Russia/Ukraine:
U.S. Imperialism Remains Master of Ceremonies

Mar 31, 2025

This article is translated from the March 28 issue #2956 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.

U.S., Russian, and Ukrainian officials claim that the negotiations in Saudi Arabia on a possible truce in Ukraine have made progress. Progress toward what end remains in doubt.

Indeed, even when staged in front of the world’s cameras, these talks are more diplomacy as usual. Governments make secret deals at the expense of the governed. For them to call it quick progress would be a joke, if tragic ruin wasn’t continuing. The belligerents had barely promised to stop hitting energy infrastructure on March 18 when Russian and Ukrainian drones and missiles rained down the same evening on each others’ refineries, fuel depots, and thermal power plants.

On March 25, what Moscow called 12 hours of “difficult but useful dialogue” allowed the White House to announce an agreement on the free movement of merchant ships in the Black Sea, which the Kremlin wanted. Kyiv declared it would implement Washington’s announcement but emphasized: “details remain to be resolved.” Among the “details” is the demand to lift Western sanctions targeting Russian grain and fertilizer exports. Trump says he is for it. Kyiv is against it.

A year and a half ago, in the middle of the fighting, Kyiv and Moscow already reached an agreement mutually beneficial to their grain exports. But it didn’t stop them from continuing to sink each others’ merchant ships. On March 24, just before discussing the deal with Trump’s envoys in Riyadh, the Kremlin flooded the Ukrainian skies with missiles that caused hundreds of injuries and dozens of deaths in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, and other areas. At the same time, Kyiv bombarded Russian-held Donbass.

The fighting is continuing and getting more intense now, even if a ceasefire might finally get reached on some future date. Fighting could intensify further, as long as the two general staffs have enough conscripts to send to the slaughterhouse. In order to liquidate the Kursk area that Ukraine occupied since last summer, Moscow drowned it with shells and attackers. Bloodbath on both sides. Kyiv had a piece of Russian territory to trade for the regions of Ukraine the Russian army occupied. Moscow wanted a “peace” agreement to endorse the annexation.

Russia is in a strong position on the battlefield. Its army is constantly gaining ground. Time is on Putin’s side. So he is in no rush to reach an agreement. But still, contrary to what European governments and media claim, Russia is far from holding all the cards. Moscow doesn’t dictate the game. The U.S.—on another continent altogether—has “naturally” imposed itself to lead the negotiations. The European Union has been excluded, even though the war is taking place on the E.U.’s doorstep.

The U.S. sets the agenda and instructs both sides. Washington even got both sides to consent to this, even when Trump publicly and brutally dictated his conditions to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Ditto for Putin, who had to accept without blinking that America would seize rare earth mineral deposits in Ukraine outside of Russian control.

None of this would make sense without remembering that a handful of imperialist powers dominate the world today. The American bourgeoisie is the one with the strongest economy by far, the most wealth, and the most powerful army. The U.S. is capable of imposing its policies almost everywhere, with 800 military bases around the world.

Certainly, some countries like China, Russia, and a few others have the means to not bow down unhesitatingly to the world’s leading power. But the fact remains that the overwhelming superiority of American imperialism allows Washington to be the one claiming to work for peace after pushing its pawns into the former USSR, thereby creating the conditions for the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Like mafia bosses laying down the law. But this bloodbath is on the scale of entire countries.