Britain/NATO has stepped up the stakes in its imperialist war with Russia~China, as it has now supplied long range, cruise missiles to Zelenky's crony capitalist regime. These Storm Shadow missiles have a range of 350 kilometres, and are carried on fighter jets that can be flown up to and beyond the Russian border, meaning they can strike well into Russian territory. So much for the claims of NATO, and of the social-imperialist apologists of the USC that this is not an inter-imperialist war, and that it is only a defensive war by Ukraine. Some USC supporters have been quite open, though, at least. Paul mason makes clear that he sees the purpose of the war being for NATO to militarily defeat Russia, and by extension China. At least that is honest.
Britain claims that it has obtained assurances from Zelensky that the missiles will not be used to strike Russia, but that assurance is meaningless. Britain/NATO also claimed that its troops were not involved in Ukraine, but the leak of the US Defence Department papers showed that was not true. It was almost certainly NATO that blew up the Russian Nordstream pipeline to prevent EU countries changing tack, and resuming gas purchases from Russia. The attacks on Russian facilities in Crimea and the Black Sea, were almost certainly facilitated by the use of NATO Special Forces.
But, Ukraine itself claimed that it was not behind the car bombings, café bombings and so on in Russia, but it subsequently was proved that it was. Zelensky, like Saakashvilli, who has moved from his previous role in Georgia to a similar one in Ukraine, is a maverick. The truth is that the promised Ukrainian Spring Offensive failed to happen, and even as we enter Summer, it is still nowhere on the horizon. The only offensive has been the propaganda offensive by NATO/Ukraine, of which this latest supply of high tech NATO weapons is the latest instalment.
The reality is that Russia has had more than six months to entrench and embed its positions in Eastern Ukraine. Those hardened defences mean that any Ukrainian offensive, especially given the 4:1 defender's advantage that Russians now enjoy, will simply be minced. The high tech tanks provided by Britain and other NATO countries a couple of months ago, and of which so much was made, in a previous propaganda offensive, have failed to appear on the battlefield, or change anything, and for good reason.
In modern warfare, such tanks and armoured vehicles are easy targets for infantry, and even irregulars, to take out with cheap and portable, shoulder launched missile launchers. It would be highly embarrassing for NATO to have to admit that its multi-billion dollar, latest weaponry was absolutely useless, and had been quickly taken out, or worse captured, by small numbers of infantry!
And Russia has responded to previous missile systems provided by NATO to Ukraine, by simply moving back its arms and supply dumps, which is one reason these new long-range missiles have been provided. The reality is that the war has already, as I predicted months ago, settled into a more or less settled state - which also the leaked US defence Department papers admit, as they conclude that Ukraine will make no advance in the coming year.
Russia, which never had the capacity or intention of invading and occupying the whole of Ukraine, has more or less accomplished its objective of annexing the ethnic Russian majority areas of Eastern Ukraine, as it had done in 2014 with Crimea. For so long as the government in Kiev persisted with the war, backed by NATO, rather than negotiate a peace deal, Russia simply hardened its positions, and daily lobbed missiles at Kyiv and other cities, denuding Ukraine's infrastructure, and eroding the will to fight, as well as embarrassing NATO/US imperialism, as its huge arsenal and global hegemonic status was unable to defeat the Russian forces.
Ukraine, likewise, was unable to launch any counter-offensive, and sees its forces in Bakhmut surrounded and ground down, and settled for itself launching sporadic, and largely ineffective occasional strikes on Russian facilities, and terroristic bombings in Russia. The coming months will drag on with no great change, other than these occasional propaganda offensives, and promises of future action. The rational thing to do, and what is likely at some point, possibly in the Autumn, is that negotiations for a cease fire and peace treaty will be arranged. In the meantime, thousands of Russian and Ukrainian workers will have been slaughtered for the greater glory of their respective ruling classes, much as happened in WWI and II.
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