2/21/2022
Written by Zach Carlson
How did we get here and what do we do?
Recently, President Biden issued another statement on Ukraine stating, “We are ready to respond decisively to Russian attack on Ukraine, which is still very much a possibility. If Russia attacks Ukraine it’ll be a war of choice, or, a war without cause or reason.
“I say these things not to provoke, but to speak the truth. Because the Truth matters. Accountability matters,” Biden said.
The United States and the national Democratic Party are once again inventing a new reality of what is on the ground. Since Russian military movements near the Ukrainian border began in early December of 2021, the United States and its media outlets have done nothing but stoke the flames and possibility of war between the two historic nations. They raise the alarms and utter every epitaph they can at a nation using their own sovereignty to move their military units among their own borders, despite the United States and NATO consistently moving international troops near Russian borders for almost yearly war games1. There is no clearer example of the pot calling the kettle black.
The Russian-Ukrainian political situation is not an easy and clear cut one. If one wished for a truly comprehensive examination, they would have to go back hundreds of years to Imperial Russia, and the Tasrdom of Rus before that. Where it starts to directly affect our current situation is during the latter Soviet years. While the relationship with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) and the wider Soviet Union was good, though tenuous at times, the failure to fully address Ukrainian nationalism and fascistic tendencies within it is one of the core agitators today.
During the slow decay and collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 80s and early 90s, Ukrainian nationalists found their opportunity once again, as did nationalists in many post-Soviet states. Ukraine entered a period of rapid de-Sovietization, looking to cleanse itself of the past. The late Soviet Union was not a paradise and coupled with capitalist restoration, mass privatization, IMF and World Bank debt entrapment, and sky rocketing homelessness, addiction, and sex trafficking, Ukrainian fascists and nationalists were able to find avenues into the modern era. The only issue aside from them being fascists – Ukraine was never a monoethnic state and had ever changing borders.
In 2014 during government protests, pro-Western, pro-EU, pro-NATO forces took control of the Ukrainian government. The previous government voted down the European Union – Ukraine Association Agreement, which would have established access to the European Investment Bank and created free trade agreements among EU nations. A tool of EU neo-liberal control. That government, however, was strongly supported by eastern and southern Ukrainian constituencies like in the Crimea and Donetsk regions. As the pro-western government took over in a coup, protests broke out in the eastern parts of the country, forming quickly into people’s militias to fight the fascist organizations and parties in the western portion of the nation.2
The new pro-western president, Petro Poroshenko, an ally to the U.S., quickly looked to beat back opposition. Famous war criminal Senator John McCain and Senator Chris Murphy appeared during the initial protests to inflame and create support for a pro-EU and western outcome. Fascist and far-right riots in support of the west attacked the previous government and raided headquarters offices of those who supported them. These fascist and far right elements are what propelled the instability in Ukraine in late 2013 and early 2014, bringing to power Poroshenko. However, those in the eastern fingers of Ukraine stood ready to fight back against those fascist and nationalist forces aided by the United States. In places like Donetsk, Odessa, and Luhansk, thousands protested the new government, many rallying around old Soviet statues and buildings.3
Protests soon turned into a localized civil and anti-fascist war in the eastern parts of Ukraine. The Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic taking up arms after their anti-western and anti-fascist protests met stiff government and fascist retaliation, namely in the form of the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia group now officially incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.4
These neo-Nazis and fascists now also stoke the flames of war, hoping to bring their ideology back into the mainstream.5 The Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics took on the call to fight the fascists back, and have largely won. They currently maintain their autonomy in the eastern reaches of Ukraine and continue to be a point of contention between Ukraine and Russia.6
Another primary cause starts at the end of World War II when the United States and European capitalist nations like Britain and France created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to combat what they perceived as Soviet threats. Despite their members being the only powers that actually led any coups and assassination in the post war years, NATO was there to provide a supposed counter to the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. Since the end of the Soviet Union, NATO has ceased to have a need for existence. Yet, it has increasingly included more and more nations to be part of its organization. These new nations are increasingly eastward towards Russia’s borders where the U.S. and its allies continue to plan Russian isolation.
The United States, the largest contributor to NATO, uses its economic and military might to effectively control the organization. Its economic supremacy ensured positive trading relationships with NATO countries in the past war years, especially as an exporting nation to build Europe back up after World War II. While its economic hegemony has been contested, the economic ties they have built up over the past 80 years have effectively turned NATO members into client states used as pawns in their isolationist strategy against Russia. European nations have not been very upset about this either. Because of the U.S.’ economic might and military superiority, European nations spend fractions as much on their own militaries and NATO commitments than the U.S. does. Often for their capitalist classes, a little militaristic and economic control to save them billions of dollars a year is a fair trade off.
The United States has no short history of fabricating threats to drum up militaristic fervor. One that most all people remember clearly is the assertion there were weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq after the 9/11 attacks. This was presented as fact despite no credible intelligence of WMDs in Iraq, the Taliban had few to no links to the Iraqi government, and none of the perpetrators of the attack were trained in, or even from, Iraq. These lies brought us a multi trillion dollar war where weapon manufacturers, logistic and supply companies, and private contactors made out like bandits at the cost of the U.S. worker both in tax dollars and lives. That is to say little of the nearly 1,000,000 Iraqis who lost their lives during the invasion and occupation, the vast majority of those being civilians.
The capitalist state is used to manufacturing issues abroad to quiet criticism at home. From 2016 through 2018, and even into today, liberals and the Democratic Party have gone out of their way to blame the failures of their own domestic policy on Russia, a safe 100 year old boogy man to ensure the people of the United States always have somewhere else to look. Russiagate, as it became known as, was an explicit effort to turn people’s attention away from domestic woes, based on anonymous intelligence sources. Ignore the fact that people are against austerity, ignore the fact the DNC did everything they could to ensure their favored candidates won rather than the people’s, ignore the fact that the United States actually meddles in other countries’ elections, ignore the fact that the electoral college ensures it is the ruling classes, and not the people, who get to choose the president, ignore the fact people are starving, without healthcare, and are paid poverty wages. Instead, look to Russia who has been the United State’s fallback villain since 1917.
What we see now is an extension of those same tactics. Ignore the failure to secure the Build Back Better Act, ignore the failure to extend the child tax credit, ignore the fact that student debt cancellation has not come, ignore the fact that Biden has continued deportations despite promises to the contrary, ignore the fact the John Louis Voting Rights Act has stalled out, ignore the fact we’ve expanded military spending, and ignore the fact the Biden administration believes we need to fund the police further. Ignore all of that and look to Russia, with no credible information to give, may invade this smaller nation that the U.S. working class has no ties to.
Further, as the U.S. created civil war in Syria continues on, we see a new style of proxy war for the 21st century. As Russian forces back Syrian president Assad against U.S. funded and created extremists in the Middle East, the U.S. turns to new forms of warfare right on Russia’s border with one of their oldest and most complex neighbors at a time where fascism is on the rise. This brings us to this moment – Russian forces near the border of Ukraine.
Since 2014 there have been reports of Russian interference in Ukraine. Particularly in Crimea and among the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. While it is fair to say there has been instances of Russian influence, interference, and irregulars in parts of the country, it is also unfair to say all of this is Russian aggression as much has come from the people themselves who see themselves as ethnic Russians fighting against fascism and nationalism, removed from western Ukraine. Ukraine has been a battleground over the past 10 years between the two sides of Europe. The West, controlled by monopoly capitalism and the United States, and the East controlled by resurgent capitalism and Russia.
As of February 21st, Russian President Putin has formally recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic as independent republics, citing Ukrainian aggression on their borders. While an apparent escalation, it was Russia who has been the largest proponent of the 2014 Minsk Protocols – the agreement for peace in the Donbas region. No doubt this raises tensions. However, we cannot take this in a vacuum. Western pressure against their puppet government in Ukraine has failed to make this agreement a reality.
It has become clear the current situation is one created solely by the United States and Ukrainian fascists reminiscent of the old Cold War. Current Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, criticized the United States for inflaming tensions and stoking panic of a fabricated Russian invasion.7
“We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones,” Zelenskiy
President Vladimir Putin has demanded modest concessions from the west. Namely, the dissolution or halting of NATO expansion right next to Russia’s border and denuclearization of the region.8 The United States in its ever imperialist fashion, has declined all demands. The U.S. would rather see the world end than give up even an inch of its hegemonic control. It is a control that has become increasingly weak as other nations find the economic and political power to stand up to it once again.
People in the United States not only do not want a war with Ukraine, or Russia, or even China for that matter. This is, at its core, a distraction from the very real issues we still face here at home where millions die from a controllable virus, hundreds of thousands lose their homes, have inadequate healthcare, if they have any at all, and inflation is currently sitting at 7% as millionaires take in record profits.
It is simple – No War in Ukraine, No War with Russia, and an End to the Imperialist Agenda!
- Chris Baynes, “US Leads War Games Near Russian Border with 18,000 Troops on Eve of World Cup,” Independent, June 14, 2018.
- Yulia Belotserkovskaya, “The Sevastopol City Council Appeal to the Ukrainian Authorities with a Demand to ban the Activities of the VO Svoboda,” New Sevastopol, Jan 28, 2014.
- Alexander Belous “In Donesk, pro-Russian Activits Stormed the Regional Administration,” ZN,UA, Mar 1, 2014.
- NSU Press Service “Clarification on the Status of the Azov Special Unit,” National Guard of Ukraine, Apr 23, 2015.
- John Wojcik, “Ukranian Fascists say they will Sabotage any Peace Deal with Russia, Peoples World, Feb 11, 2022.
- For more information, Vice covered the 2014 conflicts extensively in their “Russian Roulette” series while interviewing a Texas communist who now lives and fights in the Donetsk People’s Republic. Russell Bentley can be found here.
- Kateryna Choursina and Daryna Krasnolutska, “Ukraine Accuses US of Hurting Economy by Stoking Panic over War,” Al Jazeera, Jan 28, 2022.
- Andrew Roth, “Russia Issues List of Demands it says must be met to Lower Tensions in Europe,” The Guardian, Dec 17, 2021.
