The Situation at the Front

In recent weeks the Russian troops have continued their slow advance both on the southern front of Donetsk and in the Russian region of Kursk, where it seems that 60% of the territory occupied by the Ukrainians has now returned to Russian hands. On the southern front, the Armed Forces of Moscow are advancing, albeit slowly, along almost the entire line. In the Donetsk region, it is being slowly conquered meter by meter against the strong defenses built up over the years.

The situation in Pokrovsk, one of the Ukrainian strongholds, is becoming increasingly serious for the defenders. According to Russian reports, the city, a key junction for the advance into Donetsk, at the crossroads of highways and railways, is already surrounded on three sides amid fierce fighting. The shortage of soldiers and the attacks by Russian drones on supply routes are causing difficulties for the defenders. The capture of Pokrovsk would be an important stepping stone towards the complete conquest of the Donetsk region.

However, Moscow’s strategy seems to be aimed, rather than at conquering territory, at provoking the collapse of the enemy’s military capabilities; the Ukrainian troops are forced to mass where they can be hit by aircraft or artillery, both specialties of which the Russians are much better equipped.

This has also been admitted in recent days by the head of Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR), General Kyrylo Budanov: “if serious negotiations are not started by the summer, processes could begin that are very dangerous for the very existence of Ukraine”. According to Ukrainska Pravda, Budanov’s words, although spoken during a closed-door meeting, were leaked to the press, confirming that there is no unanimity within the Ukrainian government on continuing the war “until victory”.

Russia’s Position

But Russia doesn’t seem interested in quickly reaching a ceasefire. The Ukrainian armed forces are weakened by tens of thousands of desertions, uncertainty about military supplies, a lack of ammunition, and a reduced air force. Moreover, Moscow must justify the tens of thousands of deaths and the economic damage caused by the war to its proletariat.

At the moment, the Russian Armed Forces seem to have overcome their recruitment problems and do not seem to be suffering from serious problems in obtaining arms and ammunition. They therefore aim all the regions already annexed in September 2022, namely Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, which are currently almost totally occupied, and to demilitarize what remains of Ukraine and ensure that it remains outside NATO.

After declaring its friendship with China and receiving help from North Korea, which supplies Moscow with ammunition and even soldiers, the recent strategic agreement with Iran has strengthened Russia’s position, even if it doesn’t go so far as to foresee that in the event one of the two signatories is attacked the other will be obliged to intervene.

The United States of America

During his election campaign Trump promised he would force the two belligerents to make peace in a day. Now he’s taken a few months, evidently not even Trump is all-powerful. Among other things, within the new American government there doesn’t seem to be a single vision on how to proceed. Trump had stated that he would threaten Moscow with a considerable increase in aid to Ukraine, contradicting his isolationism and abandonment of Kiev to its fate. In the meantime, however, they continue to fight. The Financial Times reports an interview with the new National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, who says that the administration will ask Ukraine to lower the age of conscription to 18. The US capitalists could therefore decide to continue the war “until the last Ukrainian” is dead, including teenagers, in order to obtain a few more meters of land for the Ukrainian bourgeoisie.

But for now Trump has suspended economic aid to Ukraine (to the advantage of the disastrous American finances) and has limited himself to inviting Putin to suspend the war, threatening an increase in sanctions and the imposition of customs duties. However, these would have very little effect given the minimal level of trade between Russia and the USA. Putin has nevertheless said he is willing to meet with Trump.

The Position of the European Union (Which Doesn’t Exist)

The leaders of the bourgeois European Union and NATO insist on their decision to help Kiev “until victory” with the reconquest of the territories currently occupied by Russia. They even intend to continue supporting Ukraine even if the United States were to cease doing so. The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, the Estonian Kaja Kallas, speaking at the annual conference of the European Defense Agency, once again emphasized the need to increase defense spending in Europe. “We must spend more to prevent war, but we must also spend more to prepare for war,” said the senior official, because ”Moscow will remain an existential threat as long as we continue to under-invest in our defense.” Not a day goes by without political and military representatives of European capitalists publicly declaring that the only way to save “our” continent is to strengthen the military-industrial sector, with a drastic increase in spending and recruitment, to protect it from the looming armed threat from the Kremlin.

The mobilization of millions of men is required because the professional armies, made up of only a few tens of thousands of specialists, would not be sufficient to fight the war that is being prepared. Millions of proletarians will be needed for dying capitalism, to be thrown into the horrendous furnace. In fact, many countries are already preparing to reintroduce compulsory military service. “If we don’t do anything Russia could attack us” is the cry of the warmongers who lead the European Union. In this way they mask the will of the capitalists to increase the profits of the arms industries. This would also be of great advantage to the United States, which already supplies 70% of the armaments to the European NATO states.

All the bourgeoisie are in fact – in principle – in agreement that the countries belonging to the Atlantic Alliance should increase their military spending to 5% of the GDP, more than double the current amount. Moreover, the theory that Moscow’s ambitions extend beyond Ukraine does not correspond to the current reality because Russia is not in a position to attack any European or NATO country, for political, economic, and demographic reasons. Moscow has explained the attack on Ukraine as a response to NATO aggression on its western borders. But Russian imperialism cannot expect to extend beyond the three key necessities of its foreign policy: Moscow’s primacy in the post-Soviet area; the pursuit of closer integration between the former Soviet republics with Russia as the guiding country; opposition to NATO expansion and, more generally, the effort to weaken transatlantic institutions and the current US-led international order.

The European States: The Real Losers

The European states, despite their warmongering and despite being the most exposed to the consequences of the war, risk being cut out of any peace negotiations because the US president, as already anticipated, is ready to get rid of them and to deal directly with Putin, not giving them a say even if the matter directly concerns them.

The sanctions against Russia, and in particular the decision to cut off the flow of cheap gas and oil from Russia to European countries, are already bringing the most industrialized countries in Europe, Germany and Italy, to their knees. They are forced to buy gas from other suppliers, mainly from the United States, at much higher prices, even three times higher. The Russian economy, on the other hand, has not been too badly affected because it continues to export its gas despite the sanctions and has found other buyers on the world market.

Moreover, on the question of the attitude towards Russia there is no single position among the 27 member states of the EU, which are pursuing different and even conflicting policies.

France has always taken the hard line of a Western military response, calling, even recently, for the direct involvement of the Atlantic Alliance in the conflict, and has lifted restrictions on the use of its SCALP cruise missiles to strike Russian territory. Poland has repeatedly expressed its desire to become directly involved in the conflict and, for some years now, has been undertaking a daring rearmament program with important purchases from both the United States and South Korea. It plans to allocate 4.7% of its annual budget to defense next year, which is more or less in line with NATO’s requests.

The German government, now resigned, has taken a “centrist” position, sending significant military aid to Kiev but preventing the use of its long-range Taurus missiles inside Russian territory. However, it has committed to a complex and expensive rearmament plan. Italy has always declared itself decidedly against sending troops to Ukraine, but continues to send weapons and aid to Kiev while strengthening its military industry and increasing its defense spending.

The United Kingdom has always pushed for direct confrontation and the use of cruise missiles against Russia. The new Labour government, in perfect continuity with the previous conservative one, recently signed a “hundred-year collaboration” pact with the Ukrainian government that would even include the possibility of installing military bases in the country. But the same military circles point out that Her Majesty’s Armed Forces have never been so weak. The Telegraph writes: “The deployment of British troops on the ground in Ukraine comes at a time of cuts to the armed forces, which have called its credibility as a fighting force into question (...) The number of soldiers in the army in May fell below 73,000 for the first time since the Napoleonic era”. In recent years, in fact, the difficulties in recruiting and retaining personnel have become increasingly evident. Naturally, in these power games, the Ukrainian state, which is directly affected, has no role. It depends entirely on its “protectors” in Washington. Trump has called Zelensky a “beggar”.

The War Continues

What is therefore looming, despite oblique talk about the possibility of peace, is a prolongation of this war for a long time to come. The working class of Ukraine and Russia, tragically tested by these years of war, subjected to the iron heel of corrupt and warmongering governments, will rebel against new demands for proletarian blood and will impose its peace on the States, the only possible peace, bringing down the regime of capital in their countries as the proletariat of Russia did in October 1917. Only the proletariat fighting for communism will be able to put an end to the permanent state of war, misery and hunger, uncertainty and fear of tomorrow in which the capitalist regime, in full crisis, not only economic but also social and ideological, has brought the whole of humanity.