N° 20 janvier 2022 Attention in Eastern Europe is being held by the tensions and the sound of jackboots developing between Ukraine and Russia.
Ukraine, which is dominated by an oligarchy of mafia and predatory character which has bled the country dry to the detriment of the vast majority of the population has built its international position in opposition to Russia by putting itself under the protection of its Western godfathers and especially the USA. The development of a nationalist and fascistic ideology designating Russia as its enemy allows the power to maintain the capitalist social order and to suppress the voices that denounce this situation and especially the Communists who lead a courageous fight with the Communist Party of Ukraine. Ukraine has already paid heavily for its nationalist positions. By denying the reality of a composite nation, by politically, economically and culturally marginalizing the Russian-speaking component, the Ukrainian authorities bear a heavy responsibility in the choices made by the populations of Crimea and Donbass to separate from Ukraine such as it was at the time of the disappearance of the USSR.
The Ukrainian crisis therefore does not end, especially since the Ukrainian authorities, far from meeting the expectations of the populations of Donbass, have only one objective: the military reconquest of these territories. This policy led them to disregard the Minsk agreements. These agreements signed in 2015 at a summit with the participation of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany provided, among other things, for Ukrainian legislation to give wide autonomy to Donbass within the framework of Ukraine. This legislation never saw the light of day and Ukraine has constantly played military escalation with the objective of bringing Russia to an intervention thus giving a pretext for the outbreak of a war in which Ukraine intended to involve its Western godfathers. For their part, France and Germany have taken no initiative likely to lead Ukraine to a peaceful settlement of the problem, preferring to follow the hawkish stances of Ukrainian power.
For weeks, Ukraine, to which the West and especially the US have followed suit, has been crying wolf by claiming that it is on the verge of being attacked by Russia and that a pro-Russian coup is brewing. Why this feverishness? The basic reason is that the dominant Ukrainian oligarchs have decided to put themselves under the Western umbrella and give a major pledge: that of Ukraine's membership in NATO. No need to be a geopolitical expert to understand that such an enlargement of NATO already present in Poland and the Baltic States would result in a new strategic imbalance to the detriment of Russia. This is a red line that the Russian State cannot allow to be crossed at the risk of threatening its security. Hand on heart, the West and the United States swear there is no question of Ukraine joining NATO. The facts contradict these claims. For example, Ukraine receives modern armaments from NATO member countries, military instructors supervise army training, and the army is already participating in Atlantic Alliance maneuvers. NATO membership has been in the Ukrainian constitution since 2017 and likewise the never denied Bucharest memorandum of 2008 states: "that Georgia and Ukraine will be members of NATO", which the June 14 NATO declaration reaffirms. It is therefore the question of NATO's enlargement to the borders of Russia that is the major cause of the tensions.
Yesterday in their meeting the Russian and American presidents discussed the situation.
While nothing has fundamentally changed following this interview, it should be noted that it shows that Ukraine is only a pretext for the US to expand the influence of the military alliance it leads, relegating France and Germany to the rank of auxiliary powers of US imperialism. Moreover, in the conflict over Ukraine important economic questions are at stake, especially in the energy field, since in the event of an escalation in the conflict, the US threatens new economic sanctions against Russia. One of them would consist in the neutralization of the Stream 2 gas pipeline which must ensure the direct delivery of Russian gas to Germany without passing, as is currently the case through the gas pipeline which crosses Ukraine which draws substantial profits in right of way. Stream 2, which is economically vital for Germany's energy supply, is therefore a double leverage, both against gas-producing Russia and consuming Germany, which in fact cannot do without the US agreement.
Since the fall of the USSR, the balance of power structure that provided stability and peace in Europe has been shattered. Today NATO, dominated by US imperialism, is expanding more and more; by designating Russia as its adversary in Europe it tends to draw the peoples into a conflict aimed at reducing the latter's influence, or even by imposing domination on it.
The peoples have nothing good to expect from this situation which underlines the exacerbation of tensions within the imperialist system, as the fierce competition between the capitalist monopolies and the states in their service has escalated.
Our struggle to end conflicts in Europe and in the world therefore requires struggling to bring down the capitalist system to put an end to military alliances and to organize peaceful cooperation relations between states and peoples.