LargePenis [he/him] @ LargePenis @hexbear.net

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I can absolutely do that when I'm done

Hey, please read the first two parts of my effortpost on the evolution of the modern pan-shia ideology if you haven't done that already. Part three coming probably tomorrow, but I'm on 5k words in total already and I haven't even mentioned Syria and Bahrain in the last part, so this became a bit larger than expected lmao.

Part One

Part Two, it gets continued in the first comment

you're getting the third and probably final part tomorrow, be patient

cont.

Remember that I said that Khomeini wanted to export to revolution to other countries. It did happen, but not fully successfully and not in a conventional manner. The first seeds were of course the Dawa Party movement in Iraq, which we previously mentioned, and it ended with mass executions including the whole leadership. The next organized group was the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, led by the 2nd generation of the Al Hakim family. The top brass managed to flee to Iran in 1983 and later fought in the Iraq-Iran War on the side of Iran. The rest of the Al Hakim family were brutally executed in 1983 by the Iraqi state, with literal kids getting executed. A very important detail here needs to be mentioned. The Shia Islamist ideology was powerful enough transcend borders here, Sykes-Picot was effectively broken for the third time since the establishment of the Middle East borders. It was broken by the Arabists under Nasser with the United Arab Republic which lasted for five stupid years. And it was broken by Communists who were popping up from Algeria to Oman fighting for each other’s causes. Then it was broken by Shia Islamists under the leadership of Khomeini. It would be broken again in 2013 by Sunni Jihadists fighting for ISIS. Only one of those projects still remains, and it’s Khomeini’s project. The third attempt of Shia Islamist uprising was in 1991, and it was the most successful attempt, but it still failed. The Shaaban Uprising in Iraq lasted for around a month and large sections of the country fell under Shia rebel rule, but Saddam managed to reorganise his army after the massive defeat in Kuwait and crushed the uprising. The sources of the uprising were both expected and unexpected. The Al Hakim family and their newly formed militias breached the Iraq-Iran border and stormed into the country, which was an expected source considering the semi-collapse of the Iraqi state after the withdrawal from Kuwait. The unexpected source came from the Al Thawra (now Sadr City) ghetto in Eastern Baghdad. Another Al Sadr family member, Muhammed Sadiq Al Sadr, had secretly organised his followers and unleashed them in the uprising. His eccentric son Muqtada would later form the Mahdi Army and fight the US during the occupation of Iraq. The uprising failed, but it confirmed how deep the penetration of the pan-Shia Islamist ideology had come in Iraqi minds.

In Bahrain, a Khomeinist group tries a failed coup in 1981. These seeds that were planted would later be the ideological backbone of the Bahraini uprising in 2011, which was mercilessly crushed by Saudi Arabia, but that’s a story for a later episode of this effortpost. In Saudi Arabia, a Shia group called Hezbollah Al Hejaz fought a low-level insurgency against the government and later bombed the Khobar Towers and killed a bunch of US soldiers. Now we have to go to Lebanon, what happened there? Well Israel invaded the country in 1982 and occupied everything up to Beirut. Musa Al Sadr’s group, the Amal Movement was ideologically disoriented and very disorganised following the disappearance of Al Sadr in 1978. The Shias of Lebanon were basically left without competent leadership for four years while Israel quickly the Shia heartland in the South. Enter Khomeini again. Hezbollah was basically founded in Iran, the group doesn’t exist without the efforts of the IRGC in organizing Shia Lebanese leadership from those who had prior connections to Khomeini or Al Sadr. The first real leader of Hezbollah was Sayyid Abbas Al Musawi, who studied under Muhammed Baqir Al Sadr in Najaf, Iraq. Hezbollah’s mission in Lebanon was very simple, follow the ideology of Khomeini, kick out the Israelis, and end the collaborationist South Lebanon Army who formed a fake state that was fully propped up by Tel Aviv. Hezbollah succeeded in all three tasks. Khomeini’s pan-Shia ideology is now the de-facto ideology for Lebanese Shias, Israel would finally be kicked out from Lebanese soil in 2000 after a successful guerilla war, and the SLA was crushed in the 1980s by an alliance of Hezbollah, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Lebanese Communist Party. Sayyid Abbas Musawi was later martyred by an Israeli strike in 1993, and his successor was Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah. In the 1990 Taif Agreement to end the Lebanese Civil War, Hezbollah was the only armed group who did not have to disarm and were allowed to control Shia areas.

Thanks for reading! Next episode, we learn about the Houthis who I was supposed to cover here but I was too lazy. We will also learn about the 2006 Hezbollah defeat of Israel, the Mahdi Army, the Bahraini uprising, and the 2nd shia identity formation post-ISIS.

I'm on a little writing spree, so you're getting part two already. Sorry for no proofreading ofc.

The Rise of the Collective Shia Identity: Part Two

We continue the story around 15 years later, we’re now in the early 90s. Three significant events have taken place in the modern Shia story. The first and the most significant is the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the second is the Iraq-Iran War, the third is the formation of Hezbollah in South Lebanon and the real start of the Shia Lebanese story. We have to start with the Islamic Revolution. I won’t go into the details of how the Revolution happened and why it happened, but I will talk about what it meant at the time and what the consequences were. I will sum the events of the Revolution in three sentences. Mass protests break out in Iran against the Shah’s repression and economic inequality, which slowly takes a more Islamist character in opposition to the Shah’s pro-Western secular regime. The Islamization of the protests meant that some sort of spiritual leadership had to rise, Ayatollah Khomeini who was exiled in Paris becomes the spiritual leader and he manages to unify all sectors of the protest movement under his leadership. He then returned to Iran as the unopposed leader of the movement in the ending stage of the revolution and then consolidated the revolution in his vision of the new Iran working under his system of Wilayat al Faqih.

The success of the revolution in Iran led to the formation of the first modern Islamic state which draws its legitimacy from Shia Islam. Sykes-Picot created only kingdoms as in the Gulf and Iraq, and semi-functional weak republics like Syria and Lebanon. The establishment of Islamic Republic was significant on several levels. It was the first popular revolution which established an Islamic Republic, unlike the revolutions in states such as Egypt and Iraq, where military dictatorships were founded instead of the old comprador kingdoms. It also marked the end of nearly 2500 years of hereditary rule in Iran and old Persia. The events of the Islamic Revolution were frightening for the Gulf monarchies and for Iraq, as they realised the threat of Shia Islamism within their borders. One of Khomeini’s first promises after the success of the revolution was exporting the experience to other nations where “disbelievers” were in power and where Shias were barred from participating in controlling their destiny. The first seeds of a “Shia International” were planted by Khomeini very quickly. Shias in Iraq were very emboldened by Khomeini’s success, and political activities by the banned Dawa Party accelerated in late 1979 and early 1980, which ended after the execution of Muhammed Baqir Al Sadr in Iraq in 1980. If you were a Shia Islamist in Iraq in 1975 for example, you had nowhere to go, but if you needed to flee in 1980, you suddenly have a massive Shia neighbour that not only allows you to come as a refugee, but also fully supports your political activities and gives you weapons.

Saddam decided to not wait for the inevitable confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran and started a massive war in late 1980. The Iraq-Iran war is the most important moment in the formation of the “Shia International” and the formation of the first fully ideological generation of young Shias that would later change the world. Literally every single influential Shia character of the last 30 years had some degree of interaction with Ayatollah Khomeini or Muhammed Baqir Al Sadr or fought in the Iraq-Iran War. Qassem Soleimani fought in the war. Hadi Al Ameri, leader of Badr Brigades in Iraq fought in the war. Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah was a 16-year-old student under Al Sadr. The Houthi family lived in Qom in Iran after the revolution. Ali Khamenei was President of Iran during the war. Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis fought in the war. Even current president of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian fought in the war. Abdul Aziz Al Hakim, son of former Shia Grand Marja Muhsin Al Hakim fought in the war and later become president of Iraq for one month under the American occupation. Musa Al Sadr’s niece was married to Khomeini’s son Ahmed and Musa’s son was married to Khomeini’s granddaughter. The war itself was not that eventful, with both sides mostly in deadlock for eight years. The relevant part of the whole war was basically four battles. Iraqi capture of Khorramshahr and then the Iranian liberation of the city. Then the Iranian capture of Al Faw and the Iraqi liberation of the area. The Gulf monarchies went crazy in their support of Saddam during the war and gave him lots of money, mainly because they really wanted the defeat of Iran without shooting a bullet, which reminds us of a certain Ukrainian comedian who is getting duped now in a similar way.

The culture around the war is the most important part in the formation of the modern Shia identity in my opinion. In Christianity, the defining moment for the religion is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which presents Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice of humanity and the image of him bleeding on the cross is etched into the mind of every Christian. For Shia Muslims, the martyrdom of the grandson of Prophet Muhammed Imam Hussain and the wholesale murder of his entire family holds even more emotional value than the crucifixion of Jesus Christ does for Christians, because there’s no happy ending here and no Ascension to the sky. Hussain was slaughtered, his father Ali ibn Abu Talib had his skull shattered while leading morning prayers, and every single Imam was murdered in Shia beliefs. What the Iraq-Iran War did was a complete revival of the tradition of martyrdom in Shia Islam and the commemoration of martyrs became not only just an accepted practice, but also encouraged by the Iranian state. Iranian fighters that were deployed to the front wore headbands with Shia slogans such as “Ya Hussain”, “Ya Zahra” and “Ya Mahdi”, clerics held Qurans over the heads of the fighters when they were boarding trains and trucks to the front, and fighters didn’t only receive combat training at camps before reaching the front, but they also received religious lessons about the sacrifices of Hussain and his family and participated in the first sessions of state-sponsored “Matams” in modern history, where poems about martyrdom were recited while the religious Shia beat their chests. The official “music” of the Iranian state was no longer Googoosh in her skirt performing Persian Pop for the son of the Shah in his birthday party, but it was militarised and Islamised and became stuff like “Karbala Ma Darim” (“Karbala we’re coming”, a reference to the holy city of Karbala) and “Mamad Naboodi Babini” (“Mohammed you didn’t see it”, a reference to an Iranian solider that played a heroic role in the battle of Khorramshahr, but was martyred a few days before the liberation of the city). The names of the streets were changed, the names of metro stations were changed, the names of the city squares were changed. Pahlavi Street became Shahid Bahonar Street, the Tehran Metro now has over 15 stations named after some martyr, mostly from the Iraq-Iran War and the revolution. This complete transformation of Iranian society led to the creation of the concept of the Resistance itself in those years. What is the Iraq-Iran War called in Persian? Difaa e-Muqaddas, Holy Resistance.

Well of course, the Americans and the Jihadists are still in Al Tanf for a fucking reason

Iraq is also relatively functional and a good country. All visa restrictions on Lebanese people have been immediately removed and everyone is allowed an indefinite stay now. The massive organized Shia food banks have also been ordered to start gathering supplies and ship them to Lebanon. The Tehran - Baghdad - Damascus - Beirut line will be so fucking important now, thank God that the SAA and the Iraqis managed to secure the Bukamal-Qaim border and have it open. Lebanon will not become Gaza, I'm 100% sure. Food, military supplies and fighters will easily go to Lebanon through that line and it will be very important to keep it open and safe. I read somewhere today that the Iraqi Army is already deploying there to make sure that it stays open.

Part one effortpost here, I chose number two. Sorry for any grammatical fuckups in advance, it was too long to proof read.

The Rise of the Collective Shia Identity: Part One

The year is 1978. Ayatollah Khomeini, the main voice of Shia Islamism has just been expelled from Najaf by Saddam Hussein. Najaf, the capital of Shia Islam and where the biggest Hawzas (Shia Islamic schools) are located, is a hotspot of political repression, executions, and arrests. The main Marja (basically Shia pope), Sayyid Abu Al Qasim Al Khoei is reduced to a strictly religious role, giving rulings about useless things like marriages and inheritance. His predecessor, Sayyid Muhsin Al Hakim, pushed the political buttons too hard with a ruling that deemed communists and Baathists as disbelievers, which made the Iraqi state go crazy and start a huge campaign of repression of anything political from the Shia elite. Khomeini’s development of the concept of Wilayat Al Faqih was very worrying for Baathist Iraq, so he was expelled from Najaf.

Shias in Iraq never got a place post-Sykes-Picot, with the Kingdom of Iraq being dominated by the Sunni Baghdadi elite. The period between 1958-1968 after the revolution was too chaotic and disjointed to produce an elite, with daily conflicts and coup attempts by adventurers with different ideologies. The Baathist period produced a new elite strictly dominated by Sunnis from Salahaddin Province, so the Shias just never got a seat at the table. Two ideologies penetrated the Shia mind, Islamism and Communism. Islamists were concentrated in Karbala and Najaf, two holy cities for Shia Islam. Communists where concentrated in Nasiriyah, Amarah and Basra, cities where poverty was rampant. Islamists were finally organised in the form of the Dawa Party, led by Musa Al Sadr’s cousin Muhammed Baqir Al Sadr. Musa Al Sadr would later rise as the spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shia community. Muhammed Baqir Al Sadr’s works and political activities really annoyed the Iraqi state, so he and his sister were executed by the state in 1980. Most of their followers were executed or exiled. Many of the influential families in Najaf and Karbala had some Persian ancestry, nearly all those families suffered from mass deportations as Saddam’s anti-Persian paranoia grew. The communists suffered from the same fate, with most communists either executed or exiled by the state due to their political activities.

Now we’re done with Iraq, let’s go to Iran. Shia Islamism is dead here too, the Shah’s security services arrests anyone with any political activity. Khomeini was successfully chased out 20 years ago, and there’s no organised political force that can even talk loudly without getting executed. The Shah is at least Shia Muslim on paper, he prays in public once every 10 years, visits the shrines in Qom and Mashhad occasionally, but to everyone with a functioning brain, this man is a disbeliever. There’s something brewing, but let’s wait with that story.

Let’s go to Lebanon. Shias in Lebanon are around half of the Muslim population. It’s hard to get exact numbers, but Shias are around 25% of the total population of the country. The Shia community here also never got a real seat at the table. The president holds most of the power and is always a Maronite. The prime minister gets fired every few weeks, but he’s always a Sunni and does nothing while the Maronite elite is pretending to be French and robbing the country. The speaker of the parliament is Shia, but toilet paper is more useful than that position. Feudalism didn’t really end in the Shia parts of Lebanon, most Shias were farmers who were getting fucked so hard on a daily basis that they didn’t have time to even think about politics. Remember we’re in 1978, where are the Shias in the middle of civil war? The answer is nowhere. The main sides are Maronites vs Sunni Muslims, communists and Palestinians. Shias were not a major factor here. The only notable Shia organization is the Amal Movement, led by Musa Al Sadr. Musa was a charismatic leader who would set the foundations of the modern Shia Lebanese identity, he was respected by all sectors of the cursed Lebanese society and his connections to Iran and Iraq were slowly starting to be important in a regional context. But nothing good lasts, as he was inexplicably disappeared and presumably killed by Gaddafi during a routine visit to Libya in August 1978.

Let’s go to Yemen and the Gulf. In Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Shias were an afterthought, they are 0% of the ruling families and have zero political representation. They’re allowed to do some rituals at home when no one sees, but if you open your mouth in public and say anything Shia Islamist, you’re getting disappeared and your whole family will probably be deported to Iran or something. Shias in Bahrain are the absolute majority and they’re significant minorities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In Yemen, the Shias are not the same kind of Shia as in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon. The main group of Shia Muslims are either called Jaafari after the theological works of the sixth Shia Imam Jaafar Al Sadiq, or Ithna Ashari (Twelvers) due to their belief in twelve Imams after the Prophet Muhammed, starting with Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib and ending with Imam Muhammed Al Mahdi, also known as the Hidden Imam who according to Shia beliefs will reappear one day and basically set in motion the end of the physical world. The Shia of Yemen are known as Zaydis, after Zayd ibn Jaafar Al Sadiq, who the Zaidis recognized as 7th Imam, while the Twelvers recognized Musa ibn Jaafar Al Sadiq. The Zaidi Imamate in Northern Yemen continued for nearly a thousand years, but it could not withstand the post-WW2 chaos in the region and ended in nearly comic fashion after a coup led by local rivals and involvement from an exiled Iraqi officer. The Zaydi community here in 1978 is in disarray, with many converting to Sunni Islam out of convenience in a new world. There’s no organized Zaydi force or political party, they just farm in the highlands of Northern Yemen and chill out there. It is a fading group, but wait, something just happened in Yemen. Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Zaydi military officer from Sanaa, and one of the great adventurers of the 1900s in the Middle East, just did a military coup and took power in the failing state of North Yemen in July 1978.

How did this defeated religious group go from edges of the region to the dominant group in five countries and a political force that annoys America and Israel? We’ll find out in the next episode as we cover the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the formative value of the Iraq-Iran War, the failed Shaaban Revolution in Iraq, the rise of Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon, and the rise of the Houthi (Ansarallah) movement in Yemen.

I'm doing ONE effortpost this week to explain some Lebanese/Arab intricacies while scrolling the news. What do the good people of the news mega want to read about?

1. A breakdown of the Lebanese Civil War and how it permanently fucked the country.
2. An explanation of how the modern Shia identity emerged post-1979 and how a small marginalized community basically became the face of anti-Israel jihad.
3. How Arab and Muslim attitudes towards Hezbollah changed between 2006 and 2024 due to their intervention in Syria.

Vote! But I'll probably just ignore the results and do the one I want

Your overall assessment is correct. The wounds of the Civil War are still present and the sectarian lines are still drawn when it comes to Hezbollah especially. Right-wing Christians are mainly apathetic towards Israel and hate Hezbollah, mostly due to generations of Western brainworms and borderline Nazi ideology being transmitted through the Pro-French colonial class of Maronites. Other Christian groups are more flexible in their approach, because some of them like the Greek Orthodox actually were the brains and bodies behind the old Lebanese Communist Party and other leftist groups, so some of them are pro-Resistance and some got absorbed into the post-civil war economic elite and are against the resistance. Sunnis are split between a slighly Jihadi camp that believes that Hezbollah should get critical support because this is a chance to finally fight the Israelis, and another group that hates Hezbollah because of old grievances through Saudi Arabia and because of Hezbollah's role in suppressing the mainly Sunni Syrian Revolution and the war afterwards in Syria. The second group is sadly larger. The main Druze group is the Progressive Socialist Party which has been led by the Jumblatt family for three generations now. They kinda flip in their opinions from time to time, but the spirit of Kamal Jumblatt is still alive and their absolute red line is any degree of support towards Israel, so they can be counted in the pro-Resistance faction if we're really in all out war now. Shias are almost unanimously pro-Resistance across lands and borders, there's an impressive universal spirit in Shia Muslims that makes them invested in any Shia business wherever in the world it is.

The Lebanese Army won't do any offensive actions anywhere, it is barely an army in the first place and they're too useless ideologically. I'm slightly worried about the Maronite nazis starting shit in Beirut, but I think that the movement of fighters from Iraq, Iran and Yemen towards Lebanon will prevent a civil war. The LF are not even close to 10% of Hezbollah's power, they also won't be able to start shit if we have 50k PMU fighters in Beirut protecting the rear while Hezbollah is occupied in the South. I don't think that people really understand how formative this moment is for the Shia identity in the region, literally everything that happened since 1979 for the Shias has been building to this one single moment. You had a marginalised defeated group who left the 80s as a major proud group in the region, this is the moment that they have been waiting for. I'll elaborate on the Shia moment more in a different comment this week, I just need to gather my thoughts a bit and write a clean comment.

@redline@lemmygrad.ml

hope the ping works

It has officially started, no words can describe the feeling in my heart right now. I have lots to say to Iran and the Axis, but this is not the time nor place. May God keep everyone home in Lebanon safe and strengthen their resolve. It has felt inevitable for months now, but I hate that we're so close to winter with how cold it gets in Lebanon. My aunties in Beirut started gathering supplies a few days ago, they have plenty of canned goods and stuff like rice stored now. My stubborn communist uncle was a "nothing ever happens guy" though so we're grilling him in the family group chat now. My cousin is home in Beirut now, we were worried for him because he works in Tyre which will most likely be pulverised by the Zionists. May God give us the chance to witness the total destruction of this cancerous entity.

The motherfuckers did it again, fuck this earth. One of the explosions in Sour/Tyre yesterday was less than 100m from my cousin's office. We fucking lost contact with him for hours until everything settled and we got a thumbs up in the family group chat. How is this blatant terrorism even fucking justified by these absolute freaks. So many young beautiful people leave us every single day in Lebanon, for what? The continuation of the biggest terror state since Nazi Germany. My hatred and rage are genuinely reaching uncontrollable levels, fuck everyone from Sykes to Ben Gurion to Sadat to Clinton to Abdullah

The new failed Trump assassin is obviously another freak as usual, but I low-key respect him for his unwavering dedication for his dumbass causes. We need this energy on the left. This guy was spamming Zelensky on twitter for any chance to help, he actually went to fucking Ukraine in some dumbass belief that he could somehow help out, he hated Trump so much that he was actually ready to kill him. It's hard to not respect a true ideologue in these days, when most libs fold at any true pressure. Good for him honestly, he truly did his best along the whole journey and almost died like a true martyr and could've gone to liberal heaven. The guy who tried this in July was just a massive loser, this new guy has some very respectable dedication all the way. It's a shame that he's not a leftist.

Just random thoughts incoming:

• My son is already two months old, time just passes so quickly. This mf is growing fast on that breast milk diet. He's balding though, guess I'll take him to Turkey soon. On a different note, I'm going to need an archive of communist cartoons soon to start the training early.
• Asian Qualifiers for the Great Satan World Cup in 2026 has started, with a great start for Iraq and surprisingly Palestine who drew with South Korea in Seoul. Iraq should make it in this group, while Palestine could possibly be in a decent position if they beat Jordan tomorrow. Iran won their first match, they'll make it for sure. North Korea sadly lost to Uzbekistan (we should a Central Asian COTW period btw), their chances look below average.
• Ugledar is about to be encircled, very big news for us Ugledar haters. Very stupid town, but a marvel of Soviet engineering. Ukraine have mainly stopped the bleeding near Pokrovsk, but they're quickly losing ground in the Kurakhove sector and near Kupiansk. Important weeks incoming now before mud season.
• Damn when will Iran stop edging, we need them to goon soon
• My wife's sister is getting married in Iraq next month, very annoying timing because we can't travel yet with the lil kid. In her defence, the wedding was supposed to be like 7 months ago, but the groom's uncle suddenly died like a month before the wedding.
• What is Israel even doing right now? They've been in Gaza for like 11 months now with barely anything tangible achieved, their internal situation is kinda complicated, Iran keeps edging them, the US fired like 50 missiles into Yemen and was like "bro I'm all out of ideas", peace negotiations keep getting wrecked by Satanyahu. What's the long-term goal here, I'm not sure that there's one.

Swedish Foreign Minster "suddenly and shockingly" resigned today according to Eurofreak and American media today. To the westoid reader, of course it's weird that the foreign minister of the newest NATO member suddenly resigns without any deeper context. But to us news enjoyers, it's very interesting that he resigns just one day after the deadly Poltava strike by the Russians, where Swedish personnel were hanging out according to reports and there was also a Facebook post by some Swedish ghoul that was mourning a dead friend in Ukraine. It wouldn't be the first time Swedes eat shit in Poltava, history is basically a circle. Media are talking about staff disagreements or whatever, but I'm noooooooticing something very fishy here. The true story about the scope of NATO's involvement in Ukraine will be fascinating when it slowly bubbles up in a few years after they throw the corpse of Ukraine to the wolves.

Good take by him. Pokrovsk is a collapse, but we don't have any other clear collapse anywhere else. We're seeing gradual advances on the Kupyansk/Oskol front, around Toretsk and around Ugledar, but those can't be categorised as collapses yet. I still we're still at least 6-9 months away from a wider Russian offensive that truly triggers a series of collapses. Pokrovsk and perhaps Kupyansk will be the main fronts during the winter when pace usually decreases a bit. I then expect a "big arrow" behind Kramatorsk/Sloviansk, which actually triggers the collapse. Russia won't do any risky runs from Pokrovsk to Pavlograd or another Kharkov adventure, but the theme of gradually wearing down the AFU until triggering a collapse will continue until the AFU can't respond to any crisis anymore. Only then will we see real big arrows and fast movement across the whole line. With the current pace, I think that the schedule looks like this:

Winter 2024/25: Pokrovsk

2025: Kramatorsk line, Oskol line

2026: Big arrows towards Dnipro Oblast and north Zaporozhye.

Has Russia captured a McDonald's anywhere in Ukraine so far? I'm pretty sure that Mariupol didn't have one. Hexbears come on please find me a pic of some Akhmat guy standing in a captured McDonald's

My 8 weeks old son just spoke his first words. He said "Dad did you see that the Russians have pushed into Sinkovka near Kupiansk, this is interesting because Sinkovka has been the main point of defense for the AFU near Kupiansk, and losing this village combined with the advance near Pishchane could put the entire AFU garrison east of the Oskol River in a very dangerous spot". Thanks son!

This could be very bad for the AFU though, this sector of the front has been chill for them for nearly two years now. If Russians seriously commit here and exploit the manpower situation just like in Pokrovsk and Toretsk, then the the whole east Oskol sector all the way to Lyman could be in a very bad situation.

Map:

It hasn't been so over for Ukraine since the initial weeks of the SMO. According to good Telegram sources, Russians have now rapidly advanced in Selydove, entered Myrnograd, and it seems like the entirety of Grodovka is gone. On paper, Selydove and Grodovka should be the places where the Ukrainians try to mount a final defence and try to slow down the RF before having the big battles in Pokrovsk, Myrnograd and later Kurakhove. But the whole defence has collapsed again for the third time in less than 48 hours. Russia already entering Myrnograd is insane progress for even the most optimistic Russian Telegrammer in the world, this battle wasn't even expected before spring 2025.

Selydove:

Myrnograd:

Grodovka: