Myanmar's civil war: the junta's fightback

Myanmar’s civil war, now in its fifth year, has claimed nearly 100,000 lives as the military junta—backed by Russia and China—launches a brutal counter-offensive using forced conscription and drone warfare. Quentin Somerville reports from rebel-held Karen State, where he speaks with four young deserters, aged 19 to 23, who were press-ganged from the streets of Yangon and forced into combat without consent. One was snatched after karaoke, another after missing his last bus—both framed and coerced into service. Despite the junta’s renewed momentum, resistance forces still control over half the country. Among them is Nanda, a 30-something platoon commander who has been wounded 15 times but refuses to surrender, declaring: 'I’ve chosen to take part in this revolution. No matter how good my life was before, I have never looked back.' The episode reveals a war of attrition where the military’s ability to replace lost troops through mass conscription has shifted the balance—but not the moral weight. The resistance, though battered, remains defiant, rooted in decades of anti-military sentiment and a belief that the junta’s rule is illegitimate, no matter the uniform it wears.