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Headlines:
The General Gets a New Suit, Keeps the Keys
Spymaster Gets the Sword
Kyiv's Wheels Roll in Naypyidaw
No Fuel, No Fly
Eight Liters a Week Buys You a Smile
Verified, Filed, Forgotten
One Down, One to Go
Four Hours for a Liter
The General Gets a New Suit, Keeps the Keys
The junta's parliament (to nobody’s surprise) nominated coup leader Min Aung Hlaing as a vice-presidential candidate on Monday after he stepped down as commander-in-chief, putting loyalist former spymaster Ye Win Oo in as his military successor (see next story) in a planned transition from junta rule to nominally civilian government. The 69-year-old general, who has ruled by decree since toppling Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government in 2021, is all but certain to win the presidency given that around 80% of parliamentary seats belong to serving military officers or members of the junta's political wing. Min Aung Hlaing handpicked Ye Win Oo over more senior candidates and created a new Union Consultative Council to keep control of security and foreign policy. A handful of ASEAN and Western governments have already said they won't recognize the result.
Read more: The Irrawaddy (Soe Win purge), UPI (ASEAN rejection), BBC (election timeline), Times of India (VP process), KDH News (seat figures)
Spymaster Gets the Sword
Min Aung Hlaing handed command of the Tatmadaw to General Ye Win Oo on Monday, the same day the junta boss was nominated for president. Ye Win Oo, 60, spent his career in intelligence rather than frontline command and comes from the 77th intake of the Officer Training School instead of the Defense Services Academy track that normally produces the country's top commanders. He personally led the February 1, 2021 raids that arrested Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint, then ran the interrogation centers where human rights groups and former detainees have reported boiling liquids, chemical burns, sexual violence, and fatal beatings. The appointment came with the passing-over over more senior and popular generals, including deputy commander Soe Win. Soe Win's supporters had wanted him to replace the junta chief after humiliating military defeats in 2024, but Min Aung Hlaing decided to go with the man that one analyst called his "eyes and ears" instead. He's the first former military intelligence chief to run the armed forces.
Read more: The Irrawaddy
Kyiv's Wheels Roll in Naypyidaw
The junta trotted out locally assembled BTR-4U armored fighting vehicles at its March 27 Armed Forces Day parade, the first visible proof that a 2018 joint production deal with Ukraine has survived years of radio silence and a coup. The wheeled infantry fighters, built under a partnership with Ukrspecexport, were supposed to start coming off the line in the second half of 2020. They appeared alongside MMT-40 tanks and 2S1U-based howitzers, all allegedly linked to the same industrial cooperation deal, indicating that the military has been able to keep its armor production line alive despite everything else falling apart. The vehicles provide the Tatmadaw a wheeled platform that’s better suited to the country's degraded road network than older tracked stock. No comments at the present time about how Kyiv is currently sending defense exports to a regime under Western sanctions.
Read more: Army Recognition
No Fuel, No Fly
Five domestic carriers grounded planes for four days after aviation fuel stocks hit lows in a supply shock the government blamed on what’s happening in the Middle East. MAI, Myanmar National Airlines, Air Thanlwin, Mann Yadanarpon, and Mingalar all stopped domestic ticket sales and paused most local routes on March 21 before picking up full schedules again on March 25 once the state secured emergency supplies. The transport ministry told airlines to prioritize routes that are difficult to get to by road. MAI and Myanmar National Airlines briefly put a limit on international flight baggage allowances to stretch reserves; those restrictions were also lifted on March 26.
Read more: CH Aviation
Eight Liters a Week Buys You a Smile
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz reportedly removed up to a fifth of global oil supply from the market in late February, and since Myanmar imports 90% of its fuel, the math became quickly uncomfortable. Motorcycles are now permitted eight liters per week, private cars 35 liters, and taxis 90 liters. Long lines formed outside stations in Yangon, Mandalay, and Naypyidaw beginning in early March as the junta said that it had 50 days of strategic reserves, but promised that 16 tankers were en route. Many stations stopped selling entirely or put a limit on daily sales, actions that served mostly to push black-market prices higher.
Read more: ReliefWeb (crisis origins), Euronews (quota details)
Verified, Filed, Forgotten
The UN World Food Programme is getting ready to cut aid to many of the 1.2 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, repatriation talks aren't offering much comfort for those who are likely to be impacted. Bangladesh has shared data on 829,036 refugees with Myanmar; Myanmar has verified about two-fifths of the names and admitted about a third of them are former residents, but the conflict means that for the moment, no one is going anywhere. 100,000 refugees are going to be mightily uncomfortable when monsoon rain hits Cox's Bazar in the coming months.
Read more: Frontier Myanmar (WFP aid cuts), The Daily Star (verification figures), ReliefWeb (monsoon risk)
One Down, One to Go
Hong Kong pulled a 25-year-old resident out of a forced-labor scam compound in Myanmar Friday, leaving just one outstanding rescue case. The man, who said his captivity was "like a horror movie," got transferred to Thailand. Since 2024, Hong Kong has fielded 32 similar requests from residents who became trapped in Southeast Asian scam compounds, many of them in border zones like Myawaddy. The remaining case involves a resident believed held in one of the areas most resistant to outside pressure.
Read more: SCMP (victim account), Hong Kong Free Press (statistics)
Four Hours for a Liter
The junta put fuel rationing in place beginning March 27, but the system immediately (surprise!) resulted in worse shortages and price spikes. In Yangon, petrol and diesel prices rose up to more than 1,200 kyats a liter within a week, and Mawlamyine saw petrol hit 4,825 kyats. Reports from Mandalay were that lines began forming at 5am, with stations selling only a liter or two to motorbikes despite the official limits being higher (as mentioned above). Residents say that they suspect collusion between officials and fuel station operators, saying that stations are only sell tiny amounts while street prices continue to go up.
Read more: Mizzima
That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.
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Dispiriting Dark Web of Global Murder-Merchants
In the fetid underbelly of world affairs, Russia whispers lethal intelligence on U.S. forces in the Middle East straight to Iran's ear, arming the mullahs for jihad. America, in vengeful riposte, funnels arms to Ukraine's meat-grinder war against the Bear. And there, in a grotesque twist of the knife, Ukraine—Washington's pious proxy—surreptitiously supplies the genocidal junta in Myanmar (under Western sanctions, no less) with weapons and armored vehicles to pulverize its own people. A carousel of carnage, where yesterday's foe becomes tomorrow's supplier, and sanctions are but paper tigers shredded in the shadow trade of slaughter.
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FROM THE MEKONG MEMO
"Kyiv's Wheels Roll in Naypyidaw
The junta trotted out locally assembled BTR-4U armored fighting vehicles at its March 27 Armed Forces Day parade, the first visible proof that a 2018 joint production deal with Ukraine has survived years of radio silence and a coup. The wheeled infantry fighters, built under a partnership with Ukrspecexport, were supposed to start coming off the line in the second half of 2020.
They appeared alongside MMT-40 tanks and 2S1U-based howitzers, all allegedly linked to the same industrial cooperation deal, indicating that the military has been able to keep its armor production line alive despite everything else falling apart. The vehicles provide the Tatmadaw a wheeled platform that’s better suited to the country's degraded road network than older tracked stock.
No comments at the present time about how Kyiv is currently sending defense exports to a regime under Western sanctions."