We can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. And it is a scientific fact that humanity does not have to live this way.

–Bob Avakian

On December 12, Ukraine attacked a military airbase deep inside Russia with U.S.-made long-range missiles. The next morning, Russia launched a massive missile and drone strike on Ukraine. Hundreds of weapons hit Ukraine’s energy production facilities, with the intention of paralyzing and freezing the country as bitter winter cold sets in. Some of the attacks hit Ukraine’s nuclear power reactors, increasing the possibility of a nuclear disaster that could threaten much of Eastern Europe, including parts of Russia. 

This round of escalation and counter-escalation is the most recent, and most dangerous, of the intensifications, threats, and accusations between Russia and Ukraine (which is backed to the hilt by the U.S. and NATO) that have pushed the world ever closer to the brink of nuclear war. 

The war in Ukraine is not about, and has never been about, the U.S. and its imperialist allies supporting Ukraine in a fight to “defend democracy against Russian tyranny.” It is a war between two capitalist-imperialist powers fighting to deepen and extend their position in the world, and beat down challenges from a rival power. The U.S.—using Ukrainian troops and people as proxies—is fighting to strengthen its status as the dominant imperialist in the entire world. Russia is fighting to hold on to and extend its influence in Eastern Europe, the Mid-East, and other parts of the world. And right now, the war between them has careened into a period of enormous uncertainty, instability, and danger. 

Advantage, Russia: New Doctrine, New Missiles

For almost three years, both sides have been making move and counter-move, offensive and counter-offensive, crossing one “red line” after another in their fight to come out on top. In November, Joe Biden announced U.S. approval for Ukraine to use U.S.-made long-range missiles capable of hitting targets deep inside Russia. He had refused to do that for over a year, because he thought it could unnecessarily provoke a direct conflict between the U.S. and Russia. Now, he thinks that’s a risk worth taking—a risk with the potential for inflicting unfathomable pain and death on millions. Within a day of Biden’s announcement, some of these U.S.-made missiles hit Russian targets 70 miles from its border with Ukraine. 

In response, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, quickly announced his country’s new nuclear doctrine. The doctrine’s key provision enables Russia to respond with nuclear weapons to a non-nuclear attack it claims presents a “critical threat” to Russia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The non-nuclear missile attack that the U.S. and Ukraine had just inflicted on Russia could presumably be in this category, and Russia could claim that their new doctrine allowed them to respond with nuclear weapons. The Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote that with this new doctrine, “Russia is doubling down on its strategy of relying on nuclear weapons for coercive purposes in the ongoing war in Ukraine.”

Russia also launched a major missile assault on Ukraine a couple of days after Biden’s announcement. Initially, reports in the U.S. media said the U.S. didn’t know the type of missiles used in this attack. But it was soon learned that they were “hypersonic missiles”—capable of travelling undetected by missile defense systems at 10 times the speed of sound, on trans-continental flights carrying multiple weapons, including nuclear warheads. 

Hypersonic missiles are a qualitative escalation in the destructive potential of modern warfare. The U.S. military is developing similar hypersonic weapons, but as of now none are operational. This imbalance in weaponry gives Russia a significant advantage, for now, in its ability to launch a devastating strike on the U.S. and other NATO powers, literally “before they know what’s happening.” 

The website of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons reported that the U.S. was “pre-notified of the ballistic missile launch through nuclear risk reduction channels just prior to the launch. However, this incident demonstrates the risk of escalation in a nuclear-armed world. An unexpected launch of a nuclear-capable missile, even without a nuclear warhead, can be confused or misinterpreted in the fog of war and lead to inadvertent escalation. Past false alarms have nearly started nuclear wars.”

Putin said in a speech before Russia’s Human Rights Council that “a sufficient number of these modern weapons systems makes the use of nuclear weapons practically unnecessary.” Note well—by “unnecessary,” Putin doesn’t mean that he is renouncing the use of nuclear weapons. It means Russia has developed what Putin considers a more effective means of delivering massive death and destruction hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away from Russia, including by carrying nuclear warheads. 

Explosive Uncertainty, and Profound Truth

Russia’s recent escalations have been met and raised by the U.S. As Biden’s administration comes to an end, and the future of continued U.S. support for Ukraine once Trump takes office is uncertain, “The Biden administration is pushing every available dollar out the door to shore up Ukraine’s defenses before it leaves office… announcing more than $2 billion in additional support since Trump won the presidential election last month” (AP, 12/10/24). The U.S. also approved an additional package to enable Ukraine to sustain “long-term operation and maintenance of (U.S.-made) F-16 fighter aircraft…” after Biden is out of office. 

A couple of weeks ago Revolution wrote of the “explosive uncertainty” around the war in Ukraine. With the fall of Russian ally Bashir al-Assad in Syria, and the soon-to-come rise of fascist Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, that “explosive uncertainty” has heightened significantly. And it underscores the profound, urgent, and ongoing truth of something Bob Avakian wrote about two months after the war began:

All this emphasizes why it is vitally important for the masses of people, in this country, and other countries aligned with it, as well as in Russia—for people everywhere—to finally and fully wake up now, recognize the real, and profoundly heavy, stakes involved, and act in accordance with our actual interests—the interests of all of humanity: demanding that this war in Ukraine, and the involvement (direct and indirect) of the imperialists on both sides in this war, be STOPPED, before it not only causes even greater suffering for the people of Ukraine but possibly escalates into a far more terrible conflict which causes massive destruction and death, on a whole other level, and even possibly poses a threat to the very existence of humanity itself.