The ongoing war between western and Russian imperialism has been bogged down in military stalemate since the start of Ukraine’s summer offensive in June 2023. There are massive numbers of casualties on both sides, and Ukraine is now running short of essential supplies of ammunition and artillery shells as financial and military support from both the US and EU falters. The idea that the severe economic sanctions imposed on Russia since the start of the military conflict would undermine Russia’s ability to pursue the war has turned out to be a major miscalculation by the western imperialist powers. The longer this stalemate continues, the more divisions in both the Ukrainian ruling class and amongst western imperialist powers are opening up. British imperialism, though, is stepping up its support for Ukraine and its commitment to NATO’s military provocations. BOB SHEPHERD reports.
The Commander in Chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, has not only acknowledged that the military conflict has reached a ‘stalemate’, but also that the longer it drags on the harder it will be for Ukraine to sustain its present military commitment. As well as lack of ammunition one of the main problems facing Ukraine is a lack of conscripts and manpower able to fight on the frontlines. In a major interview with The Economist on 1 November 2023, Zaluzhnyi was clear that if the supply of fresh recruits didn’t increase it would become more and more difficult for Ukraine to sustain the war, ‘because sooner or later we are going to find that we simply don’t have enough people to fight’.
Russia claims that Ukraine has so far suffered 400,000 military casualties, both dead and wounded. This figure was immediately denied by the Ukrainian government but is accepted as broadly accurate by other Ukrainian sources. It is estimated Ukraine has suffered around 125,000 casualties since the start of the so-called summer offensive in 2023.
The desperation of the military for fresh recruits was expressed by the Ukrainian Defence Minister, Rustem Umerov, who at the end of December issued veiled threats to Ukrainian men living outside the country who refused to return to fight in the armed forces. It is estimated that over 750,000 men eligible for call-up have left Ukraine since the start of the war. Many of these are the children of the ruling and upper middle classes.
Umerov implied that there would be a military call-up of all those outside Ukraine and that they would face unspecified consequences if they refused. Describing the recruitment drive not as a punishment for those affected but as ‘an honour’, he declared, ‘We are still discussing what should happen if they don’t come voluntarily.’
This lack of military recruits is what lay behind the proposals floated by President Zelensky in December, alongside Umerov’s comments, to conscript and mobilise up to 500,000 extra men for military service. In his news conference announcing these measures Zelensky said that his military commanders were ‘seeking’ an extra ‘450,000-500,000 individuals’ but that this was a sensitive and costly issue. The cost for mobilising this number of recruits would be around $13.3bn, which at the moment Ukraine would struggle to find: in December Republicans in the US Congress blocked $60bn in funding and Hungary blocked an EU financial package of $55bn for Ukraine.
Divisions amongst the imperialist ruling class
The blocking of funds and military aid to Ukraine by sections of the ruling class in both the US and Europe reflects a realisation that this conflict, far from helping solve the growing economic crisis of imperialism, could actually be making things worse. The economic sanctions the US and EU imposed on Russia – which US President Biden claimed would have a long-term impact on the Russian economy and ‘surpass anything we’ve ever done’ –have not in reality hampered Russia’s ability to pursue the war. Russian President Putin claimed in December that their economy was growing at over 3% and that unemployment was at an all-time low, due in no small part to their massive increase in arms production. The attempts to isolate Russia from the international arena have also failed: while trade between Russia and Europe has, since 2022, fallen by 70%, trade between Russia and Asia increased by 70%. Between January and November last year the trade between Russia and China was over $218bn, 26.7% more than the same period in 2022.
The failure of the economic sanctions imposed on Russia to severely weaken its military capabilities and the failure of the Ukrainian military to make any meaningful advances during its ‘summer offensive’ are leading to divisions amongst the western imperialist ruling classes. One factor undermining European ruling class unity behind the US led proxy war is the fact that from February 2022 until September that year, the EU started paying, on average, double what it paid in 2021 for liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US. In January, the German parliament voted down an opposition proposal that would have guaranteed the delivery of long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Germany has been Kiev’s largest European backer, coming in just after the United States with €17.1bn. It was followed by Britain, with €6.6bn (Kiel Institute).
All this is exacerbating the problems Ukraine is experiencing with a general shortage of ammunition and shells for its Soviet-era artillery. The underlying problem for Ukraine is that it is using more shells and ammunition than are currently being produced by the US and other NATO countries combined. Last year the EU pledged to send one million artillery shells by March 2024, but so far less than half a million have either been delivered or are in the pipeline. Since the conflict began the US has provided Ukraine with more than two million shells for use in its Western-made artillery systems, but in the process its own stocks have been depleted, prompting the decision last summer to send cluster munitions instead of the standard shells.
In December 2023, the Estonian Defence Ministry issued a report stating that Ukraine needed a minimum of 200,000 artillery shells a month to retain an edge against Russia, concluding that ‘sustaining this rate will empty European and US stockpiles over 2024 and will require significant foreign purchases of ammunition’.
Divisions in the Ukrainian ruling class
The draft law on conscription floated by Zelensky in December was put to the Ukrainian parliament in January but was surprisingly knocked back. At present, once called up, soldiers are granted only ten days holiday a year and are forced to stay in the military until the end of the war with Russia. The bill proposed lowering the age of conscription from 27 to 25 with a length of military service of 36 months. It also proposed limiting draft dodgers’ rights to own property and access their own money. Even though Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People, holds the majority of seats in parliament the draft law failed to be passed.
While the law would have helped address the lack of new recruits into the armed forces, it would mean confronting sections of the ruling class whose children are dodging military service. The failure to pass the legislation reflects deeper divisions within the Ukrainian ruling class on the future of the conflict.
In his 1 November interview General Zaluzhnyi stated that there was a military stalemate on the front and that Ukraine should be prepared for a long-drawn-out conflict. This analysis was publicly dismissed by Zelensky, arguing that the front had not reached a stalemate and that Ukraine did not need negative messages. This public dispute between the President and the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces opened the door for other voices that oppose Zelensky to come forward. The mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, supported the position of General Zaluzhnyi, accusing Zelensky of holding too much power and of leading the country towards authoritarianism. In response to the news that the presidential election scheduled for March is unlikely to take place he declared: ‘We will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man.’
Oleksiy Goncharenko, one of the leading figures of Ukraine’s main opposition party European Solidarity, supported Klitschko’s criticism of Zelensky’s authoritarianism. He went on to criticise Zelensky’s control over the media, specifically the uniform news programmes that were created after the beginning of the war: ‘The leader is comfortable with the fact that there is no criticism and that he controls much of the media.’
The main criticism of Zelensky at present is coming from the more nationalist wing of the ruling class who accuse him of being unprepared for Russia’s invasion in 2022 and for not fully supporting the military and General Zaluzhnyi. There are other voices who argue for a peace strategy but who are a minority at present. These divisions are inevitably going to widen as the military stalemate and human suffering continues through the winter months.
British imperialist warmongering
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Kiev on 12 January 2024 to express British imperialism’s continuing support for the war with Russia. En route he found time to announce a further £2.5bn in military aid for Ukraine, while simultaneously giving the go-ahead to bomb Yemen. The fact that it was only the British air force that flew alongside the US in the bombing of Yemen illustrates the role British imperialism is playing in Ukraine as the ‘wingman’ of US imperialism. The £2.5bn in military aid for the new financial year is an increase from the £2.3bn given to Ukraine for the last two years. At least £200m will be spent on the production of thousands of military drones, including surveillance, long-range strike and sea drones. Most of the drones will be made in Britain which in reality amounts to a £200m subsidy for the British arms industry.
On 15 January the new Secretary of Defence Grant Shapps announced Britain’s participation in the largest NATO military exercise organised for decades, which will span Eastern Europe, last into May and openly target Russia as the enemy, stating: ‘the UK will be sending some 20,000 personnel to take part in one of NATO’s largest deployments since the end of the Cold War, Exercise Steadfast Defender. It will see our military joining forces with counterparts from 30 NATO countries plus Sweden, providing vital reassurance against the Putin menace.’ His comments expressed the continuing dreams of sections of the ruling class that British imperialism will continue to be a ‘leader’ of nations in the coming period: ‘We are in a new era and we must be prepared to deter our enemies, prepared to lead our allies and prepared to defend our nation whenever the call comes’. This is a dream which has lost any reality it once had, Britain’s role in the world depends now on its continued alliance with US imperialism.
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 298 February/March 2024
