Battle Raging at Crucial Town Kyaukphyu in Arakan

      (Staff posts from THE KHIT THIT MEDIA and REUTERS on 31 May 2025.)

The amazingly victorious Arakan Army (AA) declared yesterday that they have captured a group of Myanmar Army soldiers led by Lt. Colonel Kyaw Lin Kyaing the Divisional Tactical Commander, near Kyaukphyu.

Because of many rapidly losing battles on multiple war fronts, Myanmar Army is losing so many field commanders they are being forced to send out senior division and brigade commanders to lead the war columns to face the rebelling ethnic armies. And one rebel army like AA has been quickly capturing those senior commanders of Myanmar Army, one after another.

Especially in the besieged town of Kyaukphyu, the demoralized army troops are surrendering and running away from the battle fields. Even in the Chinese projects the Chinese employees are being evacuated speedily to relatively safer Rangoon by private airplanes as their safety at Kyaukphyu is not guaranteed by Myanmar Army or AA.

US-China Proxy Drone War in Kyaukphyu of Myanmar?

             (Based partly on staff post from the NARINJARA NEWS on 27 May 2025.)

China is protecting her trillion dollars interest (China’s Indian Ocean Gateway) by fighting together with Myanmar Army defending (but rapidly losing) the Kyaukphyu Town.

Kyaukphyu is the most crucial town for China’s security and economic interest in Myanmar as being the terminus for Trans-Myanmar Crudeoil and Gas Pipelines and also the terminus for future Kunming-Kyaukphyu Railway. Kyaukphyu also has the China-controlled deep seaport allowing enormous crude-oil-tankers to unload and then piped to Kunming.

As AA occupied 14 townships out of all 17 townships in Arakan, China has started sending PLA armed units disguised as mercenaries or private security personnel since February this year after the AA (Arakan Army) started their operation against Kyaukphyu in January this year.

On February-27 a small PLA armed unit of about fifty (mainly snipers) from PLA Southern Division based in Yunan Province was airlifted to Kyaukphyu as AA intensified the offensive on Kyaukphyu. A PLA drone unit of about twenty also arrived at Kyaukphyu.

US-China Tug of War Over Myanmar’s Yakhine State?

             (Fahd Bin Zahed’s post from the JAKARTA POST on 21 May 2025.)

Will US-China tug of war ensue over Rakhine State? Growing US interest in Myanmar’s Rakhine State could prompt China to ramp up its backing for the military junta in Naypidaw.

In mid-April, the arrival in Dhaka of three United States State Department officials, two deputy assistant secretaries and the charge d’affaires in Naypidaw, signaled the first signs of a critical engagement between US officialdom and the Muhmmad Yunus’s interim government since it took charge in August 2024.

Following the August 2024 political transition, Bangladesh’s interim government, led by Yunus appears to have adopted a new geopolitical orientation, seemingly opening the country to Western interests, both political and economic.

Ukraine’s FPV Drones Flying in Burma?

                       (Staff post from the YAHOO MEDIA on 24 May 2025.)

Russian Mi-17 chopper Appears To Have Been Downed By FPV Drone In Myanmar: Myanmar rebels claim they shot down a government Mi-17 helicopter with an FPV drone. A tactic developed by Ukraine to attack helicopters with small drones has apparently found its way to the jungles of the war-torn nation of Myanmar.

Rebels fighting Myanmar’s junta say they used a first-person view (FPV) drone to down an Mi-17 Hip transport helicopter attempting to land with supplies. The government, however, claims the helicopter crashed due to mechanical failure. Regardless, the claimed attack is nothing out of the realm of possibility.

There are rapidly evolving threats to helicopters in combat zones, including from lower-end drones, raising concerns about degradation in their utility on future battlefields. Video emerged on social media showing the video feed of what purports to be an FPV drone operated by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) careening toward the helicopter, which was hovering just a few feet off the ground at the time.

Myanmar Army Major-General Assassinated in Yangon!

             (Ko Cho’s post from THE MYANMAR NOW MEDIA on 22 May 2025.)

On May-22 Thursday, the Retired Major-General Cho Htun Aung, a former ambassador and the current professor at the National Defense College – NDC, was shot to death right in front of his residence in Yangon by two masked-gunmen from the Golden Valley Warriors from the NUG’s PDF.

Former Myanmar Ambassador to Cambodia and Brunei was shot while he was picking up fallen Mangoes in his front yard and died inside the ambulance on the way to Base Military Hospital (BMH) in Mingaladon. His house is at Shwe-hnin-zee-6 Street of Fifth Ward in Mayangone Township, Yangon.

He graduated from the Fifth Cadet Batch of OTS (Officer Training School) in Hmawbi and served in Myanmar Army for over 30 years. He was the Divisional Commander of Yay-based MOC-19 (Military Operations Command-19) and also served as the ruthless Chairman of Karen State Peace and Development Council during the era of Than-Shwe-Led SPDC (State Peace and Developmnet Council) in the years 1990s and 2000s.

Mi17 Down: KIA .50 Guns Roasted Russian Bird Alive

               (Staff post from the KHIT THIT MEDIA on 20 May 2025.)

Kachin Independence Army (KIA) successfully shot down a Myanmar Air Force Mi17 transport helicopter in their Kachin State. According to the KIA spokesperson Colonel Naw Boo, three Mi17 helicopters were on their way to reinforce the besieged town Bamaw on the eastern bank of Irrawaddy River in Kachin State.

KIA’s 50 cal Machine Gunners shot down two out of three Mi17 choppers but only one crashed into the KIA Fifth Brigade area near the town of Shwe-Gu on the west bank of Irrawaddy River. Other one crash landed at Shwe-Gu town.

The Mi17s were sending Myanmar Army soldiers and supplies to the Bamaw-based 21^st Military Operations Command (MOC-21). The crashed Mi17 was piloted by Myanmar Air Force Captain Myo Htet Aung who was killed along with a Myanmar Army Tactical Commander and all his soldiers onboard.

Myanmar Air Force: Min Aung Hlaing’s Killing Machines

            (Swe Taw’s post from the IRRAWADDY MEDIA on 13 May 2025.)

How Myanmar Junta Uses Air Force to Fight Its Corner: The military junta, which loves to portray itself as the “Standard Army,” has gradually struggled to curb the People’s Defence Forces (PDF) who in the early days of the armed revolt only had rudimentary homemade-hunting rifles.

Today, the junta’s only remaining advantage is its air force, for which the regime has spent substantial public funds. Most countries worldwide have imposed sanctions against the military junta, restricting its ability to purchase aircraft and other military equipment. However, countries like Russia and China continue to supply arms to the regime, enabling it to continue its aerial campaign freely.

During the early days of armed revolt following the coup, the military did not immediately deploy air power, because junta chief Min Aung Hlaing believed his army could easily suppress the resistance forces who were poorly equipped. Even when ground units reported difficulties, they were not granted air support. Troops were pressured to continue fighting without backup.

The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)

 (The very Prayer taught to humanity through his disciples by our Lord Jesus in AD 30.)

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil, for thy is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen.

Sean Turnell: Military Ruins Rising Myanmar Economy!

         (Sebastian Strangio’s post from THE DIPLOMAT on 06 May 2025.)

Sean Turnell on Myanmar’s Star-crossed Economic Reforms: “Had the coup not occurred I have no doubt that Myanmar would have made real progress in catching up to its peers and neighbors.”

When Myanmar’s military seized power on February 1, 2021, it forcibly dissolved the government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD) and terminated a process of political and economic opening that the government had spearheaded over the past five years.

This had involved ambitious efforts to loosen the military’s grip on the economy, rationalize Myanmar’s institutions, attract foreign investment, and catalyze the long process of catching up with the country’s neighbors.

Throughout the NLD’s term in office, the Australian economist Sean Turnell was a close participant in and observer of the reform process, serving as a “special economic advisor” to NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, an experience that he relates in his recent book “Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of Reform in Aung San Suu Kyi’s Myanmar.”