Oreshnik
On 20 November, Ukraine fired six long range US-made ATACM missiles deep into Russia. Russia’s Ministry of Defence said Ukraine had struck Russia’s Bryansk region with six missiles, and that air defence systems intercepted five and damaged one.
On the 21 November Ukraine launched two long range British-made Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russia. Two Storm Shadow missiles, six HIMARS rockets, and 67 unmanned aerial vehicles were neutralised by Russian air defence systems.
In both acts of war, it was Kiev’s finger on the trigger but Washington that called the shots, cheered on by British imperialism in the unsavoury person of the Labour prime minister Keir Starmer.
For months the White House had been agonising over whether or not to ‘allow’ (in fact, order) the Kiev junta to use the long-range weapons provided by the West to penetrate into the heart of Russia, thereby (it was hoped) to at least postpone the collapse of Project Ukraine.
Moscow had repeatedly warned that if any such attack were to be made, this would be recognised as a clear act of war against Russia by the US, Britain and Nato, regardless of whose finger was on the trigger. The reality is that ATACMS are inoperable without specialist involvement and access to data from US satellites. Whilst the West likes to pretend that this remains a war between Ukraine and Russia, nobody can be left in any doubt that the real war is the one that is right now being waged by the collective West against Russia, and primarily by the US and the UK.
This deliberate escalation by the West into open war was swiftly dwarfed by a display of the kind of advanced weaponry which Russia has at its disposal. On 22 November the hypersonic Oreshnik missile zipped through all Ukraine’s defences and dropped a cluster-bomb of warheads on Dnipro, in what may come to be seen as Moscow’s final warning to the West that it should think again before it plunges the world into full scale war.
The arrival on the scene of the Oreshnik missiles took the West by surprise. The missiles travel at a speed of Mach 10, or 2,5-3 kilometres per second, and currently there is no defence system that is capable of intercepting it. Furthermore, even without being fitted with bombs, conventional or nuclear, the sheer force of hitting a target at that speed would itself be a devastating blow on a par with a nuclear strike. Moscow has already made it plain that it could provide long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets if NATO allies allow Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory.
The arrival of Oreshnik has knocked the West sideways, throwing out of the window the carefully calibrated nuclear tit for tat timetables so beloved of Nato’s war planners. Oreshnik could prevail in whatever form, ‘conventional’ or nuclear, as required. It could make it harder for the West to use nuclear blackmail to drag out a proxy war whose negative outcome is long since decided but which it suits imperialism to prolong.
The delay of eight years that elapsed between the fascist coup in Kiev and the decision to throw the weight of the Russian army behind the ensuing liberation struggle of the Donbass, years in which Russia bent over backwards trying to find a diplomatic solution (the Minsk accords) and refrained from giving open military support to the liberation struggle – these were years of great hardship for the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, which with the benefit of hindsight could have been shortened.
Imperialism learns nothing and assumes that nobody else does either. In this it is mistaken. Russia’s heroic struggle against Nato-backed fascism has inspired and strengthened anti-imperialists everywhere. Not least, it has reawakened the spirit of revolution in Russia itself. It is not on any single ‘wonder weapon’ that the future development of the anti-imperialist movement will rely, but the possession of the Oreshnik is a massive scientific achievement that cannot but play to the great advantage of the anti-imperialist masses.
Germans fall out with their government over Ukraine
German chancellor Olaf Scholz continues to hold out against sending long range Taurus missiles to Ukraine to enable it to launch them against Russia, but it is probable that this may change. It should not be supposed that Scholz’s stubbornness over this issue indicates any real backbone. In any case, he still plans to station US medium-range missiles in Germany as a ‘deterrent’. Meanwhile the economics minister, Green party stalwart Robert Habeck, has announced that if he gets elected for Scholz’s job in February he will send Taurus missiles to Kiev, no problem. Habeck is joined in this view by the Christian Democratic Union party and the liberal FDP party, all united in their tutelage by US imperialism.
But this does not reflect the sentiments of the mass of workers whom they pretend to represent, workers who are outraged by the wanton destruction of their jobs, the deindustrialisation of the economy, the unexplained sabotage of gas pipelines and the drive to war with Russia, and who now in growing numbers regard the weasel words of the liberal elite with loathing and contempt and can’t wait to be rid of them. The parties that best reflect this revolt against the whole liberal establishment are the right-populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the left-populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). The AfD is infected with anti-immigration sentiment but this is not what really bothers the ‘moderates’ who are happy enough to let the Zionists carry on with genocide and can’t wait to furnish the Ukrainian neonazis with Taurus missiles. What bothers them about the growth of ‘extremism’ of both ‘left’ and ‘right’ populism is what it says about the complete failure of the ‘moderate’ centre to connect with the mass of angry and disaffected workers. This is what Deutsche Welt had to say about a demonstration in October:
“At a demonstration in Berlin, mostly far-left groups called for Germany to halt arms deliveries to Ukraine and in some cases even to leave NATO. Organizers said more than 40,000 people attended.
“Thousands of protesters gathered on Thursday to protest the German government’s stance on the war in Ukraine. Supporters of the demonstration, under the banner of ‘Never Again War’, held the protest on German Unity Day, the yearly holiday commemorating the 1990 reunification of Germany. Protesters held up banners calling for diplomacy instead of war and demanding a halt to arms deliveries to Ukraine. Some demonstrators also expressed solidarity with people in the Gaza Strip, with placards calling for an ‘end to the occupation terror.’ Organizers said that ‘well over 40,000 people’ attended the rally” (‘German far-left groups lead Berlin ‘peace’ demonstration’, Deutsche Welt, 3 October 2024).
At the same rally, Sahra Wagenknecht called for talks with President Vladimir Putin in order to bring about an end to fighting in Ukraine and accused the government of blindly following Washington, pointing out that Germany is “once again on the verge of US medium-range missiles being stationed in Germany. My God, this is madness. We must not go further in this direction. What is happening is damn dangerous.”
A long standing social democrat named Ralf Stegner got a rough ride from some of the crowd. His account of his reception was very revealing. Ralf Stegner complained after his speech about parts of the crowd, who had heckled him. “Jeers and boos from some demonstrators as I spoke of a Russian war of aggression and of Ukraine’s right to self-defense only serve to emphasize that we cannot leave the peace movement to the populists — the Social Democrats belong there. Politics is not a fair weather game.”
The message is clear: the social democrats are failing in their duty to their imperialist masters if they do not strain every sinew in keeping the working class tied to the imperialist leading strings. The message from the communists must be no less clear: expose the warmongers in sheep’s clothing who insinuate their way into the working class, and teach the workers how to uproot them from their midst.
Meanwhile France even now continues to pursue the fatuous policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’, which in practice results in a policy of hints and nudges.. Nevertheless, Macron defends the US decision to authorise long range missile strikes, says France will not stop Ukraine firing such strikes against Russia, but coyly stops short of clearly stating what the whole world has long since come to understand, namely, that when push comes to shove, Paris will do exactly what Washington tells it to do.
Heading for home in the liberated territories
According to Olena Hrazhdan writing in the Kiev Post of 23 November 2024 (‘Over 100K Ukrainians return to Russian-occupied Donbass as economic hardship grows’), in the past year an estimated 130,000 former inhabitants of the Donbass region who had been displaced by the fighting have now flooded back home, fleeing discrimination, homelessness and poverty. Russian officials overseeing the Sheremetyevo checkpoint say that the root cause for their return is financial hardship, made worse when the Kiev junta cancelled the $48 social wage for internally displaced persons (IDP). Most IDP workers cannot afford to rent a flat, and out of the 13,000 borrowers on the books of the most widely used mortgage provider, only 2% are IDPs. It is not surprising that the urge to return to the liberated Donbass is growing by the day.
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