The presentation of the war in Ukraine in the Western media is exactly like that of the genocide in Gaza.  Just as history began with the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, so the ‘war’ in Gaza was started by Hamas on October 7, 2023.  Russia and Hamas are to blame.

The majority of the Left has correctly sought to put October 7 into context, to be understood as an almost inevitable explosion arising from brutal oppression.  In the case of Ukraine the context has all but been ignored, and in any event Russia is not an oppressed people and it had a choice.  Of course, both of these observations are true, which are some of the reasons why Sráid Marx has not supported the Russian invasion, but this does not excuse the failure of the pro-war left to provide a coherent explanation of why the invasion took place.

Their impoverished attempts to do so, based on the flawed understanding of history and megalomaniacal mental disposition of Vladimir Putin, is about as useful for the task as depending on the flawed understanding of Jewish history and psychopathic tendencies of Benjamin Netanyahu to explain Israeli actions, or the antisemitic, crazed impulse for revenge of Hamas.  Personalising such causes, or placing the onus on the inhuman character of those you don’t like, prevents understanding of the real causes and in this case avoids having to account for the interests of the Russian state, consideration of which might invite deliberation on those of the Ukrainian and Western states.  This might lead to comparisons between them that would dissolve the simple narrative of big against small, good facing evil, and freedom opposing oppression.

This year is the tenth anniversary of the Maidan demonstrations and occupation, which is sometimes given as context to, and presented as the start of, the Russian aggression, although this is a particularly difficult ‘revolution’ for the left to hang its coat upon.  This ‘revolution of dignity’ was based on the illusion that an EU association agreement would lead to Western standards of living, and put an end to corruption with the introduction of democracy, so that the then Ukrainian President was wrong to accept the alternative offer from Russia and attempt to repress the popular movement by force.

Unfortunately, such a story of a pure democratic movement repressed by a Russian proxy does no justice to the events, as explained before here and here.  These include the issues raised in prior attempts to negotiate a deal with the EU, Russia making a better offer, and the EU deal threatening the livelihoods of millions of workers in uncompetitive industries in the East of the country.  The Maidan uprising was not therefore universally supported but was based on liberal illusions and sponsorship by the US, including by Western backed NGOs.

The occupation of the Square was led by far-right forces that may well have been to blame for the final massacre.  The oligarchic Government and state that arose out of this ‘revolution’ continued to be riddled with corruption and was a creature moulded at least in part by the US, including through collaboration with its secret police, the SBU.  Even this Ukrainian supporter of the war cannot help admitting that the Maidan revolt was highjacked by the right.

From 2014 Ukraine built up a large army and adopted a policy of recovering Crimea and the other areas in the East occupied by Russia.  Integration into NATO began and the penetration of the US through its usual vehicles, such as the CIA, has been admitted even by a US publication that cannot be accused of providing excuses for Russia.  This source makes it abundantly clear that the Ukrainian state was a willing proxy for US imperialism long before the Russian invasion and that 24 February 2022 was very definitely not the ‘first shot’.

This function continues and has increased enormously through the war.  Speaking about the role of the CIA at its commencing, Ivan Bakanov, then head of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, stated that  “Without them, there would have been no way for us to resist the Russians, or to beat them”.  

The details of this, disclosed by The New York Times, were “a closely guarded secret for a decade”, including from the Ukrainian people.  What this demonstrates is that the Ukrainian state and political regime–that the pro-war left in the West supports–walked the Ukrainian people into a war in a process of which they were blissfully ignorant.  It proves yet again the old socialist adage that the main enemy is at home.

This left has been unable to tell the difference between the Ukrainian state, people and working class, and has loudly declared the ‘agency’ of Ukraine against charges of the war being a proxy one on behalf of Western imperialism.  It is surely beyond doubt that the price paid to become part of NATO isn’t worth it.  It is also clear what agency has been active in Ukraine before and during the war, and thus bears some responsibility for it, although this is an agency the pro-war left would like to deny.

The Ukrainian state worked against the interests of the Ukrainian people, and it behoves socialists to explain this and to work towards the working class in the country acting as an agency on its own behalf, not as cannon-fodder for the capitalist state.  The pro-war left that declares its defence of the Ukrainian people and working class can’t do this because it can’t tell the difference between their separate interests and so never makes a real distinction between them. Since the working class has no independent organisation separate and opposed to the Ukrainian state the left supports the state, while lip service is paid to working class interests that are never political but simply express economistic demands compatible with, in fact subordinated to, the war.

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in November 2021, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced a ‘Strategic Partnership’ with Ukraine that included a commitment to supporting its objective of taking the territory lost to Russia, including Crimea.  On the 17th December Russia sent an ultimatum demanding a reduction of Western military deployments in Eastern Europe and an official end to attempts to bring Ukraine into NATO.  Inside Ukraine, Zelensky sanctioned three ‘pro-Russian’ TV channels and arrested the opposition leader, Viktor Medvedchuk. He demanded new and immediate sanctions, and questioned why Ukraine didn’t have an ‘open door’ into NATO given that it was functioning as Europe’s ‘reliable shield’ against Russia.  The dynamic towards war and Western involvement was set, explaining why the invasion did not come out of the blue from the deranged mind of a Russian dictator.

The immediate UK media response was to paint Russia’s Special Military Operation as a ‘full-scale invasion’ that aimed to invade and occupy the whole country, with Reuters reporting that “Ukraine’s forces no match for Russia in manpower, gear and experience.”  Russia was, after all, the great bear threatening the whole Western world and prime justification for the creation and existence of NATO.

Since the total Russian invading army was smaller than the Ukrainian, and much smaller when the latter’s reserves were included, this did not make much sense, since we all learned that a ratio of at least 3 to 1 was required for the attacking force.  Russia launched 600 airstrikes in the first ten days, far fewer than the 2,000 strikes launched in the first days of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Two years later, the civilian deaths attributed to Russia are around 10,000, less than one third of those inflicted by the Israeli state in less than a quarter of the time.  While the former led to massive economic sanctions; unprecedented supply of weapons and ammunition that drained the stock of materiel from the Western world; billions of dollars and Euros in financial support, and supply of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR); in Gaza it led to sanctions, weapons, finance and ISR as well, except the sanctioned were those being massacred and the assistance went to those committing the genocide.

One might think that this would torpedo Western justification for supporting Ukraine, at least among the left, but this didn’t happen, even when the Ukrainian state declared its solidarity with the Israeli state and the Israeli state reciprocated.

Presenting the Russian offensive as a ‘full-scale invasion’ that aimed to occupy the whole country made it possible for Western ‘experts’ to repeatedly denounce it as a failure when this very obviously wasn’t happening. Russia’s characterisation of it as a ‘Special Military Operation’ (that did not require full scale mobilisation beforehand) was derided as simply a dishonest pretence.

Since the West ensured that quick ceasefire negotiations in March 2022 were torpedoed, and promises were made to support Ukraine in a fight to the end, the Russian state then did much of what the western media claimed it had already done.  It expanded its military-industrial complex and mobilised hundreds of thousands of new troops, which the Western media denounced without acknowledging that this was already supposed to have happened.

The media, having predicted a quick Russian victory, then took to ridiculing the incompetence of the Russian forces, reporting its massive casualties and hailing its coming total defeat.  Their retreat from Kyiv was hailed as a huge reverse, as was the later retreat from much of Kharkiv in the East and Kherson in the West.  This ignored that fighting around Kyiv was more a series of skirmishes than a massive full-frontal assault; that the loss of significant territory in Kharkiv was due to thin defences that proved the invasion had not been ‘full-scale’, and that the retreat back across the Dnieper was a well-executed manoeuvre that made perfect sense from a military point of view.

None of this means that these were not victories for Ukraine, but they were not the disasters for Russia painted in the West.  Influential media like Foreign Affairs carried articles such as “How Not to Invade a Nation” while Russia Matters declared “No End in Sight to Beginning of Putin’s End”. Russian advances were written off–“Russia’s Capture of Azovstal: Symbolic Success, ‘Pyrrhic’ Victory?” said Radio Liberty Europe.

The British media reported that “Vladimir Putin’s total defeat is now within reach”, according to The Telegraph on 8 Sept  2022.

“Putin is finished. The Ukrainians have him on the ropes” in The Telegraph, on 11 Sept 2022 .

“Humiliation for Vladimir Putin as Ukrainians liberate key city of Lyman” said The Guardian on 1 Oct 2022, and

Ukrinform on 19 November 2022 stated that “Defense Ministry predicts Ukrainian forces be back in Crimea by end of December”.

This obviously biased and ignorant approach continued with the promise, repeatedly delayed, of a Ukrainian offensive in the spring of 2023.  Russia was apparently not only running out of missiles (repeatedly) and had suffered horrendous losses of men and tanks, but the low morale of its troops could mean a rapid victory for the new NATO armed and trained Ukrainian brigades.

In the event, Russia continued to fire its missiles at various levels of intensity; its first defences were hardly reached never mind breached, and the morale of the Russian army held while that of Ukraine fell following the utter failure of the offensive and the high level of losses incurred. It appeared, after it was all over, that during the offensive Russia had captured as much territory as Ukraine.

There then began the claim that the war was at a stalemate, with little territorial gains by either side, while stories of repeated meat grinder assaults causing horrific casualties were attributed to the Russians that had in fact become a feature of the previous Ukrainian offensive.  This was combined with incompatible stories about the considerable Russian advantage in artillery in what was characterised as a war of position.  Pro-Russian propaganda pointed out that this was precisely the Russian strategy – of degrading Ukrainian forces rather than seeking territorial gains, which would ultimately follow.

The only way to gain any appreciation of the state of the conflict from a military point of view was to look at this propaganda (with a critical eye).  This, of course, was not something the pro-war and Pro-Ukraine left was inclined to do.  The defeat at Bakhmut was thus the story of the loss of a strategically unimportant town and not that of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, while the grinding war of attrition was still a stalemate at a time when Russia was making more advances than the previous heralded Ukrainian assaults.  Reading Western coverage of the war was like reading a crime novel in which pro-Russian outlets had already revealed in previous months who had been killed, how they had been killed and who was guilty.

Even now, the story is being told that Ukraine is losing only because of lack of resolve by the West and that victory is still possible. More weapons and ammunition should be supplied even though it is now admitted that neither the troops to wield them, nor the materiel itself, exist in sufficient quantity.  This leads to the siren calls for NATO infantry on the ground and NATO aircraft in the sky.  This became another illustration of the claim that if Ukraine falls the rest of Europe will be next, while having claimed during most of the last two years that Russia was losing.

Repeated lies by the Western media, its contradictory claims and their clash with reality should have caused the more fundamental lies about the nature of the war to be questioned and rejected.  However, having swallowed Western imperialist explanation and justification for the war, the pro-war Left by and large also became subject to the illusions peddled about its course. They have become stuck in support for a proxy war that has the potential to escalate catastrophically and a political position that can only oppose catastrophe when the grounds for it have already been created.

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