A statement by Manuel Pardo,
13 March 2022, Frente Antiimperialista Internationalista

The war in Ukraine by NATO delegation.

For the fourth time in history, the capitalist West unloads its maximum imperialist pressure against Russia: the counter-revolutionary war in 1917, the Barbarossa operation of 1941, the expansion of NATO to the East after the demise of the USSR and, finally, the coup in Ukraine and the ensuing war against the Donbas.

The harassment against Russia has not necessarily been against a different ideological conception (communism vs. capitalism), but to gain control of the resources and markets of Russia and the entire planet, which required neutralising its military potential.

This is a constant in imperialist action, so that the harassment of Russia is nothing more than the concrete manifestation, in that concrete space, of the imperialist war, overt or covert, against those who resist its expansion, which takes different forms depending on the scenario and the circumstances; what we call the world-war.

It should be noted that, although the harassment against Russia is secular, we can speak of open war since the US and NATO staged a coup to depose Yanukovich, who was in favour of maintaining a status halfway between the West and Russia, and the war launched by the coup government to end all manifestations of support for Russia.

The declaration of independence of Donetsk and Luhansk was made as a result of the raids launched by the Nazi squads against the Russian-speaking population, tolerated and encouraged by the coup government itself, which deployed a policy of apartheid against them.

Russia maintained a very prudent attitude, not recognising the republics and always collaborating in the peace efforts that led to the Minsk agreements, with its own backing and that of Germany and France.

Meanwhile, the US and the UK were arming and training Ukrainian troops, who maintained the siege against the Donbas republics, with frequent ceasefires broken. It was the neo-Nazi battalions, eventually incorporated into the Ukrainian army, on whom the Ukrainian government would place responsibility for maintaining the siege.

At the same time, the US mobilised NATO in a campaign of harassment based on the deployment of multinational battalions in Poland and the Baltic states, the stationing of combat aircraft in the latter and the development of continuous military manoeuvres from the Baltic to the Black Sea, always justified with the excuse of Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea.

The harassment of Russia has reached a climax with the completion of the North Stream 2 pipeline, which would supply up to 40 per cent of Germany’s gas needs from Russia. With its operation about to begin, it was necessary for the US to boycott any possible stable, long-term relationship between Russia and Europe, which would jeopardise US control over Europe through NATO.

All this, in the context of the economic crisis of the capitalist system which, having begun in 2008, re-emerged with force at the end of 2018 and which the big economic and financial powers used to propose a readjustment of the system in order to guarantee the rate of profit: the Great Reset, which was to be carried out at the cost of great sacrifice for the popular classes.

The crisis of capitalist globalisation had been brewing as two formidable commercial competitors emerged, Russia and China, which, even within the same rules of the capitalist economic order, appeared as a real alternative to the unfulfilled promises and impositions of the Euro-Atlantic world.

Added to this is the evidence of an undeniable ecological and environmental crisis and the appearance (we shall see in the future whether intentional or not) of the coronavirus pandemic. The different “every man for himself” response to the pandemic in the Western capitalist world, compared to the formulas followed by the emerging powers and even by countries with a revolutionary and anti-imperialist tradition, has opened the eyes of many people to the insurmountable contradictions of the existing management model.

The first cracks in the Western capitalist world have thus appeared, both because of the mistrust of the populations and because of the contradictions that are emerging in the maintenance of the transatlantic link.

All this has accelerated the need to tighten the ranks around the hegemon. An open war against Russia offers this possibility, especially if what they manage to convey to public opinion is the matrix of Russia as an imperialist power invading a poor country in dire need of help from the good guys of NATO.

It is necessary to confront the attitude of the US and the UK, which have deliberately sought to raise tension towards confrontation (in the comfort of thinking that the battlefield is far away), as radically opposed to that expressed by Russia, which has reiterated ad nauseam its calls for understanding and the search for a peaceful coexistence arrangement that also takes into account Russia’s security.

They have given Russia no choice but to invade Ukraine. That is what they sought. And yet Russia has maintained admirable restraint from the outset of the military operation, as it demonstrated in the Syrian war: its intention is not to overrun Ukraine, but to free it from Nazi exclusionary nationalist impulses and prevent its rearmament and alignment with NATO.

All wars are terrible; but it would be a major mistake to get caught up in the propaganda and convince ourselves that Russia is responsible for a war that, however hard they try to hide it, was started by the US, by proxy with Ukrainian nationalists, in 2013.

The US’s intentions, declared throughout history, have been to tear Russia apart in order to take its wealth, once its state structures have been destroyed. Moreover, to neutralise its military capacity, which is the only thing that can stop imperialist expansion today.

The ultimate target, of course, is China; but it will not be able to wipe out China as long as Russia’s military potential, equivalent if not superior to that of NATO, exists.

That is the ultimate reason why they want to keep the conflict alive: to wear Russia down in the Ukrainian hornet’s nest and with terrible economic sanctions, while devoting their resources to covert operations to destabilise Russia from within.

They will try to prolong the conventional war as long as possible; they cannot afford to escalate to nuclear war because they know it would end everyone; and that is the reason for the repeated US statements that it will not send troops (to Ukraine), nor allow the transfer of aircraft from Poland, nor declare the closure of airspace; all this would imply direct and open NATO intervention, at the risk of escalating to nuclear war.

Russia is well aware of this, the weight of the history of the war against Nazi Germany is too powerful to turn back now: they will continue their operation until they get rid of a puppet government and the NATO-run Nazi militias, mercenaries and battalions over which Zelensky’s government has little control.

Russia’s demands to stop its operation are clear: recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, recognition of the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and Ukraine’s status of neutrality as a guarantee that it will not join NATO. These are reasonable conditions for ending a conflict in which the main victim is the civilian population of Ukraine, taken hostage by its own government and by Nazi battalions, shadow-managed by the US and the UK.

Ukraine has lost the war beforehand; consequently, any military support to Ukraine is to collaborate in the prolongation of the war and the useless sacrifice of the Ukrainians. The sending of arms and the reinforcement of Spanish troops in the encirclement of Russia only serve the imperialist objective of keeping the war open, at the risk of it getting out of control at any moment.

We are well aware that all this discourse breaks radically with that maintained by practically all our political leaders and the media. Even the story of Russia’s “criminal aggression” has taken hold among those considered the most progressive, contributing, with greater responsibility than that of the most conservative sectors, to feeding single thinking and, worse still, no thinking at all, limiting themselves to endlessly repeating images of the suffering of civilians, without going into the causes of it at all.

We must show solidarity with the war refugees and give them all the support they need, but enough of using them to criminalise Russia. And every effort must be made to reach ceasefire agreements that will allow the Ukrainian government to evacuate the civilian population, used by the Nazi battalions as human shields to prevent the final assault by Russian troops on their strongholds in the main cities.

This war is not Spain’s war; in fact, governments insist that NATO will not intervene, so why has it been decreed that all Russian media be shut down? Is it acceptable to deprive the population of a country that is not a belligerent of one side’s version of events?

The reality is that Spain is participating in this war, but covertly. And that this war has been initiated by the USA and sustained by the submissive attitude of NATO members. Therefore, it is necessary to demand from our government a complete cessation of hostile activities against Russia, to contribute to the relief of the civilian refugee population and to the pacification of Ukraine through negotiations.

However, Russia’s negotiations with Ukraine can only lead to limited ceasefire agreements for the evacuation of populations. The US will not allow the war to end. This will only be possible if we succeed in breaking our (and the entire EU’s) subservience to NATO, both in political gestures and in contributing to a war propaganda campaign that is not Europe’s against Russia.

It is high time to change the orientation of our international policy, to make a real diplomatic effort of peace negotiations and to shake off the yoke of NATO and subjugation to the USA once and for all. Peace will only be possible if the people of all NATO countries organise themselves to demand from our governments to close down NATO and to leave the criminal thirst for domination, imposition and war of the US elites naked before the world.

It is our responsibility to future generations.

 

Manuel Pardo

13 March 2022

 

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)