Three Years of Imperialist War: Ukraine as a pawn in the game of the great powers

International

Mar 2

February 24, 2025

By Rudy Vermelho

This article is a translation from German and was first published at https://kommunistischepartei.de/aktuelles/drei-jahre-imperialistischer-krieg-die-ukraine-als-spielball-der-grossmaechte/ on February 24, 2025.

Just in time for the third anniversary of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting expansion of the civil war that has been smoldering since 2014, an end is in sight – and now, at the latest, the true goals of the warmongers are becoming apparent.

The war between Russian imperialism on the one hand and the NATO bloc on the other – fought primarily on the backs of the Russian and Ukrainian working classes – is still going on. One third of the Ukrainian population is displaced and almost 13 million people need immediate humanitarian aid [1]. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that 12,600 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since February 2022, additionally at least 400 civilians have been killed in Russia. While the deaths in Ukraine are partly due to Russian terror against civilian energy infrastructure, and partly to late or failed evacuations by both sides near the front, especially in the first year of the war, the deaths in Russia are mainly due to Ukrainian terror attacks on Russian cities with the help of long-range NATO weapons, particularly on Belgorod [2].

Even worse than the situation of the civilian population is that of the soldiers at the front. As usual, reliable figures are difficult to find in the fog of state secrecy and propaganda on both sides. Media companies such as “Mediazona”, for example, are not independent and pursue political goals, but their methodology of collecting verifiable data provides clues that go beyond the official propaganda narrative. Thus, we can probably assume a total of at least 200,000 deaths on both sides, but the losses are probably higher. And every month that the slaughter continues, thousands more are added [3].

The military situation in Ukraine is deteriorating rapidly, to the point where even the German mainstream media can no longer maintain their narrative of the final Ukrainian victory without losing what little credibility they have left. The fact that the new US administration is hardly making any effort to conceal the truth about the situation and is openly undermining the EU line also contributes to this. However, there is also increasing disunity within the EU, where figures such as Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico are publicly breaking ranks and questioning the existing narrative. In an interview with Radio Slovensko, for example, he said that Ukraine is not a sovereign state and is under the direct control of the United States [4]. In the increasingly escalating gas dispute between Slovakia and Ukraine, he threatens to use his veto power in the EU to stop the financing of the war [5]. This disagreement is not surprising, since different capitalist interests are opposed to each other, while the situation is also militarily hopeless. While the Russian army is steadily advancing and on the verge of reaching the border with Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, the Ukrainian army is suffering from an enormous lack of recruits. So-called “meat catchers” from the TCC, the Ukrainian mobilization authority, kidnap workers on the streets and send them to the front after a bare minimum of training. The desperation of many leads to numerous cases of individual counter-violence and attacks on the deeply unpopular “meat catchers”, which have also resulted in deaths [6]. Morale at the front has reached a new low. Up to 20 percent of the soldiers have left their positions without permission or deserted [7]. A particularly sensational episode was the case of the 155th Brigade in Ukraine. This brigade was founded as an elite brigade fully equipped with Western weapons, including German Leopard 2A4 tanks, and trained in France. Dozens deserted even during the training. When the new brigade was to be transferred to the front in Pokrovsk, 30 percent of the soldiers had already deserted and the brigade had disintegrated before a single shot could be fired [VIII]. Ukraine has long since been unable to fill its ranks with volunteers, and obviously the conscripted workers are no longer willing to risk their lives in a hopeless war that is not in their interest. Numerous young men drown in the Tisza river while trying to escape the war machine and cross the border into Romania.

In the face of impending defeat on the battlefield, the new US government under Trump is now relying on negotiations with Russia. As expected Trump was not able to end the war “after 24 hours”. However, as a result of the negotiations between the USA and Russia in Saudi Arabia, a ceasefire and at least a temporary peace with the recognition of the Russian conquests is under discussion at Easter this year. A peace that could have been achieved in April 2022 in Istanbul with significantly fewer territorial losses, without the destruction of the remaining Ukrainian industry and its energy supply, without the unmanageable mountain of debt and, last but not least, with hundreds of thousands fewer deaths. At the time, however, the Ukrainian government was prevented by the so-called “Western partners”, led by Boris Johnson, from signing the negotiated treaty [9]. Whether and what means of pressure were used is not known. But why Ukraine was brought to break off the peace negotiations three years ago should now become clear: the Ukrainian government was not desperate enough.

The new US administration is now openly admitting what its goals are in the massacre in Ukraine: securing Ukrainian lithium and rare earth deposits. It is no coincidence that the war is being waged precisely over the areas where most of these deposits are located. And there is no sound reason to assume that these were not among the main reasons for waging the war from the outset. After all, the EU had concluded a strategic agreement with Ukraine in July 2021 to extract “critical raw materials” [10]. Russia's invasion put a stop to these ambitions for the time being. But if a peace treaty had already been signed in April 2022, the pressure on Ukraine to surrender the natural resources remaining under its control for many billions of dollars would have been low. Now that Russia is clearly winning, the Ukrainian government is becoming increasingly desperate and thus more willing to buy US support at a high price. Lithium and the various rare earth metals are essential for the production of modern technologies such as batteries, screens and electric motors, for example for cars or wind turbines. Their importance will continue to increase in the future, particularly in the context of the “energy transition”.

It is no coincidence that the most fanatical warmongers and the biggest profiteers and drivers of the energy transition are one and the same in Germany. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock just let the cat out of the bag and revealed that a previously secret new 700 billion euro package of EU “aid” for Ukraine is planned immediately after the parliamentary elections [11] [which were held on February 23, 2025. Translator's Note.] These “shareholders” are now panicking because, despite the huge existing investments by EU states in the war in Ukraine the US government is not even considering letting it share in the spoils of war. Shocked by the US initiative, although it had been announced long in advance, a special EU summit was hastily convened in parallel to the bilateral meeting in Riyadh. From the EU's point of view, there must be no peace, and certainly not on terms that were not set by themselves. If necessary, the loss of US financing must therefore be cushioned by the EU states. It is also significant that by no means all EU states were invited to Paris, but only the most powerful ones, and only those whose readiness for war can be taken for granted. The contradicting interests within the EU and the fact that the weaker countries get their political guidelines dictated to them, becomes increasingly apparent. Whether the Ukrainian government is willing to resist the will of the US and submit to the EU and continue the war is unclear. It is also unclear whether the EU states that are willing to boost their arms production are capable of doing so to an extent that they could replace US weapons imports to Ukraine. The will of the Ukrainian people is being ignored by the EU in any case. According to recent polls, more than half of the Ukrainians favor a quick peace and would also accept territorial concessions to Russia [13.] The future of the Selenskyj regime is uncertain in the event of either the continuation of the war or the establishment of peace.

Of course, Ukraine's natural resources are not the only reason to wage such an imperialist war – more complex geopolitical interests also play a role: the weakening of Russia, as evidenced by the number of their fallen officers, which has now grown to 4,700, and the emptying of considerable stockpiles of ammunition and war equipment, is at least a desirable side effect. The British Ministry of Defense estimates that it will take Russia five years to restore its army to pre-war strength because of these losses [14]. But it was never about freedom or democracy in Ukraine, thanks to the self-exposure of the USA and the panic of the EU about being left out of the future exploitation of Ukraine.

All in all, it can be said that an early peace and an end to the killing in Ukraine are to be welcomed and are in the interest of the working class, because, as always, it is the workers who are dying in the trenches. The class struggle must be directed against the sell-out of Ukraine's natural resources and the puppets who let the working class die and bleed to death for the interests of the class enemy. The natural resources of Ukraine belong to no one except the Ukrainian people. A lasting peace settlement can never be achieved under the domination of imperialists.