In February 2022, Russia unjustly invaded its neighboring country of Ukraine. The war quickly became a war between rival, nuclear-armed powers. This war is not a struggle between “autocracy" and “democracy.” The U.S. is fighting to maintain and expand its domination of Europe and, by extension, the world; the Russians are fighting to defend and expand their “share” of that domination.

On one side of this war is the U.S./NATO alliance; on the other, Russia. The U.S. and other western powers poured massive amounts of weapons and other forms of military support into Ukraine. The Ukrainian people and Ukrainian army are cannon fodder in this war—used cold-bloodedly to advance U.S. imperialist interests.¹ Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people have been killed in this war, hundreds of thousands more made homeless, many more maimed, crippled, and raped, in a war that is unjust and criminal on both sides. Even greater crimes are beginning to unfold, as a major offensive by U.S./NATO-backed forces in southern and eastern Ukraine has begun.

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On Thursday, June 8, the Washington Post wrote that “The Ukrainian military’s long-anticipated counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces has begun.…” This could well be a critical moment in this war. As this article is posted, much is unknown about how the fighting has gone thus far, and how it is developing. But whatever the outcome of any particular campaign or battle, and whatever disinformation and outright lies are spread by both sides, the interests of the masses of people worldwide remain what Bob Avakian expressed over a year ago:

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.

Antony Blinken’s War Tour

In late May and early June, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to the northern European countries of Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Norway and Finland are NATO members, and Finland shares an 830-mile border with Russia. Sweden has applied for membership to NATO. All three are close allies of the U.S. in the strategically important Arctic regions—an area of the planet increasingly contended over by U.S., Russian, and Chinese imperialism.

The U.S. State Department said Blinken’s trip was meant to “deepen transatlantic cooperation on top national security and economic priorities.” Translation: strengthen the position of the U.S. and its imperialist allies in their contention with other imperialist powers. On this trip, that meant focusing on Russia, and the war in Ukraine.

Blinken’s major speech came on his last stop, in Helsinki, Finland’s capital. He gloated over the difficulties Russia has had in this war, and falsely claimed that Russia is against any negotiated settlement. In the words of the New York Times, Blinken’s speech (in a city about 186 miles by air from St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city) “amounted to a victory lap likely to embarrass if not infuriate [Russia’s president Vladimir] Mr. Putin.” Blinken spelled out U.S. war aims: “greatly diminishing Russia’s power, its interests and its influence for years to come.”

Much is uncertain about how this war will unfold. What is clear is that if the Ukrainian offensive develops in full force, already agonizing levels of death, disease, mangled human bodies, and all-round devastation will almost certainly increase enormously.

If you are one of those who think this would be a good time for diplomacy and try to find a way to prevent massive bloodshed, the message from the U.S. imperialists is clear: Think again.

Far from seeking an end to this slaughter, Blinken emphatically and belligerently rejected in advance anyone who would even think of calling for a cease-fire. He said that "over the coming weeks and months, some countries will call for a ceasefire. And on the surface, that sounds sensible – attractive, even. After all, who doesn’t want warring parties to lay down their arms? Who doesn’t want the killing to stop?

“But a ceasefire that simply freezes current lines in place and enables Putin to consolidate control over the territory he seized and then rest, re-arm and re-attack – that is not a just and lasting peace.”

So the answer to Blinken’s question—“who doesn’t want warring parties to lay down their arms?”—is clear: U.S. imperialism, that’s who. Right on cue, the U.S.’s Ukrainian lap dogs forced the cancellation of an international “Summit for Peace in Ukraine” in Vienna, Austria. (Summit organizers were able to find another venue.)

Preparing for an Offensive, and Taking the War to Russia

Over the winter and spring, both the U.S./NATO-backed Ukrainian forces and Russia undertook intense preparations for large-scale campaigns and battles. Ukraine received massive infusions of the most modern and deadly military equipment and ammunition, communications gear, and advanced training in coordination among different arms and components of its military from the U.S./NATO. Russia launched drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. It dug into a huge region of southern Ukraine, and built a complex web of fortifications and trenches, to impede an attempted Ukrainian offensive. After months of ferocious, close-quarter combat, it also seized and held the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, at a total toll of tens of thousands dead.

Ukraine also launched an escalating series of military operations inside Russia, and probed Russia’s defenses to learn more about planning and executing large-scale maneuvers. It launched a drone attack on Vladimir Putin’s residence. The Associated Press reported that “The Ukrainian shelling and the cross-border incursions ravaged several towns and villages near the [Russia-Ukraine] frontier and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents….”

The U.S. and other NATO leaders have played a “good cop, bad cop” game around Ukrainian forays into Russia. The White House press secretary said last week, "We have said this before, we do not support attacks inside of Russia. We've been very clear about that." The same day, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom said Ukraine "has the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia's ability to project force into Ukraine itself.”

As attacks within Russia mount, the Biden administration has “shrugg[ed] off” reports of Ukrainian attacks within Russia, despite the risk of direct conflict between the U.S./NATO and Russia they entail. A few days after 10 Russian villages were attacked by Ukrainian and Ukrainian-backed forces, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council said, “It’s not like we’re going to go out and investigate this.”

The Offensive Begins

Bob Avakian wrote, in an important article shortly after this war began, that “The ‘fog of war’ refers to the fact that, in a situation of warfare, many things become obscured. To put it simply, it is often difficult to tell exactly what is happening.” A complex mix of false communications, conscious deception, claims and counterclaims, outright lies, and conflicting views within the leadership of both sides of this war make it difficult to determine precisely what is underway at any given moment.

Reports in the western media indicate that specialized Ukrainian attack units, with weapons and training supplied by NATO, have this week attacked Russian forces in southeast Ukraine, “beginning a significant push into Russian-occupied territory.” The Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, denied this, saying that Russian forces had repelled four large-scale Ukrainian attacks and that Ukrainian forces had to retreat “with heavy losses.”

Each side has blamed the other for the destruction of a dam that has caused massive flooding across southern Ukraine. Whoever did cause the explosion believed to have ruptured the dam, one certainty is that the loss of the dam has magnified the already intense suffering of people in southern Ukraine. It has also “dramatically increase[d] safety concerns” at a nuclear power plant in the region.

A Threshold Crossed, a Challenge That Must Be Confronted

A threshold has been crossed in this war. After a winter of probing, long-distance bombing, and sabotage, two massive armies are moving to confront each other along a 600-mile front. They are armed with ultra-modern weaponry capable of wreaking terrible death and destruction. Both Russia and the US/NATO backers of Ukraine have nuclear weapons. The stakes are extremely high for both sides. Imperialism is putting the lives of the people in Ukraine, Russia, and in fact people all over the world in great, and heightening, danger.

The future doesn’t have to be this way. A far better world, one without exploitation and oppression, and without wars between nuclear-armed imperialist powers. Getting there requires a revolution—overthrowing the capitalist-imperialist system, and bringing about a society based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian. There is a tremendous need, and a tremendous basis, to fight towards that goal, now. 

Bob Avakian expressed this fundamental truth in an interview on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show:

We can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to dominate the world and to determine the destiny of humanity. They need to be overthrown as quickly as possible.