N° 25 juin 2022 The war waged by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine continues to escalate in intensity. We have clearly condemned this aggression against a sovereign country and qualified this war as a confrontation within the imperialist system(1).
This war appears more and more like a confrontation by proxy between the United States and the Russian Federation where all aspects of modern warfare are set in motion and particularly the use of economic sanctions with the objective of weakening one of the protagonists, but also aiming to modify the very conditions of existence of markets and exchanges between capitalist countries. Thus, the G7 (Germany, Canada, United States, France, Italy, Japan and United Kingdom) wants to impose a total embargo on Russian oil and derivative products and announces economic sanctions likely to dry up Russia's finances – the sinews of war according to them. This decision "This will hit hard at the main artery of Putin's economy and deny him the revenue he needs to fund his war," the Biden administration said and it has moreover decided to increase to 40 billion dollars its military support for Ukraine. This is a huge sum compared to the military budget of France which amounts to 41 billion in 2022. “With all these steps, we are depriving the Russian economy of its ability to diversify and modernize,” Von der Leyen said. “Our sanctions will certainly wipe out the past 15 years of economic gains in Russia” and “ we will stifle (its) ability to grow for years,” Joe Biden said. Declarations which clearly illustrate that the war waged on the economic level via sanctions not only has the objective of "causing the collapse of the Russian economy" as Bruno Le Maire asserted when they were introduced but also and above all it aims to weaken the economy and the Russian State in the long term against the Western powers with the hope of being able to eventually get hold of or control part of the wealth of the Russian Federation. What commitments exactly did each of the members of the G7, namely Germany (which holds the presidency this year), Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom? The United States has already banned the import of Russian hydrocarbons. They were not large consumers of it. The United Kingdom, a spearhead in military aid to Ukraine and in sanctions, is not dependent on Russian natural gas which represents only 4% of the country's supply and 8% of British demand for oil. Washington is putting pressure on European countries, which for the moment have not followed because many like Germany or Finland are largely dependent on Russian hydrocarbons. It should be noted that the European Union is 40% dependent on Russia for gas and more than 25% for oil. This embargo raises fears of a further general increase in fuel prices worldwide and opens the way to tense discussions between certain Member States, some of which are very dependent on Russian oil.
All these elements raise fears of the outbreak of a kind of "oil shock" which could affect the world economy and add to the food shortages triggered by the war and the profound upheaval in trade in the two major world producing regions that are Ukraine and Russia. On April 27, Russia interrupted its gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria on the grounds that these two states want to pay their invoices to Gazprom in euros in accordance with the contract and not in rubles as the Kremlin has demanded since April 1. The two countries are helped out by their neighbors but to avoid further cuts the European Commission has proposed a gradual EU embargo on oil and petroleum products purchased from Russia. Commission chair Ursula Von der Leyen said: “We will phase out Russian supply of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year.” But the phasing out of European purchases presents an exemption for Hungary and Slovakia. These two countries, landlocked and totally dependent on deliveries by the Druzhba pipeline, will be able to continue their purchases from Russia in 2023, said a European official. Bulgaria, Hungary and the Czech Republic wish to benefit from the same derogation. The unity proclaimed must be maintained, at least on the surface: therefore there are some small "arrangements" between capitalists to be expected, such as double counting euros/roubles. This operation is carried out with the Russian Gazprombank which is not affected by European sanctions, while this time, the large bank Sberbank is excluded from the Swift network – a secure messaging platform allowing crucial operations such as transfers of funds between banks. As a result gas and oil purchases will be made with other countries, in particular the United States, and no one seems to bat an eyelid at the prospect of massively importing shale gas obtained by hydraulic fracturing: the profits of the energy multinationals must be saved! The other source of supply is the Middle East. They would see the demand increase significantly and for the moment no one knows if they will be able to face this increase. They will seek to take advantage of the situation and keep oil prices as high as possible and despite pressure from the USA the main oil and gas countries of the Gulf intend to maintain production agreements with Russia, agreements which precisely give them the means to maintain current prices. As for Russia, it will seek to replace European demand with that of its Asian customers; it already has a thirty-year contract with China and India has shown interest. It is not worried about the future and Gazprom continues to reap juicy profits growing with the rise in prices accentuated by the announcement of sanctions.
As we can see, the policy of sanctions on the part of the Western powers does not bring any happy prospects for the workers and the popular classes throughout the world. They impact and threaten the living conditions of all working classes at the international level. This can in no way guarantee the end of the war nor even the end of authoritarian rule in Russia. On the contrary, NATO, the EU and the imperialist powers in conflict at the expense of Ukraine will become more and more aggressive endangering the lives of millions of people around the world.
We can only count on the struggles of the peoples to stop the warmongering arm of the imperialist powers and demand peace and respect for the sovereignty of States. The imperialist powers can only be fought through the struggle of the people against war and through the political struggle to open up a revolutionary perspective and advance towards the construction of a society that is not dominated by a logic of great power based on the endless quest for profit and private appropriation of resources. It is in this fight that we call on the workers of our country to engage!