Has Zelensky Lost The Plot?

The behaviour of Vladimir Zelensky, over the last week, has grown more bizarre. He seems to have completely lost the plot. His actions undermine the very narrative of Ukraine and NATO, and its supporters, particularly that of the petty-bourgeois nationalist, social imperialists, on the “Left”, but his words surrounding those actions are completely divorced from the reality that everyone can see, despite the massive attempts of the western media, to disguise it.

The narrative of the Ukrainian state, NATO, and its social imperialist supporters, is that they are fighting a war of national liberation, for Ukraine, against Russian imperialism. The fact that Ukraine was already an independent capitalist/imperialist state, and that the war is being fought by that state, with massive backing and encouragement from the world's largest imperialist and military power is overlooked and ignored. By ignoring that reality, the narrative is that brave, little Ukraine is fighting an honourable battle, according to all the usual law of morality and decency, against the “evil Empire”. The same narrative has been used by imperialists to justify their actions, and intervention, in every previous war.

It requires that all of the flaws of that regime be papered over. So, the fact that western, liberal media, in the years prior to the war, routinely exposed the thoroughly illiberal, corrupt and anti-democratic nature of Zelensky's regime, its anti-Semitism and reliance on the neo-Nazis of the Azov Battalion and Right Sector, and their links to international white supremacist movements, had to be buried. Any reference to those realities, was labelled, simply, support of Putin's narrative, despite the fact that it was the western, liberal narrative, long before it was Putin's narrative. It is precisely the same approach that was taken by Russian and other liberal interventionists, to justify their their role in the Balkan Wars at the start of the 20th century, as described by Trotsky.

But, along with this false moralising, comes, also, the idea that its only Russia that engages in indiscriminate bombings and attacks on civilians, in various forms of war crimes, and so on. Again, Trotsky describes the same propaganda methods of Russian and other liberal interventionists in their justification for their role in the Balkan Wars. As Trotsky noted, it was not at all necessary to deny the brutal nature of the Ottoman Empire, and the atrocities it committed, to simultaneously acknowledge that, during the war, those engaged in the war against it, committed their own fair share of such brutality and atrocity. Socialists do not need to deny the brutal and vile nature of Putin's regime, and the atrocities it commits, to also recognise that the Ukrainian regime, and particularly the neo-Nazis of the Azov Battalion, are guilty of their own fair share of atrocities and war crimes too.

As with the Balkan Wars, the western, liberal media, however, can fairly easily manage that news flow, just as it did in the Balkan Wars, where, on the spot reporting of atrocities by the anti-Ottoman forces, could be simply censored, as Trotsky describes. It took a long time before such reporting got out from the Vietnam War, and, since then, the embedding of journalists in armies has made that more difficult still. Yet, as with the reporting of US torture and atrocities at Abu Ghraib, it does eventually get out, though inevitably sanitised, minimised and neutered. Those held accountable are always the lower ranks, and never the military brass that encouraged it and facilitated it, and its always long after the event.

What is difficult for the liberal media to cover over, however, is the actions that deny the basic premise of the war, as being simply one for national liberation. So, when, Ukraine's forces carry out car bombings, café bombings and so on, in Moscow, that kill and maim Russian civilians, that undermines the narrative. Its why those actions were first blamed on Russians, before it was admitted that it was Ukrainian agents that carried out the attacks. When drones attack buildings in residential areas in Moscow, and other parts of Russia, indiscriminately risking the lives of civilians that, again, was, originally, blamed on Russian dissidents, but is now openly claimed by Ukraine, as Zelensky describes these indiscriminate attacks, as “bringing the war to Russia”.

In fact, what they represent is the same mentality that led the Provisional IRA to undertake bombings of mainland Britain, that leads jihadists to undertake similar attacks in western cities, and that leads Hamas and others to fire off rockets, indiscriminately into Israel, risking the lives of Israeli civilians. It is basically, an act of despair, but, in these latter cases, of a weak military force, whereas, in the case of the Ukrainian imperialist state, it is an act of deep frustration, because, despite the billions of dollars of the latest NATO weaponry, it is unable to make any significant headway in its offensive into Eastern Ukraine, as the Russians are solidly entrenched, and Ukraine is losing massive numbers of men and equipment, just to capture a few square miles of largely insignificant territory.

Try as they might, the western media cannot present the Ukrainian offensive as any kind of success, and, indeed, as reports escape from Ukraine itself, it has had to start reporting on the lack of progress, and level of casualties, even as it continues to describe Ukraine as being “on the front foot”. But, when, then, Zelensky appears, and makes comments about Ukrainian forces soon entering Crimea, or the war coming to Russia, that just undermines that narrative of the western media, because it is so clearly detached from reality, and, instead, sounds like the ravings of a mad man.

Not only is western media forced to give a more sober assessment, for fear of completely destroying its own credibility, but the fact that the leak of the US Defence Department papers, itself, showed that NATO, also, knows that Ukraine has no chance of taking any significant territory in Eastern or South-Eastern Ukraine, let alone retaking Crimea, which, now, would require a scale of violence similar to that were Arabs to seek to militarily seize the land stolen from them by Israel.

This crack-up by Zelensky, and his regime, has been mounting for some time. The isolated attacks behind Russian lines, be it drone strikes in Crimea, or the Moscow car and cafe bombings, were its early manifestation. Some could, at a stretch, be described as strategic military targets, as those against air bases in Crimea. Even that of the lorry bombing of the bridge between Crimea and Russia, could be justified as strategic, on the basis of attacking Russian military supply lines, though, in reality, it was an indiscriminate attack that risked the lives of civilians crossing the bridge, and had no real impact on Russian supply lines. In a war between two capitalist states, of course, such actions are routine, but the narrative, particularly of the social-imperialists, is that this is not a war between two capitalist states, but is somehow a moral crusade by “the people” of one state (Ukraine), against an imperialist aggressor.

The US destruction of the Nordstream pipelines, last year, followed a similar pattern, of trying to blame Russia for it, which was ridiculous, as it was Russia that suffered from the destruction of its pipelines, as well as the workers of the EU, who saw gas prices rocket by up to 4000%. yet, some of the social-imperialists, like Simon Pirani, went into logical gymnastics to try to prove that Russia, after all, might benefit from the destruction of its own assets, and the denial, for some time, of any revenue stream from them! As the evidence mounted, the US, showed that it was prepared to throw Ukraine under the bus, claiming that it was they that had been responsible. Ukrainians should be aware of that, not only from the experience of western behaviour in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, in ditching its useful idiots and foot soldiers, but from its own experience in relation to the Lienz Cossacks.

Then, there was the Ukrainian missile strikes, last December, on the Nova Khakovka Dam, and on other bridges across the Dnieper. That was almost certainly the cause of the later breach of the dam, which again they attempted to pin on Russia, despite the fact that it denied it water and hydro-electric power, and flooded large areas of what was now Russian territory, and agricultural land. These are all acts of frustration, if not desperation; scorched Earth actions by a retreating force that knows it is not returning, despite its bravado, and surreal claims to be about to do so. But, at the same time, because they are so remote from reality, and simultaneously undermine the moral basis of the case being put forward by their petty-bourgeois nationalist supporters, in the West, they do even greater long-term damage to its narrative.

For one thing, the indiscriminate drone attacks inside Russia, undermine the argument that the corrupt, Ukrainian regime has some kind of moral superiority over Putin, whereas the truth is they are both equally obnoxious and abhorrent. Moreover, Putin's argument, is rationally based on the fact that US imperialism, and its NATO puppet, seeks to maintain its global supremacy, against a rising Chinese imperialism, and its Russian ally, just as British imperialism sought to do prior to WWI and II, in Europe, and US imperialism, in the Asia-Pacific region, as against a rising German and Japanese imperialism. The social-imperialist supporters of NATO/Ukraine seek to deny that reality, but, when Zelensky talks about the war coming to Russia, when he sends drones to indiscriminately attack buildings in Moscow, he immediately confirms Putin's argument.

If, now, a Ukraine outside NATO is prepared to engage in such attacks, and even the “socialists” in the West support it, in doing so, Putin can say, doesn't this show that those “socialists” are simply tools of NATO imperialism, all ranged against the Russian “people”, and meaning that Russia should all rally around Putin, as their Hobbesian sovereign, for their protection. That was what Trotsky described was the inevitable consequence of the military alliance against Hitler, and the support for it of Stalin, and the social-imperialists of that time. Doesn't it show, Putin can say, that what he said all along, was true, that if Ukraine was inside NATO, then, it would form its front line of attack, right on the Russian border, and that, in place of ineffective drones, it would be NATO missiles primed and ready to descend in minutes on Russian cities?

The western media, of course, are trying to save the narrative. They know that talk of Ukrainian forces entering Crimea, or taking the war to Russia, itself, is ridiculous nonsense, but they have attempted to couple the narrative of Ukraine being “on the front foot”, with a justification for these desperate, indiscriminate, and essentially terroristic drone attacks, lorry bombings of bridges, and so on. When such attacks take place on Kyiv, or when they are considered in relation to the Blitz on London, or terror attacks on western cities, the narrative is always that they engender a solidaristic response of defiance from the citizens of those cities. Its not particularly true. Despite the narrative, Londoners, during the Blitz, frequently attacked what they knew to be the hypocrisy of Churchill, and the Royal Family, provided with deep secure bunkers from which they could emerge, into a largely unscathed privileged lifestyle, whilst those in the East End saw their communities ravaged.

What can be said about, for example, the bombings by the IRA, or the attacks by jihadists, is not only are they largely ineffective, but they are counter-productive, drowning out any discussion of the underlying issues, and simply engendering hostility from the citizens under attack. Yet, when it comes to Ukrainian drone attacks in Moscow, the same liberal pundits do not talk about this solidarising effect, or generation of hostility, but about it making Russian civilians aware that a war is going on, creating conditions for opposition to Putin, and so on. All the evidence is that it does the opposite, and those pundits, in their attempts to justify the actions of Zelensky and his regime, have been turned, now, into apologists for the tactics of terrorism.

It is all a symptom of frustration and desperation, as, despite the huge amounts of advanced weaponry poured into Ukraine, despite the high-tech cyber warfare, satellite spying, the global economic war against Russia and China that has caused global production costs to rise significantly, supply lines to be broken, global trade to be cut, and the prices of food and energy to rise sharply, fuelled by the inflation caused by the massive liquidity injections from central banks, and despite the huge loss of life and limbs, by Ukrainian soldiers, it has moved forward barely an inch, in strategic terms, and the war has ground to a stalemate, as Russia has achieved its strategic goals, and consolidated its position.

The West has tried to make something out of Putin's statement that the proposals of African and Chinese leaders could provide a basis for peace negotiations, but basically, those proposals amount to a recognition of this reality of a stalemate and acceptance of new borders between Ukraine and Russia, which NATO has pressed Zelensky not to accept. Zelensky may also, now, be keen not to do so, whereas he could have made a deal on that basis last year. Having put Ukraine through these further months of war, with no benefit, for him to agree to a deal, now, would almost certainly lead to his own replacement, followed, as with previous Ukrainian Presidents, with the exposure of the extent of his corruption, and billions stashed away overseas, as described previously by The Guardian.

Given also the utter capitulation to social-patriotism by the Ukrainian labour movement, it is in a poor state to offer a progressive alternative when that demise occurs, leaving the door open to the forces of reaction, of the Azov Battalion and Right Sector, a repetition of the same kind of tragedy, but on a grander scale, of the bankruptcy of the "Left" in the West, as it opportunistically allied with neo-liberals against the interests of workers and opened the door for the Right to fill that gap.