One year on from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which the Russian ruling class believed would quickly achieve its military and political objectives, the Russian military is bogged down in a protracted conflict. Ukrainian forces were able to turn back Russia’s initial military advances and have prevented any further major ones. Their ongoing success is entirely dependent on the massive amounts of arms and equipment pumped into Ukraine by NATO countries. BOB SHEPHERD reports.
What is taking place in Ukraine is a proxy war between the NATO military alliance and Russian imperialism. It is a brutal inter-imperialist conflict that is being fuelled and prolonged by the western imperialist nations which are prepared to risk nuclear war in their desire to destroy Russia as a military rival. The Ukrainian ruling class is a willing partner in this, as the Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov put it: ‘Ukraine as a country, and the armed forces of Ukraine, became a member of NATO de facto… I’m sure that in the near future, we’ll become a member of NATO, de jure’.
Ukraine – a corrupt, oligarchic state
The myth that the war is being waged to defend ‘democratic Ukraine’, has been shattered by the revelations of corruption emanating from Kiev. On 21 January the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure was arrested and accused of accepting a bribe of over $350,000 in connection with the supply of electricity generators. This was followed on 23 January by resignations and dismissals that included a top adviser to President Zelensky, four deputy ministers and five regional governors. Included amongst the deputy ministers was the Deputy Defence Minister, accused of corruption in the purchase of military food supplies. The EU has long been aware of the extent of corruption at the heart of the Ukrainian state, producing a report in September 2021 entitled ‘Reducing Grand Corruption in Ukraine’.* It was inevitable that the astronomical amounts of foreign ‘aid’ pouring into the country would provide an irresistible ‘get-rich-quick-scheme’ for the country’s elite. But, with its eyes on EU membership, there is also huge pressure on the Ukrainian government to at least appear to be getting its house in order; hence President Zelensky has been forced to clamp down on his government associates.
Russia’s ‘Special Military Operation’
24 February marks one year since the invasion of Ukraine. In his statement announcing the ‘special military operation’ Russian President Putin outlined the concerns of the Russian ruling class, the eastward expansion of NATO over the past 30 years, the refusal of western imperialist powers to take Russia’s security concerns seriously and the failure to implement the Minsk peace agreements.
The Minsk agreements, signed in 2014 and 2015 between Russia and Ukraine and overseen by Germany and France, were supposedly aimed at stopping the conflict in the Donbass, a region of eastern Ukraine with a majority Russian ethnic population, by granting it autonomy within a unified Ukrainian state. However in December 2022 former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, admitted that the Minsk agreements were primarily aimed at giving Ukraine time to build up its military forces, saying:
‘The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time. It also used this time to become stronger … The Ukraine of 2014-15 is not the Ukraine of today … in early 2015, Putin could easily have overrun them.’
The reason Putin gave for the invasion was to protect the Russian population in the Donbass from repeated attacks:
‘The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine. It is not our plan to occupy Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force.’
The implication was that the action would be swift and decisive. The reality has been anything but. The war has been devastating for the working class of both Ukraine and Russia. Exact casualty figures are impossible to find but at least 100,000 troops have been killed on both sides and around 7,000 Ukrainian civilians. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that from a pre-war population of approximately 42 million there are now nearly eight million Ukrainian refugees in other European countries with more than six and a half million internally displaced. Eastern Ukraine has seen the destruction of cities, towns, villages and agricultural areas. International repercussions include the rise in staple food prices and for Europe in particular a massive rise in fuel costs.
Preparing Ukraine for conflict
The cultivation of Ukraine by western imperialism began immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1991 NATO set up the North Atlantic Cooperation Council which had as its aim the co-option of the former socialist states of Eastern Europe into the NATO military alliance. Ukraine was one of the first members. Between 1991 and 2000, the US provided almost $2.6bn in military aid. In July 1997, Ukraine and NATO signed the NATO-Ukraine Charter which accelerated Ukraine’s military integration with NATO. Arms supplies accelerated after the Maidan coup in 2014 as western imperialist powers established their political dominance in Ukraine. From then on, Ukraine was viewed as a spearhead to attack and undermine the strength and influence of an emerging Russian imperialism:
- In July 2014 Britain helped initiate the ‘Joint Commission for Defence Reform and Security Cooperation’ to integrate the Ukrainian military further into NATO structures.
- In early 2015 Britain launched Operation Orbital which by the time of the Russian invasion in 2022 had trained 22,000 Ukrainian troops.
- Since the Maidan coup in 2014 the US has poured approximately $27.11bn into Ukraine. The majority of that vast sum, $24.3bn, has come since the Russian invasion, during which time other NATO allies have collectively provided over $13bn.
On 6 January 2023 the US Bureau of Political-Military Affairs announced a further package of over $3bn in military hardware for Ukraine, including 50 Bradley fighting vehicles and a Patriot air defence missile battery. Around 100 Ukrainian troops will be trained in the US to operate the Patriot system.
On 14 January, the week before a meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group (UCG) at the US Ramstein airbase in Germany, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that Britain would be supplying Ukraine with 14 Challenger 2 battle tanks. Defence Minister Ben Wallace used Sunak’s announcement to attempt to pressurise Germany into agreeing to the export of its premier battle tank, the Leopard 2.
Defence Ministers and officials from over 50 countries attended the UCG to agree a further massive influx of arms shipments into Ukraine. Ignoring British pressure and reflecting underlying tensions within NATO over the direction of the war, Germany’s new Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius, refused to agree to the export of the Leopard 2, either from Germany or from other European states which had bought them. Germany didn’t want to be isolated in providing advanced tanks to Ukraine; they wanted the US to provide some of its elite M1 Abrams as part of any agreement. Pistorius denied Germany was unilaterally blocking the export of the tanks:
‘There are good reasons for the deliveries and there are good reasons against, and in view of the entire situation of a war that has been ongoing for almost one year, all pros and cons must be weighed very carefully. [The impression that] there is a united coalition and that Germany is standing in the way is wrong … there are many allies who say we share the view that I have put forward here.’
Later, on 25 January, in a clearly coordinated move, the US followed Germany in announcing they would now send their premier battle tanks to Ukraine. Germany will send 14 Leopard 2 tanks and grant export licences to countries such as Poland who want to send Leopard 2 tanks that they have bought from Germany, while the US will send 31 M1 Abrams tanks. The Leopard 2 tanks will be operational within a few months but the M1 Abrams will take much longer.
British warmongering
Sunak’s announcement over the Challenger 2 tank continued his, and Britain’s, high-profile public support for Ukraine. In November 2022 Sunak’s first overseas visit after the G20 Summit was to Kiev where he announced a £50m military aid package. A statement from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) published on 30 December 2022 details what it boasts is ‘a continuous supply of support that the UK has been providing Ukraine throughout 2022 and which will continue in 2023’. Britain was the first European country to send military supplies to Ukraine following the Russian invasion.
In addition to providing military equipment Britain has trained thousands more Ukrainian troops. A major new training programme began in June. Specialist training has also been conducted on the equipment provided to Ukraine. The MOD statement proudly states that the £2.3bn of military aid Britain provided to Ukraine in 2022 was more than any other country apart from the US, and that the government will provide at least the same level of funding in 2023. Britain has also established the ‘International Fund for Ukraine’, yet another route for financing the Ukrainian state.
Simmering rivalry with China
As the proxy war with Russia grinds on, western imperialist powers are preparing the ground for what seems an inevitable military confrontation with China. On 10 January, NATO and the EU signed a joint declaration which said: ‘We live in an era of growing strategic competition. China’s growing assertiveness and policies present challenges that we need to address.’
On 12/13 January the Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Japan met with the US Secretary of Defence and President to discuss increased military cooperation in the Pacific region. This was the latest in a series of meetings that have also included Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and India and whose purpose is to strengthen military and economic cooperation in opposition to the growing economic power of China.
Before the talks Japan had already announced that by 2027 it will have doubled its military spending. The joint statements released after these meetings included an agreement to station more US troops in Japan, increase military collaboration in the Pacific Islands and significantly stated that the ‘Indo-Pacific faces growing challenges from actions inconsistent with the rules-based international order by China’. ‘Rules-based international order’ is code for the continuing ability of the world’s imperialist powers to dominate and exploit resources where they please. The fact that China also wants access to these same resources is viewed by the US, Japan, Britain and other western imperialist powers as a direct threat to their interests.
In this period of economic crisis and political instability western imperialism cannot allow China to successfully challenge these interests and forge economic and political alliances through its Belt and Road Initiative. This is what the western imperialist powers mean when they talk about their international order. The path that our ruling class are on leads to further war which in today’s context means nuclear confrontation and the potential death of millions of working class people. This outcome can only be prevented by building an anti-imperialist movement.
No to War! No to NATO!
See ‘Ukraine: Zelensky’s kleptocracy’, April 2022 at revolutionarycommunist.org
