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New Commander's Air War
ACLED has reported more than a dozen mass killings and more than 450 civilian deaths in the first half of 2026, and says that the brutal toll is partly the result of a March command reshuffle that put loyalist Ye Win Oo, a former spymaster, in charge of the armed forces. Apparently, his signature is sending two to five fighter jets to work over a single target for hours instead of scattered raids. The result is fewer strikes, but each is deadlier and more damaging to infrastructure. ACLED expects the bombing to ease up somewhat during the monsoon season, then thinks it will pick up again in October as the army tries to (once again) regain lost territory. In other reports,
Read more: Straits Times (visit), Anadolu (death toll), Devdiscourse (ASEAN), Mezha (looting), Impact Policies (AAPP), Mizzima (airstrikes), Mizzima (health system), The Guardian (doctors)
Fuel Quotas Halved, Yangon Fish Markets Slump
The cost of the national food basket was MMK 51,187 in June, up a fifth since late February, as diesel has stayed stubbornly up 45 percent above pre-crisis levels. The squeeze was made worse when Min Aung Hlaing told his cabinet to cut foreign currency spending, causing the Ministry of Energy to reduce weekly fuel purchase quotas for retailers by more than half. Yangon taxi drivers now make six days of fuel last a week. At Shwe Padauk fish market, home to almost 500 vendors, a supervisor says business has been down for five months as young workers have been leaving for Malaysia and Rakhine's seafood supply lines are broken.
Read more: ReliefWeb (food basket), DVB (fuel), Mizzima (market)
ASEAN Makes Suu Kyi the Price of Readmission
ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Manila agreed to make "positive developments" concerning Aung San Suu Kyi part of the price for letting Myanmar back into bloc-level meetings. Senior officials are supposed to give recommendations to leaders before the summit in November. Philippine Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro, the bloc's chair, told reporters the return remains "still far off" and admitted she does not know whether she will be allowed to see Suu Kyi during a humanitarian visit planned later this year. At an informal sit-down in Bangkok, junta foreign minister Tin Maung Swe told Lazaro that Suu Kyi was being cared for "like a sister," then slapped down a request for an in-person wellness check. Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris, has been running a "Proof of Life" campaign since April; analysts believe the photo released by the regime is not recent, and in fact was taken some time around 2022. Showing that the issue is still a sore one, a Yangon court sentenced former NLD lawmaker Saw Naing to three years for donating alms to monks and calling for Suu Kyi's release on her 81st birthday, one of at least 32 arrests tied to this year's "Flower Strike."
Read more: Philippine Inquirer (ASEAN), Nikkei Asia (Lazaro), Nikkei Asia (Proof of Life), DVB (sentencing)
India Chases Rare Earths Into Kachin
State-owned Indian Rare Earths and private firm Midwest Advanced Materials sent reps to Myanmar in late 2024 and early this year in a push New Delhi hopes will put a wedge in China's grip on heavy rare earths. Ambassador Abhay Thakur told a Mandalay mining forum that cooperation had won "momentum," as junta chief Min Aung Hlaing had brought up the issue during his trip to India. The prize is in Kachin State, where dysprosium and terbium deposits provided $3.6 billion of rare earths to China between 2021 and 2024. That supply made up almost three-quarters of Beijing's rare earth imports between 2017 and 2024.
Read more: Firstpost
Little Bagan Torched, Naypyidaw Highway Checkpoint Overrun
More than 200 troops burned more than 100 homes and an unconfirmed number of the 81 Bagan-era religious buildings in Pakhannge, Chauk Township, forcing at least 20 civilians abducted from neighboring Aikyi and Thatyatkone to march with the column as shields. Two days later, PDF fighters hit the Shwepan checkpoint on the Naypyidaw-Magway highway in Myothit Township, killing nine of the roughly 30 regime troops and police stationed there as 21 escaped. No resistance casualties were reported. The junta answered with more road blockades and an increased troop presence in Myothit. More than 10,000 residents have so far fled 20 villages in Chauk since early June.
Read more: DVB (Pakhannge), DVB (checkpoint)
Troops Turn Monastery Into a Holding Cell
Nearly 300 junta soldiers occupied Kyaukhnget and Hsinhsarpyar villages in Ywangan Township after fighting with the Danu People's Liberation Army, rounding up residents and locking them inside a monastery in Kyaukhnget. Villagers said that soldiers beat everyone they caught, women included, and searched house to house in Hsinhsarpyar. Young men from Kyaukhnget and Oktwin have reportedly been abducted to porter for frontline troops and serve as human shields. Every young man in Kyaukhnget has now reportedly fled.
Read more: BNI Online
Laos and Myanmar Plan 2,790 MW Mekong Dam
Min Aung Hlaing's visit to Vientiane resulted in the signing of a feasibility-study agreement for a 2,790 MW dam on their shared stretch of the Mekong above the Golden Triangle. Laos' Phongsupthavy Group and Myanmar's Primus Sapphire Power have 34 months to come up with a design for a project that would be larger than any dam either country has ever built. Myanmar is only an observer to the Mekong River Commission; its four members, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, are supposed to review mainstream projects before construction. Laos is restricted by the Commission's 1995 flow rules, which push the design toward a run-of-river scheme like the one in Xayaburi. Cambodia's comparably sized Sambor Dam has been under moratorium for years over damage to the Tonle Sap fishery.
Read more: Bangkok Post (MRC participation call), Stimson Center (Chinese contractor likely)
SCEF Gets the Arakan Army on the Line
The Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union spent more than an hour on a video call with Arakan Army chief Twan Mrat Naing, the first formal meeting between the main resistance coalition and the group that now runs 14 of Rakhine State's 17 townships in addition to Paletwa in Chin State. NUG Prime Minister Mahn Win Khaing Than joined SCEF rotating chairman Khu Oo Reh on the call. No joint political statement was shared after the call. Before the talks, the NUG sent 150,000 yuan, about $21,000, to the AA for flood relief, and the AA replied with a formal letter of thanks.
Read more: DVB (AA territory), Narinjara (SCEF)
Eggs to 700 Kyat
A single egg that cost 100 kyat before the coup will now cost a buyer nearly 700, (that’s about $0.33), and it’s a price that most households can’t stop checking and talking about. The Junta has put limits on the import of breeding hens, feed, and veterinary vaccines, in an attempt to save foreign currency, but that’s caused production costs to rise. In Yangon, an authority-pressured scheme sells eggs at a discounted 550 kyat, but Facebook posts show long lines and many shoppers going home empty-handed. The World Bank clocked annual inflation at almost a quarter in April, with food prices among the fastest-rising goods.
Read more: Mizzima
Min Aung Hlaing Visits India, Then Beijing
Min Aung Hlaing's debut trip abroad as president was supposed to be a wildlife summit. When India's International Big Cat Alliance conference was canceled, New Delhi changed the invitation into a full Official Visit ahead of Beijing's calendar, which stayed booked with Trump and Putin. China got him next, but with the higher-status format of a State Visit, the protocol that confers full sovereign recognition, against India's working-level Official Visit. Naypyidaw did not ask Beijing to move up the queue.
Read more: Stimson Center
Two Phones a Year
Travelers coming into Myanmar by way of Yangon, Naypyidaw or Mandalay may bring in only two mobile phones a year. Unregistered devices need to be declared at customs with their IMEI numbers, and any phone that’s used in-country for more than 30 days will trigger a CEIR registration, result in a tax bill and a fine.
Read more: Nasha Niva
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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