IF Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had been confined to the defence of the two breakaway republics of Donbass and Lugansk it would have been defensible since their heavily working class populations voted decisively to be separate.
But the attempt to conquer the whole of Ukraine and presumably install a client regime is to be condemned unreservedly.
However, we should be under no illusions. The responsibility for what is happening lies at the feet of Biden and NATO.
A simple guarantee by NATO, (which is an offensive not defensive alliance with a record of waging wars against Libya, Afghanistan and Serbia) that Ukraine would not become a member would have deprived Putin of any reason to attack Ukraine.
Similarly an assurance by Ukraine that it would be a neutral state and would not be part of any military alliance would also have cut the ground from under him.
The hypocrisy of those who condemn attacks on civilians in Ukraine but who, last May, applauded Israel’s attack on the civilian population of Gaza is breathtaking.
As I have said before, Putin is a right-wing nationalist and a Greater Russian chauvinist with dreams of resurrecting the Czarist Empire. His assertion that Ukraine does not have a right to an independent existence is absurd.
It was Stalin’s policies, not least the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Russia’s occupation of Western Ukraine, which drove Ukrainians, at least for a time into Hitler’s hands.
Although the arming and integration of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion into the Ukrainian armed forces is to be condemned the idea that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is motivated by anti-fascism is ludicrous.
If Putin was at all serious about this he would turn his attention to neo-Nazis and nationalists in Russia. However there is no doubt that the United States and Israel have been supporting and training Ukraine neo-Nazi militias.
The attacks and arrests of Russian anti-war demonstrators is to be condemned but there is very little difference between Putin’s attack on demonstrators and the proposals of Boris Johnson to make peaceful demonstrations illegal under the Police and Crime Bill or the attacks by the police on Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the United State.
As Professor Richard Sakwa at Kent University has said, there has been a war going on for the last 8 years against the republics. Over 14,000 people have died since 2014. About this NATO and the West have said nothing.
The BBC of course continues to act as a cheerleader for NATO’s war propaganda. If you want to find out what is happening in Ukraine you need to watch RT and Al Jazeera. Which is why that pathetic patriotic scoundrel and flag waver, Keir Starmer, has demanded RT should be closed.
When 11 Labour MPs signed a statement from Stop the War Coalition, Starmer, threatened them with the loss of the whip. Unsurprisingly all 11 promptly removed their names.
Starmer’s attempt to outflank Johnson from the right is not only pathetic in its own terms it is likely to be self-defeating. Already it is clear that Johnson, who was on the ropes barely a month ago is now becoming unassailable. In buying into Western war rhetoric, not least the campaign of sanctions against the Russian people, Starmer demonstrates why he is or should be considered a Labour traitor unfit for any office.
Putin has played into the hands of the warmongers – Biden, Johnson and NATO – with his invasion. We are now moving into a new era as NATO, with its Aukus Pact against China, seeks to try and assert United States hegemony at the very same time that they have been forced out of Afghanistan.
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