Image is of Stepanakert, essentially the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is now a ghost city, and Azerbaijan has recently torn down the parliament building and various other important places. Sourced from this article.
Despite the predictions and assertions of various NATO-aligned commentators that Russia's influence is waning, the opposite generally appears to be occurring. ASEAN has become more strongly aligned with Russia despite claims to the contrary. In Central Asia, there has been a propaganda push to declare that countries there are "emerging from Russia's shadow", while in reality, as Bhadrakumar analyzes, Russia's significant economic growth and ongoing march towards victory in Ukraine is creating opportunities for further integration, not separation, and there are no major political shifts there in terms of Russian ties. And in Niger, Russian soldiers have now entered an airbase which once hosted American soldiers, now kicked out, and generally Russia's diplomacy and economic deals (nuclear power plant construction, military equipment, grain shipments, etc) have accelerated in Africa.
Where Russia's influence has actually seemed to decrease (outside of the West, of course) is in Armenia. Nagorno-Karabakh's remarkably rapid collapse in late 2023 demonstrated that Russia was not willing to escalate things in defense of Armenia to fend off Azerbaijan. One hundred thousand Armenians - most but not all of them in the region - fled in advance to avoid mass persecution, which received remarkably little attention by a West which calls itself overwhelmingly concerned with borders changing due to military action as in Ukraine. Since then, Armenia seems to be on some kind of self-annihilating bender, allured by the potential of Western military and economic deals. Armenia froze its membership in the CSTO due to its failure to protect them, and the head of NATO, Stoltenberg, visited the region in March. The West has offered up hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to Armenia and is helping them "modernize their military"; given the poor track record of Western military equipment in Ukraine, one wonders why they're even bothering. RAND has advocated for a balancing act; America should, in their eyes, realize that they can't entirely remove Russia's influence but nonetheless should make inroads to protect Armenia from Azerbaijan (which is an interesting position given that Israel provided arms to Azerbaijan to help them take Nagorno-Karabakh).
A quick look at Armenia's geographical position reveals the folly of trying to create some kind of Western outpost. With a hostile Azerbaijan to their east, a very unfriendly (albeit NATO member) Turkiye to their west, an ascendant Iran to their south, and Russia not far from the action, there is little hope of doing much more than causing a little chaos in the hopes it'll momentarily distract Russia while it makes inroads most everywhere else on the planet. The political situation appears miserable for Pashinyan, but there isn't really a popular alternative to take the reins. A truly cursed situation.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Armenia! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
![](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/1c297575-19ec-4d86-8efd-90026c553f62.jpeg)
Israelis in the North seek to partition, become 'State of Galilee'
By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Israeli media
Today 12:47
As a result of the loss of deterrence, the Israeli Conflict Zone Forum plans to announce the establishment of the "State of Galilee" and full separation from "Israel".
Article
During a meeting of "Israel's" Conflict Zone Forum, the leaders of the Israeli northern settlements decided to announce the establishment of the State of Galilee and fully separate from "Israel".According to Israeli news website Walla!, the step is set to be announced on "Independence Day". The media website explained that their decision was reached after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's dismissive response to Benny Gantz's inquiry about settlers returning home for the school year, saying, "What would happen if they return a few months after September 1?"
This latest action follows the forum members' publication of protest advertisements in early April, where they publicly solicited bids to "locate the Israeli government."
As cited by Israeli media, the ads read, "A public tender to locate a government in Israel!" and "The Conflict Zone Forum hereby invites proposals to be submitted to an alternative government in Israel as detailed in the tender documents."
Most significant was the ad which depicted the extent of the despair of Israeli settlers on the border with Lebanon that reads:
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israelis-in-the-north-seek-to-partition--become--state-of-ga
tfw Israel balkanizes before the US![emoji sicko-wistful sicko-wistful](https://www.hexbear.net/pictrs/image/397348a3-d5bd-4b5b-94d6-2048118e5238.png)
Maybe it's a test run for the US? Keep hope alive
Who could have predicted that a “country” founded on the basis of genocidal settlers lusting for their personal fiefdom would end up balkanizing?
Also love how every example of settler “suffering” is just them not being able to go to the fascist bar to drink with their war criminal friends
Surely hlthe resistance will merely step aside for the all powerful state of Galilee. No problems at all. Just walk back to your hotels n bars. No worries.
Deeply unserious
I’d love nothing more than to see them try
The civil war is right on schedule.
And then divided they fall.![emoji kill-em-all kill-em-all](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/c0c774e3-7ecf-441c-8eb6-b5d72836c87c.png)
Just wait until every settler HOA declares independence, sparking the world's first 54-Front Omnidirectional Civil Hyperwar
Hearts of Iron IV mod ass country name
wait so israel is auto-balkanizing? is this the two state solution they always talk about?
I mean, it is what the liberals love: Israel and a second, even more genocidal Israel
RETVRN TO TRADITION![emoji sicko-flipped sicko-flipped](https://www.hexbear.net/pictrs/image/574a7551-c4f0-4459-b394-ef8cb06b1310.png)
It's probably just fascists wanking their illusions of grandeur but it would be extremely funny if this actually happened.
This feels like Texas threatening to secede from time to time. Whenever they need attention