In 2014 Obama’s government got active in Ukraine to facilitate a fascist coup called the Maidan revolution. (Ukraine is the only former Soviet state in which neo fascists are a strong political force.) The coup government promptly declared its intention to join NATO (which it strangely got written into the new constitution). The neo-fascists acted to crush by force pro-Russian Crimean ‘autonomists’ and ethnic Russians and other minorities, especially in the industrialized south and east, and to downgrade the status of the Russian language (spoken by 30% of the people) and widely used in the country. Russia responded by encouraging Crimea (a strategic peninsula, once part of Russia ‘gifted’ to Ukraine in 1954 by the pioneering revisionist Khrushchev, himself a Ukrainian) to hold a referendum to secede from Ukraine. Predominantly Russian-speaking Crimea voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine.

Today’s Ukraine crisis grew out of US policy to isolate and weaken Russia since 1990. The idea was that Ukraine, controlled by US clients, will be a NATO military springboard to strike at the heart of the Russian Federation, while Ukraine’s industrial and agricultural resources enrich Western investors. Thus, from early on, the US invested heavily in client-building among ‘civil society groups’ and malleable political parties and leaders, in western Ukraine, around Kiev especially. It paid early dividends in 2004: the ‘Orange Revolution’ installed a pro-US-EU regime. But corruption scandals and mismanagement brought the regime to an early end in 2006. The West lost its foothold in Ukraine in the elections of 2010, and reactivated its ‘direct action’ fronts with a fresh agenda. Neo-fascists seized power in 2014 through violent demonstrations, vandalism, armed assaults and mob violence to establish a dictatorial junta, comprising neo-liberal politicians seeking closer ties with NATO and neo-fascists and violent nationalists out to persecute ethnic Russians and other minorities.

The coup, besides leading to Crimean independence and reunion with Russia, also led to the predominantly Russian speaking Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in Donbas region declaring independence. In that context, the West resorted to dirty tricks to discredit both the separatists and Russia.¹

Russia sought to settle with Ukraine based on assurances of security and arrived at the Minsk Protocol of 2014, whose ineffectiveness led to Minsk II in 2015. But the Ukrainian attitude was negative, while Russia as late as 2022 January called for fulfilment of the Protocol of 2015.²

Let us now return to the questions raised earlier:

• Is the conflict in Ukraine mainly between Russia and Ukraine?
• What are the main contending forces?
• What are the interests at stake?
• Is it a conflict between two ‘imperialisms’?
• Even if conflict is between two ‘imperialisms’ can Marxist Leninists simply denounce the contending parties and refuse to take a stand?

The conflict is between the US and Russia, with the Ukraine government as a US proxy.

The Russian interest at stake is the security of Russia against encirclement by NATO rather than control of all or part of Ukraine.

The US-sponsored coup of 2014 was designed to use Ukraine to intensify military pressure against Russia.

It will be dogmatic to define Russia an imperialist and based on that treat any conflict with the US or its proxy as conflict between two imperialisms.

The Party has rejected the thesis that Russia is imperialist, and is aware that Russia is at present not in a position to adopt an expansionist agenda. Even, for argument’s sake one considers it to be imperialist, its actions have to be seen in context.

Russia does not use socialist logic or language in its foreign affairs. When it failed to take the correct stand (as in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya this century) imperialism gained (although to its eventual peril and great cost to its victims of aggression). Had it not been for Russian intervention in Syria, the US will now have a client state in Syria and be well placed to bully Iran and further humiliate Iraq. Russian backing for Nicaragua and Venezuela, regardless of Russian motives, is as important from an anti-imperialist perspective.

Let us consider the options before Russia.

1. Do nothing and allow Ukraine to join NATO
2. Persuade Ukraine diplomatically or by threat to abandon the thought of joining NATO
3. Invade Ukraine in the event of its joining NATO
4. Launch a pre-emptive attack

Russia was pushed to a defensive position by the expansion of NATO and ceaseless US attempts at regime change in former Soviet republics. In that context the first option would be suicidal. The second was explored unsuccessfully by Russia since 2014. The third will be too late and too expensive. Thus Russia had no choice but launch a pre-emptive strike in Ukraine, without which Russia would face slow strangulation by US using NATO.

Defending Russian military action in Ukraine is not defending Putin or Russian capitalism. What is defended is action by a state that is under escalating threat from the US on several fronts, the most crucial being the military front.

NATO should have been disbanded in 1991, when there was no more a case for its existence. It has only served to destroy countries outside Europe and North America besides prolonging instability in Europe. It is the root cause of the Ukraine crisis and elimination of NATO is top priority for peace in Europe and elsewhere. A NATO declaration that it will not covet Ukraine should precede any call for Russian forces to withdraw.

It will be good for a Marxist of any description to look at the totality and prescribe possible options with their implications and subject it to discussion among anti-imperialists before rushing to praise or denounce the Russian action.

It is recommended that the Party strongly urges an early end to the conflict based on:

1. Neutrality of Ukraine with necessary assurances of its not joining any military alliance that could threaten Russian security.
2. Ukraine recognizing the fee will of the people of Crimea to re-join Russia, while the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics will be controlled by a joint Russia-Ukraine administration for a limited period and let them decide their future on the basis of right to self determination.
3. Russian assurance that it will not intervene in Ukraine or forcefully seize Ukrainian territory subject to Ukraine’s protection of Russian speaking minorities against neo-fascists and the ‘far right’.
4. A Russia‒Ukraine peace accord free of meddling by US imperialists or its agencies.

1. There was also the conspiracy to bring down the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 July 2014 just across the rebel held territory and blame it on the separatist rebels and Russia, although there was little for Russia or the pro-Russian Donbas rebels to gain from it. In 2018 Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad challenged the objectivity of investigations into the 2014 disaster. He rejected the findings of Dutch-led international team and asserted that Russia was being made a scapegoat for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.↩
2. For instance, in January 2022, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council said: “The fulfilment of the Minsk agreement means the country’s destruction. When they were signed under the Russian gun barrel — and the German and the French watched — it was already clear for all rational people that it’s impossible to implement those documents.”
   In February 2022, the Finnish President said “the most possible solution (to the current situation) could be the Minsk agreement to be fulfilled or that there would be significant progress in its implementation.”↩