Four Years of War in Ukraine
An model of resistance against imperialist aggression
Four years after the large-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, and the occupation of Ukraine by the army of one of the world’s greatest military powers, we can see that Putin has suffered a strategic defeat, regardless of the final outcome of the war. His goal was to conquer Kyiv in “a few days,” overthrow Zelensky, and replace him with a government loyal to the Kremlin. But the unarmed resistance of men and women, emerging from the working-class neighborhoods, began confronting the tanks with Molotov cocktails. And crowds gathered in front of the arsenals, demanding rifles or whatever weapons they could get. Thousands and thousands volunteered. There were only enough weapons for a small fraction of them. And veterans were a decisive factor in organizing and coordinating the resistance of the “Territorial Defenses”… Only later did they begin to join forces with regular troops and special brigades. And so, not only was the city of Kyiv saved and the entire northwestern region rescued, but the invaders were forced to retreat and vacate vast territories in the Chernigov, Sumy, and Kharkov regions, and after six months, the city of Kherson was liberated.
Putin’s stated goal was to “demilitarize” Ukraine. The result is that since February 2022, those 80,000 poorly trained and precariously armed troops have now grown tenfold. Ukraine now has an army of 800,000 troops, most of whom were workers before the war and are now battle-hardened and skilled in the use of drones, modern weapons, artillery, and missiles.
In other words, Ukraine now has one of the largest and most experienced armies in Europe. And that powerful armed force is an achievement of the stoic sacrifice of the Ukrainian people in their struggle for national independence, not the “partner” governments or “foreign allies,” and even less so NATO. It is necessary to emphasize this because the Kremlin’s narrative that “its invasion is to defend itself against NATO,” repeated by thousands of its paid bloggers and amplified by the pathetic chorus of Stalinists and self-styled “Trotskyists,” that have established the false narrative of a “proxy war.”
Let us remember that Putin’s aggression began in 2014 with the violent annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Donbass, camouflaged as a struggle by Russian-speaking separatists of the self-proclaimed people’s republics DNR and LNR. That aggression was the Kremlin’s counterrevolutionary response to the victory of the masses in the Maidan rebellion against President Yanukovych’s authoritarian turn. Putin falsely called this rebellion a “coup d’état.” But it was not only Putin who falsified the facts. The Western imperialists did so too, because they called it “Euromaidan.” No one in Ukraine calls it that!
And what did the governments of NATO countries do at that time? In fact, they let Putin’s aggression pass! In exchange for continuing to take advantage of its gas and oil, which is useful for European capitalist businesses, they limited themselves to declaring their “deep displeasure.” However, their actions exposed the true policy of Obama, Merkel, and Macron. They locked Ukraine into the “Minsk rounds of negotiations and agreements,” which in fact aimed to legitimize Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the secession of Donbass. The semi-colonial representatives of the Ukrainian oligarchy went along with this: first Poroshenko and later Zelensky.
In the last four years, Putin sent more than 1.2 million of his troops to their death and/or dismemberment, including 270,000 of the best trained soldiers at his disposal, and they failed to occupy part of the territories of Donbass and southeastern Ukraine—which they supposedly came to “liberate” and have already considered as their own for two years, modifying the Constitution of the Russian Federation for this express purpose. Today, having failed to make any significant progress on the front, Putin is taking his revenge by tormenting and murdering the civilian population, bombing kindergartens, maternity wards, schools… He is striking homes en masse with ballistic missiles and drones. In the midst of one of the harshest winters, the Ukrainian people are surviving without electricity or heating. But they are not giving up!
The Russian economy is also showing signs of alarm. Increasingly, its population sees that this imperialist war—euphemistically called the “Special Military Operation”—is leading them to their graves and to ruin. Putin does not have much time and wants to take advantage of Trump’s stay in the White House to pressure the Ukrainian government to deliver at the negotiating table what Russia cannot conquer on the battlefield. That is why, from Alaska to Miami, he has been trying to seduce the Trump clan (Kushner, Witkoff) with a share of the Ukrainian spoils, among other things.
Aggression from Moscow, blackmail from Washington, and anti-popular measures from Kyiv
In the context of the Putin regime’s counterrevolutionary aggression against Ukraine since 2014, and even more so since the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the government and the Rada (Ukrainian parliament) continue to act in the service of the oligarchs and capitalist owners. With the rules of the market economy without any state regulation in the midst of a war against invasion! At the same time, they are guided by the dictates of US foreign policy.
On the other hand, taking advantage of martial law and the military situation, they are reinforcing their reactionary offensive against workers and other oppressed sectors, suppressing laws that recognized progressive rights or social benefits and “reforms” in labor and union laws. They are imposing a rollback of all democratic freedoms, which for years were achieved through the struggles of trade unions, social organizations, and student groups. But the momentum of Maidan is still latent among the masses, and when the government and the Rada attempted to rein in the power of the autonomous anti-corruption agencies (NABU and SAP), a spontaneous mobilization led by urban youth forced them to back down.
In four years of war, the government has not mobilized the economy or oriented it toward national defense. However, despite the government’s policies, the Ukrainian armed forces have managed to counterattack Russia’s energy production as well as its airfields and military bases. Ukraine produces aerial and naval drones with which it has damaged a large part of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, dislodging it from its base in Sevastopol. And although still on a small scale, it also manages to produce missiles such as the Neptune and the Flamingo, with which it strikes military targets on Russian territory, several thousand kilometers from Ukraine.
Urgent measures to strengthen resistance
These four years reaffirm the urgent need for the nationalization of the main branches of industry and natural and energy resources and the mobilization of the entire economy and human resources under workers’ and social control. Without a solid rearguard, the front cannot be sustained, and without an armed front for defense, the rear is completely vulnerable to bombardment. It is a fact that the character of the Ukrainian government—dependent on the US, pro-imperialist, and populist—produces equivocations that weaken the resistance and harm the workers, who, on the front lines and in the rear, are the only ones offering all their energy and their lives to defend Ukraine’s independence, despite the burden of the country’s misguided political and military leadership.
That is why our policy and message is directed at the peoples of the world who truly support the Ukrainian resistance. This is the case with the majority of the US people, and it is the underlying reason why Trump and his clan, despite their interest in negotiating with Putin at the expense of Ukrainian territories to “end the war as soon as possible,” have not yet finalized the handover. Because such a move would bring even more rejection from their own supporters.
Ukraine’s victory will mean a huge boost for workers and oppressed nations around the world. It will be an example of resistance for all those who face dictatorships, imperialist invasions, and genocide, such as the Palestinian people suffering at the hands of the Zionist state of Israel. It is very important to achieve this victory, which will likely result in the collapse of the dictatorial FSB regime in Russia, which is a prison for hundreds of nations in Eurasia, forced to serve as cannon fodder for the Moscow oligarchy. And our task must be to appeal for all of their solidarity in support of the armed resistance of the Ukrainian people, in moral, political, and material terms. And also to appeal for the help of workers in the US, Europe, and other oppressed countries, without having a shred of confidence that their governments will do this for them.
A significant part of the Ukrainian people aspire to see this war—which has already lasted longer than the Nazi invasion of the USSR, 1941-1945—end soon, although they reject any outcome that could mean the humiliation and subjugation of Ukraine. We are not sure when will be the end. However, we must understand that achieving this goal will not be thanks to the “negotiators” but rather thanks to the strength of the Ukrainian people’s resistance on the battlefield and in the rear.
