on their mangy, rabid dog. Therefore, it's safe to conclude that Iran, in practice, either only symbolically cares about Lebanon as the number of buildings destroyed by the Zionists is now climbing into the tens of thousands, or is confident in Hezbollah's ability to withstand assaults and eventually push back the Zionists to the border.

However, very recently, the fighting has once again come closer to home for Iran, with renewed, albeit limited, exchanges of fire in the general area of Hormuz. This all stems from an unfortunate contradiction that Iran has wandered into with regard to Oman. In short: their legal argument for why they should be able to extract tolls/service fees from shipping through Hormuz relies on the concept of Hormuz being part of their territorial waters and not international waters, which is literally true. However, it is also possible to transit Hormuz entirely through Oman's territorial waters too, and, critically, Oman has not shown any serious interest in charging a toll, and is letting shipping pass freely. Oman is also much less able to seriously withstand foreign assaults than Iran, meaning their position is precarious - side with Iran, and risk a Western military assault that destroys them; side with the US, and risk Hormuz never truly reopening because the IRGC will not tolerate ships bypassing their authority. So, Iran is now legally stuck: to have a toll, it must find a way to argue that territorial waters are important when it applies to them, but aren't important when it applies to Oman. Or, of course, to somehow convince Oman to set up their own toll, in face of the dangers.

So far, the result of this has been Iran asserting, both verbally and through drones and missiles, that transit through the Oman channels is, at least during the period of the MoU, illegitimate. This has squashed hopes by many analysts that Hormuz flows would return to normal very soon - after a very brief peak, these numbers now seem to be descending to near-wartime levels. This is happening as the US's reserves continue to drain at a frightening rate. That being said, Iranian oil tankers are getting out in large numbers and reaching foreign markets, so it's not as if Iran is solely being disadvantaged by the current situation. It's even possible that Iran is waiting for enough of these ships to reach Eastern Asia before they plan to restart the war. I'm unsure if this is actually likely, but I've seen several others suggest it, and it does make sense to at least make the most of the current lack of blockade while you figure out if the US is actually going to give in to any of your demands.

Over in Ukraine, the situation seems to be slowly heating up. It's always hard for me personally to figure out the seriousness of the statements of the Ukrainians and the Russians - you'll look back on a year of exaggerated threats and bold statements and promises of grand offensives and threats of nuclear war and yet, on the battlefield, all you see is fairly standard attrition and positional warfare. Anyway: there's been much ado about Ukrainian attacks into Russia proper over the last few months and whether it's having an impact on their economy (not particularly), wartime production (not at all), and social fabric (kinda). However, the rumors of Belarus getting more directly involved in the war - whether they want to or not - are increasing in intensity, with Ukraine threatening that they'll fire on Belarusian border military equipment if it isn't withdrawn. Also, the Russian hardliners seem to really want to start attacking European military production supplying Ukraine, though Putin appears to have squashed those desires. But at the end of the day, the attrition and territorial advancements continue to convincingly favor Russia.

And lastly, the numbers of the aftermath of the recent earthquakes in Venezuela are rolling in, with ~1500 dead, ~750 buildings damaged and collapsed, and many thousands of people affected and being assisted by the government. From the footage I've seen, it's quite disturbing, and obviously not coming at a great time for Venezuela geopolitically either.


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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

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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 the Zionists' 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.
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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.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

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.


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[–] Tervell@hexbear.net 54 points 1 day ago (3 children)

in another western projection classic, the "Russians are having to salvage chips from consumer electronics for their missiles!" is a thing that's actually happening in the US instead https://archive.ph/3ZXBb

Defense startups raid auto and fracking sectors for parts to speed weapons output

Defense tech startups are repurposing automotive chips and pipes used in fracking — while copying production methods from drugmakers — in an effort to deliver weapons to the Pentagon faster and at lower cost.

more

Soaring demand for rocket motors used to power missiles and other weapons has spurred new thinking about supply chains. Seeking big returns, Silicon Valley-style startups are now taking on defense companies that have long dominated the industry, pulled into the competition by a need for production speed, high volume and lower costs, according to 10 industry executives, experts and U.S officials interviewed by Reuters. The U.S. has plowed through over 50,000 rockets, missiles and other projectiles propelled by rocket motors since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 through the U.S. attack on Iran, Pentagon data shows. Washington is setting aside $53 billion and simplifying procurement rules to increase critical missile and rocket production. CEOs from Lockheed, Boeing and Raytheon parent RTX, among the largest military contractors, have warned that solid rocket motor shortages were hurting missile production. Now, defense entrepreneurs must prove they can deliver.

Pleasing the Pentagon brings huge benefits, including contracts with a government agency that has an annual budget of more than a trillion dollars and a seal of approval other governments want to see before buying from new contractors. But challenges are ahead. All the new entrants will need to produce enough of the new weapons to meet growing demand. Many new entrants are making rocket motors for existing missiles, some are making the entire missile, but none of the companies have scaled up production to replace legacy contractors. Legacy solid rocket motor makers Northrop Grumman and L3Harris said they have been pushing their own research and development to pull these new technologies like 3D printing and new mixing technologies.

FROM STEERING CARS TO STEERING MISSILES

California-based Castelion, which makes solid rocket motors and hypersonic weapons, turned to the auto industry for sophisticated electronic components used in advanced driver assistance systems and electric vehicles to help steer its missiles to targets. These auto industry processors, known as Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, can be bought at a tenth of the cost and obtained six times faster than comparable versions used in the aerospace industry, Chief Operating Officer Sean Pitt said. The oil and gas industry has been another important supply chain resource for Castelion. Rather than sourcing high-pressure metal tubes from aerospace vendors with long lead times, the company is using high-temperature, stress-rated precision machined tubes used to help crack open rocks in the fracking process. These tubes are built to handle heat and pressure levels comparable to what is required for a rocket motor, but are sold by far more vendors, at lower prices, than the aerospace industry equivalent, Pitt said. Castelion, recently valued at nearly $3 billion, has won big Pentagon contracts to make over 500 hypersonic weapons.

Mixing rocket motor propellant is another area of innovation for startup Anduril. The company, among the more successful recent defense industry entrants with several billion dollars of contracts under its belt, is using a pharmaceutical industry technique to mix chemicals used in rocket motors. Anduril, valued at $61 billion, has purchased Colorado-based FlackTek’s bladeless mixers capable of processing multi-hundred-kilogram propellant batches in minutes rather than hours. Anduril says the machine delivers more than a tenfold increase in production throughput compared to its previous mixing systems. The bladeless mixers produce more than 24 times the output of conventional industrial mixers, which are more like a giant kitchen mixer with paddles that require time for cleaning. The same bladeless centrifugal technology is used to produce precision compounds including liposome-based cancer treatments — applications where batch consistency and contamination control are as unforgiving as in weapons production.

Still, challenges lie ahead for new entrants trying to break into the solid rocket motor business. Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, said they include “the painstaking, multi-step manufacturing process of casting, curing, baking, x-raying and sanding that solid-fuel rocket motors require — followed by rigorous inspection.” Curing ovens and X-ray equipment remain a bottleneck for the industry, Karako added.

3D PRINTING TO CUT PRODUCTION TIMES

Innovations have already had a dramatic impact on arms production. A 2024 case study from traditional rocket maker Northrop Grumman estimated that replacing conventionally machined metal tooling with 3-D printed polymer tools reduces the amount of time it takes to create a production line from roughly a year to about six weeks, enabling a new rocket motor to be developed from scratch much more quickly. X-Bow Systems is a New Mexico-based company that specializes in low-cost solid rocket motor (SRM) production through a process that utilizes 3D printing of propellants and motors. The technology has the potential to reduce the time and cost of SRM production drastically. X-Bow has also said it can shorten the creation of a new production line — which makes 3D printed motors — from a three- to six-year timeline to about 12 months. X-Bow already has a $191 million Pentagon contract for hundreds of solid rocket motors. Texas-based Firehawk Aerospace, founded in 2020, also uses 3D printing to manufacture SRMs at a fraction of the cost of traditional production methods. Firehawk says its manufacturing process cuts rocket fuel production time from up to 60 days to just 7 hours, at one-tenth the traditional cost. It enables custom designed missiles to be test-ready in a matter of months. Firehawk is backed by funding from venture capital firm 1789 Capital, a fund where President Donald Trump’s son is a partner.

Government purchasing patterns will always be a limiting factor for startups. The Pentagon has traditionally bought rocket quantities annually, resulting in unpredictable demand shifts from year to year. “How can we get good multi-year agreements that don’t roll off when administration changes?” said Lukas Czinger, CEO of Divergent Technologies, which makes parts for missiles. “That’s what businesses need to perform at low cost.”

[–] pierre_delecto@hexbear.net 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

These auto industry processors, known as Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, can be bought at a tenth of the cost and obtained six times faster than comparable versions used in the aerospace industry

Price gouging definitely happens in aerospace and defense, but part of the price difference is QA practices needed for safe/reliable aerospace use. Happy to see weapons manufacturers starting to cut corners here, may the failure rate of US missiles and bombs reach the moon.

[–] someone@hexbear.net 8 points 20 hours ago

Improvising the casings for solid-fuel rocket motors is certainly an... interesting notion.

[–] red_giant@hexbear.net 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Cannabalizing health care to build missiles we have reached peak America

[–] Infamousblt@hexbear.net 34 points 1 day ago

"Country at war rations stuff it needs for the war" just doesn't hit the same I guess