By Tarás Shevchuk
We are living through a period of seismic changes and a series of interlinked political events. Starting in the U.S. with the triumph of Donald Trump and the tensions caused by the composition of his future cabinet. We are also facing the escalation represented by the participation of thousands of North Korean troops in the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Faced with this evidence, Ukraine obtained from Biden the belated “limited authorisation” to attack targets on Russian territory with weapons manufactured in the West. Putin’s response was immediate, launching the new hypersonic ‘Oreshnik’ missile, capable of carrying nuclear payloads, over the city of Dnipro – a major industrial centre in south-east Ukraine. This attack was accompanied by an explicit threat to escalate the conflict “if red lines are crossed”, hitting the countries supplying arms to Ukraine.
And it also left an explicit and complimentary message to Trump as the new president-elect, urging him “not to allow the outgoing White House administration to continue to undermine the path of negotiations”. It is no coincidence that several Trumpist Republicans are repeating this narrative against Biden’s decision. In the face of these events, the NATO Council held an emergency meeting and spoke of the “imminence of global war”. These events have brought the war in Ukraine back to the attention of broad sections of the population, beyond the politicised sectors. It is logical that hearing about the “imminence of nuclear war” has an impact, even if it is only rhetorical for the time being. We will try here to analyse the root of Putin’s threat to play “Russian roulette” with nuclear warheads. But apart from the alarm and rhetorical dueling from one side or the other, the essence of the U.S. administration’s policy has not changed qualitatively: to restrict the supply of offensive weapons to Ukraine. Let’s see what is behind such thunderous statements as the missiles launched and the bombs threatened to be dropped.
Let us start by pointing out that the threat of the “nuclear club” is exactly what Putin needs – and Western imperialism uses – to put pressure on Ukraine to make its government sit down to negotiate “peace” with annexations and force it to accept the partition of Ukraine. This is what the U.S., the EU, NATO and, of course, China and even the Pope have been doing for most of Ukraine’s war of national liberation, which has been led by the majority of its working class, despite the politico-military leadership of the country that is subservient to the dictates of imperialism.
Why? Because the “blitzkrieg” planned by the Putin regime to take Kiev in a few days and conquer Ukraine by sweeping away the Zelenski government and forming a puppet government close to the Kremlin, purging all possible leaders who could promote an active resistance, has become a war that has lasted for a thousand days and will intensify the disputes between the imperialist powers in the framework of the crisis of the current world order.
And the U.S., the decadent hegemonic power, has very much in mind the embarrassing fiasco in Iraq and the recent defeat suffered by the Taliban resistance in Afghanistan. That is why all the powers are using the hypocritical discourse of “avoiding escalation” and accuse the other of escalation. But they are all in a feverish arms race, anticipating an inevitable future global armed confrontation.
An aggression that started 10 years ago
In reality, Russian aggression began with the annexation of Crimea and the incursion of Russian paramilitaries into Donbass and the self-proclamation of separatist republics in response to the popular Maidan uprising that deposed President Yanukovych. At the time, both the U.S. and the EU merely expressed “concern” and looked the other way – even Germany’s President Steinmayer visited the annexed Crimea!
When the full-scale invasion of Russia began on February 24, 2022, the Kremlin troops advanced towards their Ukrainian targets from Belarus, from the city of Belgorod on the Russian border towards Kharkov, from the annexed Crimean peninsula and from the territories occupied since 2014 in Donbass. The imperialists’ predictions of Russian aggression were so ominous that Biden offered Zelensky a quick evacuation, fearing that the advance of the invaders would make a rescue operation impossible. But the president was forced to turn down the kind offer from the ‘White House’. Why?
At that moment, tens of thousands of Ukrainian volunteers, inspired by true patriotism, took the resistance into their own hands and flocked to the arsenals to demand weapons – and, against bureaucratic inertia, to seize them – to confront the aggressors in the suburbs of Kiev. Despite a huge loss of life among the population, they managed to drive the invaders out of the whole of northern Ukraine. From there, the Ukrainian armed forces grew from 50,000 untrained, unmotivated and unarmed troops before the invasion to 450,000 today, most of them from the urban and rural working classes. And a significant proportion of them volunteered in the first months of 2022. And despite the many casualties and exhaustion caused by the 1,000 days of war, these troops are much more experienced than when they started.
The Ukrainian masses proved – once again to the world – that an armed, resisting people can stop and expel a far superior military power. And that is why the imperialists began to fear this self-organised popular resistance – although subordinated to the military general staff – more than the invader and occupier itself. This is because this resistance has a latent, objectively revolutionary dynamic and its possible triumph can trigger not only the collapse of the Putin regime but also a weakening of its repressive control in the whole region of the former USSR where the masses are subjected to similar regimes. This regime can still do a lot of damage to Ukraine with missiles and drones, but its ambition to occupy the whole country has failed.
The current situation
Despite Ukraine’s heroic efforts and the war crimes committed by the Russians, the eastern and southern fronts have been stabilised for months to the benefit of the Kremlin. But as Kiev’s enormous difficulties in regaining all its territory become apparent, so does the Kremlin’s growing desperation. Russia is more dependent than ever on China, it is also dependent on military hardware – hundreds of thousands of Shajid drones from Iran and millions of heavy artillery rounds and now thousands of troops from North Korea. And it continues to hire mercenary soldiers in various countries.
The recent surprise advance of the Syrian rebels against the dictator Assad, who seized Aleppo and the Idlib region, is forcing the Putin regime to send troops, planes and weapons not only to defend the Syrian regime – of which it is the mainstay – but also its own two military bases in that country. Another region where Russia’s influence is suffering turbulence and instability is the Caucasus. Violent clashes have again broken out there, led by the Georgian masses against the repressive forces, in rejection of the recent electoral fraud that gave the victory to the Georgian Dream party, linked to business with Moscow and the suspension of talks with the European Union. And also in Abkhazia – an autonomous region that broke away from Georgia 30 years ago – where the population rebelled and ousted the Russian puppet government.
Military and socio-political situation in Ukraine
As a result of the imperialist policy, which can be summarised as: colonisation, indebtedness, critical aid, and blackmail to force it to negotiate peace with annexations, Ukraine is on the defensive in the military and economic field. It is also on the defensive in the diplomatic arena. It is in this context that Zelensky presented his “plan for victory”. Its content is based on the highly unlikely invitation to join NATO.
However, this general defensive situation has contradictory aspects, mainly because of the potential still present among the masses. It must be said, however, that this potential is not inexhaustible, and we can see that its dynamism is waning. But this potential is also reflected in the armed forces. In particular, the vital needs of the war – despite the neo-liberal government’s policy to the contrary – have forced the services of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to dust off a remaining part of its important military-industrial complex (MIC).
In these two years it has developed its own production of drones (including naval ones) and missiles in smaller quantities, which have hit and set fire to important refineries, radars and arsenals or missile and ammunition depots located many hundreds of kilometres inside Russia, seriously affecting the supply of the invaders with firepower. Attacks are also intensifying, with Ukrainian missiles hitting Crimea.
A key question mark over the prolongation of the war is being raised today: will Trump cut off loans to Ukraine more drastically and trigger its capitulation? On the part of the Ukrainian regime, we see the acceleration of preparations in the face of this likelihood. But it is because of a correlation of forces with the masses that emerged on the Maidan in 2014 and still persists, despite the reactionary “democratic” drift and the spillover effects of Putin’s counterrevolutionary aggression, that Zelensky is very careful not to appear overtly discouraging of resistance. But he does announce the search for “an early end to the war” and “a just peace”.
A revolutionary class policy for the war of national liberation
Despite the difficult defensive situation, it is possible to reverse it, defeat Putin’s invasion and expel the Russian occupiers from the entire territory of Ukraine. To do this, Ukraine needs modern weapons, long-range artillery and several dozen F-16 fighter jets.
We condemn any ‘peace initiative’ that involves annexations. The only just peace is one that respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity. We reject NATO, the U.S. and the EU for their hypocritical imperialist blackmail and plunder, while surrendering the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine and negotiating annexations with Putin. We reject this plunder and demand the following:
Cancel Ukraine’s foreign debt to the IMF and all imperialist usurers!
Confiscate all Russian assets and enterprises and those of the Ukrainian oligarchs who continue to serve the aggressor regime!
Centralise the economy in the hands of the state, under workers’ control, in the service of national defence!
All the economy and resources of the nation at the service of victory in the war and not at the service of the profits of the oligarchs and transnational corporations!
We call on the European and world working class, especially the peoples subjugated by Putin’s dictatorship, to show active solidarity with the armed resistance of the Ukrainian working people!
We denounce the hidden defenders of Putin who try to isolate the Ukrainian resistance for its national liberation with “pacifist” arguments!
The Ukrainian working class is at the forefront, sacrificing its life for the sovereignty and integrity of the country. But to whom do the fruits of this economy and the whole country belong? Who does the power of the Ukrainian state serve? We, the workers, will continue to fight for an independent Ukraine! This independence will only be possible with a government of the workers and not of the oligarchs, who are linked to the powers that negotiate with Putin the division of Ukraine!
For these reasons, all our efforts are concentrated on building an independent political organisation of the working class.
