Myanmar Spring Chronicle – December 13 Situation Overview
(MoeMaKa) December 14, 2025
Junta Offensive Operations in Northern Shan State and Mandalay Region
In recent months and weeks, we have seen reports that territories in Madaya, Thabeikkyin, and Singu Townships—areas that MDY PDF forces had captured and controlled in 2024—are now being gradually lost and rolled back.
At the end of July this year, the junta managed to retake Thabeikkyin town. Since then, the military has been launching renewed offensives along the eastern bank of the Ayeyarwady River in Mandalay Region, particularly targeting the gold-mining belts along the Mandalay–Mogok road, with the aim of bringing them back under its control.
In recent days, junta forces have reportedly reoccupied Nyaung Wun Village, southeast of Singu town, and are now attacking from three directions in an effort to seize the whole township. Fighting has broken out in villages within a 10–15 mile radius of Singu, and some of these villages have already fallen back under junta control.
Madaya, Singu, and Thabeikkyin—townships along the Mandalay–Mogok highway—are part of Mandalay Region and host numerous gold mines. The Mandalay People’s Defense Force (MDY PDF) had controlled much of these areas. MDY PDF maintains close relations with the TNLA and operates under the Ministry of Defense of the National Unity Government (NUG). It fought alongside the TNLA in the town-capture offensives of Naungcho, Taung Kham, and Mogok. After the TNLA and the military reached a ceasefire agreement, the junta began to step up its offensives into MDY PDF–controlled territories.
The fact that the Myanmar military has been able to reach ceasefire deals with two strong ethnic armed groups in northern Shan State has opened the door for it to concentrate more forces and pressure on the surrounding and connected areas.
MDY PDF and other PDF units in Sagaing Region had previously joined the Operation 1027 campaigns in northern Shan. Given the heavy losses the junta suffered there in late 2023 and early 2024, it is not surprising that the military is now trying to recapture the territories it lost in Mandalay and Sagaing Regions during that period.
Beyond this, there are other key reasons for the renewed offensives. These areas are rich in gold and host logging operations. They also sit on crucial routes connecting northern Shan State to Myanmar’s central and western regions: Pakokku, Yaw, Saw, and Gangaw, and further west into Chin State, Kalay, and the Kabaw Valley.
Highways on both the eastern and western banks of the Ayeyarwady link Mandalay Region to Kachin State in the north. Because these routes run directly through MDY PDF–influenced areas, they are important movement corridors for resistance forces in central and upper Myanmar. From a military, economic, and strategic perspective, this makes them high-priority targets for junta offensives.
For resistance forces, if the junta manages to reassert control along the eastern bank of the Ayeyarwady all the way from Mandalay up to Kachin State, it will become significantly harder to move and operate.
Inside MDY PDF itself, there have recently been internal problems: some members of the military leadership committee were detained over allegations of financial misconduct. At the same time, the ethnic armed groups that had fought closely alongside them—such as the TNLA—have now entered ceasefire arrangements with the junta, leaving MDY PDF increasingly isolated on this front.
Whether NUG-affiliated units and non-NUG forces operating in Sagaing Region—and on both banks of the Ayeyarwady—will be able to coordinate and jointly resist the junta’s offensive pushes remains uncertain for now.