U.S. Policy Continues the Bloodbath in Ukraine

May 15, 2023

For the last six months, the news media has been advancing the idea of an upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces, often referred to as “the Spring offensive.” While the U.S. military may very well have planned and coordinated such an offensive with the Ukrainian state, it is not clear what is really evolving. What is clear is that the bloodbath in the Southeastern part of Ukraine, specifically around Bakhmut, is continuing with both Russian and Ukrainian forces struggling to maintain position in this completely devastated area. And also, what is clear is that the Ukrainian forces are struggling to continue.

Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost on both sides. In the face of this horrific loss of life, the policy of the U.S. government has been as it was in the beginning, to coordinate, to arm and to fund this war. The U.S. government just announced another 1.2 billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. This is on top of the estimated 75 billion dollars that the U.S. has already sent to Ukraine since the war started.

It has been estimated that at least 350,000 Ukrainians and Russians have been killed and wounded in this war. At least 6 million Ukrainians have been displaced from their homes, and much of the Ukrainian economy and infrastructure has been decimated. The Russian economy and the lives of the Russian population have also been impacted.

But for the U.S. government, the war in Ukraine seems to be serving its purpose. This war began when Putin ordered the Russian military to invade Ukraine. But the theatre for this war had been set years before as the U.S. and its NATO allies put military bases and weapons right on the border of the former Soviet Union and of Russia. When the U.S. brought some of the former Soviet Republics into the NATO alliance, this further threatened Russia. The policy of the U.S. and NATO may have been to deliberately provoke Putin into his brutal invasion of Ukraine. In any case, the U.S. government is clearly intent on using this war, perhaps even deliberately dragging the war out, to weaken Russia and the Putin regime.

The consequences of this war go far beyond Ukraine and Russia. Any war has the possibility of escalating beyond what either side is planning—spreading to other countries or bringing in the use of nuclear weapons. The war has already disrupted and realigned parts of the world economy.

Whatever the direct consequences and outcome of the war in Ukraine, the U.S. and the NATO countries are using this war to justify massively increasing their military spending, building up their military forces, in preparation for a future war, and a bigger war.

It was economic crises in the capitalist system that led directly to World War One and World War Two. Today the ongoing economic crisis of capitalism is pushing toward another world war. For the Ukrainian and Russian working people, the current war has already been a disaster. A spreading war, a world war, today threatens large parts of the world population with sharing directly in the same disaster.