After over three months of war in Ukraine, Russian military advances have been repelled around Kiev and have slowed down and been brought to a halt in parts of the east and south of the country. This military achievement by Ukrainian forces is a direct result of the massive amount of arms and military hardware that is being funneled into the country by imperialism and the NATO bloc. Out of the over $5bn worth of hardware already pumped into the country since the invasion began, the US has now sent at least $3.9bn worth. Britain has contributed £200m with another £300m ready if needed. NATO’s encroachment onto Russia’s borders has also ratcheted up a notch with both Finland and Sweden making formal applications on 18 May to join NATO. These developments, both military and political, have given US, British and European imperialism confidence that Russia can be militarily worn down and defeated in Ukraine. The political consequence of that, they hope, will be regime change in Moscow and the formation of a government subservient to the interests of western imperialism. BOB SHEPHERD reports.
Peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia had begun on 28 February four days after the Russian military invasion. These talks carried on until the end of March with the Ukrainian side reportedly agreeing that they would withdraw any application to join NATO and would seek a status of neutrality with their security guaranteed by both Russia and NATO. The negotiations then apparently came to a halt after Boris Johnson visited Kiev on 9 April. Ukrainian media reported that Johnson had put pressure on Ukrainian President Zelensky to stop the negotiations as both Britain and the US wanted Putin and Russia to suffer a humiliating military defeat. This claim was supported by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who said on 25 April that the US and Britain had played a major role in forcing Zelensky to backtrack on the promises made during the peace negotiations in March. He said the decision to stall the talks ‘was taken on the advice of our American and British colleagues’ and declared that Ukrainians were being used as a proxy by NATO to wage war against Russia.
The end of the peace negotiations was confirmed by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko who stated on 17 May that, ‘the talks are not continuing. Ukraine has in fact quit the process of negotiations’.
The US and Britain’s assessment of the military situation is that, due to the amount of military hardware being pumped into Ukraine, Russia has been drawn into a protracted conflict which it cannot win and which as a consequence will see Putin politically weakened. Their goal is regime change in Moscow and the formation of a new government that will allow imperialist mining corporations and multinationals free rein to exploit Russia’s resources. The amount of death and destruction inflicted on the people of Ukraine, particularly the poor and working class, in pursuing this military and political objective is of no consequence for imperialist politicians in London and Washington.
US President Biden, at the end of a speech in Warsaw, Poland, on 26 March, blurted out imperialism’s war aims, ‘for God’s sake, this man [Putin] cannot remain in power’.
In a visit to Kiev on 25 April by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Austin declared that Ukraine ‘can win if they have the right equipment, the right support. And we’re going to do everything we can… to ensure that that gets there…we want to see Russia weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine’.
The following day on 26 April the US convened a meeting of the Defence Ministers and representatives of 42 countries; including all members of NATO, countries from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, which included Israel, at their Ramstein Air Base in Germany. This turned out to be the inaugural meeting of the Ukraine Defence Consultative Group which the US announced will now meet monthly to pursue the war aims of imperialism. The purpose of the meeting was to consolidate support for Ukrainian military forces with the announcements of more military aid and also to prepare the political ground for the conflicts to come. As Austin put it in his opening speech, ‘the stakes stretch beyond Ukraine – and even beyond Europe’.
The ‘stakes’ stretch in fact into the Indo-Pacific and end in China. On 23 May, in Tokyo, Biden inaugurated the ‘Indo-Pacific Economic Framework’ which includes 13 countries which account for 40% of the world’s GDP. This is the latest initiative by US imperialism to counter the economic power and influence of China in the region. In a joint statement put out by Biden and the Prime Minister of Japan, ‘Strengthening the Free and Open International Order’, they threatened China over what they labeled ‘China’s unlawful maritime claims, militarisation of reclaimed features, and coercive activities in the South China Sea’ and expressed ‘concern’ over the recent security agreement signed between China and the Solomon Islands. In a press conference the same day, Biden had provocatively linked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with possible military action by China in Taiwan declaring that the US would defend Taiwan.
The next day, 24 May, saw a Summit meeting of the Quad group of countries, Australia, India, Japan and the US, in Tokyo where their declaration, without mentioning China, was in fact a challenge to China. Its main theme was a call for a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ with references to the ‘militarisation of disputed features’ and other coded phrases which are a direct threat to the policies of China in the South China Sea. The US’s proxy war with Russia is but the beginning of a continued confrontation with China with even more potentially drastic consequences for the international working class.
Imperialist arms flow into Ukraine
One of the key tasks of the new Ukraine Defence Consultative Group will be making sure the arms manufacturers are up to speed in supplying the massive amounts of military hardware the imperialists know they will need, not just in Ukraine but for the wars to come. Austin laid out the situation in his briefing after the meeting had closed: ‘We held an important session today on the long term support for Ukraine’s defences, including what that will take from our defence industrial bases. That means dealing with the tremendous demand that we’re facing for munitions and weapons platforms giving our staunch support to Ukraine while also meeting our own requirements and those of our allies and partners’. The US Defence Department has issued mind blowing figures for the amount of arms it has already shipped to Ukraine:
‘As of 21 April, the US had provided over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems; more than 5,500 Javelin anti-armour systems; 700 Switchblade tactical unmanned aerial systems; 90 Howitzers and 208,000 Howitzer 155 mm artillery rounds; 17 counter-artillery radars; and over 50 million rounds of ammunition to the Ukrainians.’
One of the immediate pledges from the meeting was Germany agreeing to provide 50 self-propelled anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine, a further development in Germany’s abandonment of its post-Second World War policy of not supplying arms to areas of conflict. Canada announced it would be sending extra armoured vehicles and Britain had already announced it would be providing additional anti-aircraft capabilities.
On 19 May the US announced another $100m package of arms including 18 Howitzers; the Defence Department press release included the amounts of money US imperialism has pumped into Ukraine since the Maidan coup in 2014 to build up Ukrainian military capabilities:
‘The United States has now committed approximately $4.6bn in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including approximately $3.9bn since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked further invasion on 24 February. Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $6.6bn in security assistance to Ukraine.’
Britain’s Defence Minister Ben Wallace on a visit to the US on 11 May praised the role played by the US, ‘way before, back to 2015 the United States was in Ukraine, by Ukraine, both with training and support, and in military aid in a way that no other country was.’
These statements by representatives of both US and British imperialism show clearly that the Ukraine conflict with Russia is something that has been prepared for by the imperialists for a long time. They now see their chance to destroy Russia as an imperialist competitor and are willing to risk the lives of millions of people in the process.
NATO’s further expansion
Finland and Sweden’s formal applications to join NATO will just make official what has been the reality for a number of years. Both countries’ militaries have regularly been engaged in joint exercises with NATO. One of the decisions of the NATO Summit in Wales in September 2014 was to set up a Joint Expeditionary Force led by Britain; its area of action was defined as the North Atlantic, Baltic Sea Region and in the High North. Its initial seven members were all members of NATO but in 2017 both Finland and Sweden joined. Swedish and Finish troops have also been deployed in both Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the imperialist occupation forces.
Britain has played a major role in drawing them into the NATO alliance highlighted by Johnson’s visits to Sweden and Finland on 11 May and the signing of a security agreement which commits Britain to go to their defence if they are attacked. This agreement is seen as a guarantor of their security in the period between them making their application to join NATO and their acceptance as members. Both Sweden and Finland had raised their security concerns with the US, and Britain enthusiastically stepped in to plug the gap.
The effect of Finland, with a border of over 800 miles with Russia, joining NATO will ratchet up the pressure on Russia even more and massively increase the possibility of direct military clashes between NATO and Russian forces. All the actions being taken by NATO and the imperialist powers are designed not to decrease tension but to increase it and force Russia into submission. It was this build-up of NATO’s military forces in Eastern Europe which provoked Russia into launching its reckless and ultimately counterproductive military action in Ukraine in the first place. If Russia feels its national security is threatened then both Putin and Lavrov have said they would consider the nuclear option.
As we stated in FRFI 287, in its military action in Ukraine, ‘Russia is attempting to defend its own capitalist and imperialist interests and to stop the advance of NATO. It is an expression, not just of desperation, but of the growing inter-imperialist rivalries within a global capitalist crisis exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.’
Our job as communists in Britain is to build opposition to British imperialist warmongering and fight to build a new anti-imperialist, socialist movement on the streets of our cities.
British troops out of Eastern Europe! Disband NATO!
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no 288, June/July 2022
