On December 4th, Rwanda's Paul Kagame and the DRC's Felix Tshisekedi signed the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity (pictured above). Trump boasted that he was settling a war that had gone on for decades, and remarked, idiosyncratically, "[...] and now they’re going to spend a lot of time hugging, holding hands [...]"
A few days later, the M23 militia (backed by Rwanda) advanced into Uvira, a city near the DRC's eastern border with Burundi and a major commercial and strategic location in the region. Burundi, although a small country, is a significant ally to the DRC and has sent thousands of soldiers to aid them during conflicts; this offensive by M23 aims to cut off a direct route between the two, though they do still share quite a long border over Lake Tanganyika. Tens of thousands of civilians (possibly up to 200,000) fled as M23 approached.
Signed almost simultaneously with the Accords was a Strategic Partnership Agreement between the DRC and the United States, which effectively threw open its critical minerals in the east to American exploitation. These minerals include tin, tungsten, and tantalum, which is vital for many industries. The irony is that M23 has been taking territory in the eastern DRC in order to transport these very minerals to Rwanda and onwards to global supply chains. Signing the Accord was, therefore, a remarkably pointless endeavour for everybody involved. Burundi and the DRC have complained, calling for sanctions on Rwanda, and appeasing to Trump's pride, calling this a "slap in the face to the United States", though I doubt the US is ultimately all that bothered about it one way or another.
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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.
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.
I've got a question for @MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net. How realistic do you think it is that Venezuela lights up the oil fields like Iraq did?
In 2003 it successfully stopped air operations in the area of the oil fires due to dangerous conditions after a US helicopter flew straight into the ground if I recall correctly.
I'm not even sure where exactly the fields are located, haven't looked into it much so geographically it might not be useful. But the US do seem to go to quite a large amount of effort to launch their operations in specific weather conditions so it must still matter? Do cruise missiles still use landmarks and visual contours of the land to plot their flights? Visibility would also matter for them too if they still do?
The refineries and oil fields will likely only be sabotaged if the war looks lost for Venezuela. They will need them up to make money if they win, but will want to make it as painful and expensive as possible to get back online if they lose.
Also, Iraq didn't burn their own oil fields in the Gulf War, they burned Kuwait's oil fields. It's a lot easier to do when it's not your own infrastructure
If you're taking about using smoke to try obscure guidance and targeting systems, most modern cruise missiles have infrared sensors nowadays, which can see through most types of smoke. You'd need smoke that actually heats up the air (think white phosphorus) to obscure those kind of sensors. And if you're up against a weapon with a radar seeker, like an SDB-II, it can "see" through all kinds of smoke, weather and dust, so that wouldn't be a factor. Smoke could work against laser guided weapons though.
Lots of smoke could make low altitude flights by helicopters and tilt rotor aircraft much more difficult, and when combined with man portable air defence systems, it could be part of a strategy to deny low altitude operations, like a helicopter led operation to seize an oil facility. Like the helicopter led operations to seize oil tankers now. But that comes with destroying or damaging the facility, and evacuating it, otherwise soliders and civilians operating in it's vicinity would be subject to toxic fumes.
Weren't most of the oil wells burnt in Kuwait by retreating Iraqi forces during the 1991 Gulf War? I know that they also burnt oil wells in 2003, but it wasn't anywhere near as much as 1991.
Low altitude operations... Like the kind that attempt to avoid radar?
https://youtu.be/pNYnhk_6YRY?t=2183
At 36:24 this video discusses an event in one of the initial helicopter assaults, 4 marines and 8 british royal marine commandos died when their helicopter crashed into the ground, this occurred immediately after oil fields were lit. The mission was aborted as a result.
Media reports from the time (and investigation afterwards) claim it was the mechanical failure of the helicopter but I'm not buying that, these helicopters can still safely land without power. Maybe a combination of things occurred but still... It's enough to cause operational problems large enough to abort missions.
...all of this of course hinges on where the fields even are in Venezuela. I can't find reliable info on that, search engines are polluted with useless media reports. But if they're in any kind of useful geographical position there's probably still some use in doing this?
Media will frame it as "scorched earth" and "the Maduro regime preventing anyone from having it" but there are real tactical reasons for doing this I feel.
Not really in a US context. They have 22 F-35s in Puerto Rico now, and are likely operating stealthy RQ-170 drones in and around Venezuela given a recent OPSEC failure around that. That's more operational stealth manned aircraft and stealthy drones at full mission capability flying around Venezuela than pretty much every Air Force in the world except for China's, Japan's and Australia's. If the US goes in, it will be at medium to high altitude with these stealth aircraft. Denying low altitude operations would be about making it difficult for the US to operate helicopters, tilt rotor aircraft and lower altitude close air support platforms like the AC-130J Ghostrider gunship.
Regardless of where they're located, it can slow down or prevent seizing the oil facilities themselves for a while at least. It is very much scorched earth though.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
That is very interesting.
Useless for Caracas but that is a natural barrier to helicopter operations covering the east of the country.
From my understanding a lot of the major oil fields are quite a ways away from Caracas, where most of Venezualas defenses are. Like, most of the oil tankers are either way on the Eastern or Western sides of the country, with only a couple picking up oil from the capital's port.