Does the "anti-imperialist" Left bear some responsibility for Putin's invasion of Ukraine?

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It's clear to almost everyone that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a crime against humanity, not to mention, a violation of international law. By now, even Putin must be seeing that he has made a terrible mistake. He expected to have Zelenskyy's head on a post in The Maiden two weeks ago. Things just aren't working out the way he planned.

His invasion has revealed weaknesses in the Russian military that likely, Putin himself, wasn't even aware of:

• The second largest air force on Earth has been unable to establish air dominance over Ukraine after more than two weeks. His planes are still being shot out of the sky with enormous regularity, and although he has thousands of warplanes in reserve, the losses are stacking up.
• Equipment problems are plaguing his air corp. When Russian planes are shot down, in many cases the ejector seats fail, in others, the parachutes fail. Those pilots that make it to the ground, and are captured, are found to be older, over-weight, and out of shape. The image of Tom Cruise's Top Gun, they ain't.

His ground forces are suffering from similar equipment problems, as well as serious short-comings in logistical support:

• Russian soldiers have been captured with MREs (meal, ready to eat) that expired two decades ago.
• In Ukraine, his soldiers are foraging in local supermarkets and civilian homes, simply to find enough to eat.
• Tanks and other armored vehicles are being abandoned simply because they have run out of gas. 
• His soldiers have been going AWOL in increasing numbers, taking to the forest, or becoming bandits, taking over civilian homes. There are tremendous morale problems. They'd been told they were on an exercise. Now they find they are invading a comrade country where they're definitely not wanted. 

Russia is also looking like the amateur-hour on a tactical level:

• Sending in armor without infantry support, making for easy targets for Ukrainian dismounted infantry with Javelins.
• The daylight madness of leaving that armored column north of Kiev strung-out over 30 miles and bogged down. They found this out as soon as Ukraine got TB2 Bayraktar drones from Turkey.

In a vein effort to compensate for his army's inability to carry out military operations in a professional and effective manner, Putin has resorted to trying to pound all of Ukraine into the dust with wide-area weapons like artillery and indirect rocket fire. 

There's an old Stalin-era military doctrine that Putin likes: “Why send a soldier where a shell can go?” Well, because a soldier can distinguish between an enemy solider and a civilian, whereas as shell can't, might be the humane answer. Never mind that. His Ukrainian civilian causalities can't properly be called “collateral damage.” He is directly targeting them.

On Saturday, The Times reported that Putin had a number of his FSB intelligence officers arrested:

Sergey Beseda, head of the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch, was arrested with Anatoly Bolyukh, his deputy, according to a leading expert on the Russian security services, who said that sources from within FSB had confirmed the detention of both men.

This may be just the beginning of the Putin purges. He is going to need a lot of people to blame for this debacle. He may rightly suspect that military preparedness isn't up to snuff because state funds earmarked for the military have been going into the now-frozen foreign bank accounts of oligarchs. He may find logistics failed him because his top generals were more concerned about the welfare of their mistresses, than the soldiers under their command. Probably, also these same generals failed to given Putin the bad news about what their exercises in Belarus and Russia told them about their lack of readiness. It's not good to give Putin bad news.

Keep in mind, not only is the Russian military much bigger, they had years of planning and months of practice! The Ukrainians did not. They really didn't believe Putin would mount a full-on invasion. Maybe he was about to up the ante in Dombass, but they've blocked that approach before. Almost nobody believed Putin would do what he did. True, Biden's warnings were spot-on, but nobody believed him. US intelligence has cried “wolf” far too many times to expect to be believed. 

Putin is probably starting with his intelligence chiefs because for months—years, they have been confirming everything he said about genocide in Dombass, how Nazis-riddled the Ukrainian government was, how they expected to have things wrapped up in three days and would be welcomed as liberators, especially in the Russian-speaking areas where they would start.

Putin knows he's the boss, and ultimately, he gave the orders, but he also now knows he was deluded. Putin also knows he did not become so deluded on his own—he had help, and he needs people to blame for his debacle in Ukraine. 

In Putin's search for people to share his responsibility for this war, may I suggest that there are some outside of Russia that may have contributed to the delusional state he was in on 24 February when he declared war on Ukraine. These would include people on the “anti-imperialist” Left, not paid agents, that nevertheless, drank his Kool-Aid and made it “gospel” for so many Western Leftists. 

There were at least two major casus belli, pitched by Putin before he invaded Ukraine, that were widely purchased by the “anti-imperialist” Left. How much did their ready acceptance and their promotion of these Putin falsehoods contribute to his delusion that they represented “good and sufficient causes” for his rape of Ukraine? These two “articles-of-faith” on the “anti-imperialist” Left with regards to the “crisis” in Ukraine, are, of course:

1.) The main problem is NATO expansion eastward to be right on Russia's border.

2.) The Maiden was a US-orchestrated coup, and now Ukraine is dominated by neo-Nazis.

The strengthen and unity of Ukrainians we see now is a direct result of the people's revolution that took place on The Maiden in 2014. It was no coup. These people haven't been the “pawns” of Victoria Nuland, or anybody else.

I know a lot of people have been spreading this for free. Putin owes them a pay check. Now, let's look at each in more detail:

Was NATO “expansion” the real reason Putin started this war?

In just two short weeks, this war has made Putin's professed problems with NATO much, much worst:

• NATO has a new reason to exist—mutual defense against Russian military aggression. Better it would be the United Nations, but for structural reasons, the UN can't do it. 
• In taking Ukraine, he will be adding Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Hungary to the list of NATO countries on his border, increasing the number from three to seven.
• NATO is now more united, and its members can be expected to spend more on their militaries in coming years.
• There is new pressure on NATO to expand even closer to Russia's borders. Now, neutral Sweden and Finland are considering NATO membership.

Putin would have to be stupid not to see any of this coming, and Putin's not stupid. So, it strains credulity to believe he initiated this conflict because he was afraid Ukraine was going to join NATO anytime soon. Let us probe further for a better reason. 

It would be hard to read Putin's ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“, 12 July 2021, without concluding that he's on a mission to build a new Russian Empire, and not just on the territory of the USSR, but all that of the old Russian empire of the Czars. That being the case, the extension of NATO Article 5 protections to countries on his list certainly is a problem for him. They know that as well, which is why they flocked to join NATO—to gain its protection from him. Thus, the push for this notorious NATO expansion came from them, and not the US and its Western European allies. That's why the Putin-fanboys can quote CIA director William Burns on how he tried to throw cold water on it at the time.

Of course, the Goebbels in Putin knew better than to say that NATO “containment” of Russia was only a problem because he intended to expand Russia to include Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary Czech Rep, Slovakia, Belarus, Finland, and Azerbaijan. So, Putin became defensive. He said he was concerned for Russia's safety. Given the atrocities the Nazis committed against Russia in WW2, there might seem good reason for that concern, especially inside Russia, where every enemy, be they Ukraine or NATO or whoever, are branded “Nazi.”

I don't know how many on the “anti-imperialist” Left seriously think Russia is threatened with unprovoked military invasion from NATO—meaning the kind of thing Russia has just done to Ukraine—tanks across the border WW2 style. Personally, I've always thought there was about a nano chance of that, both sides having nukes and all. Things are handled with a bit more finesse between superpowers these days. Since WW2, the kind of blunt force Russia is exercising in Ukraine has been reserved for use by imperialist powers on smaller countries. 

Also, what's up with all Putin's nuclear saber rattling? Only two countries have tried to use their nuclear shields to deter outside interference with their genocidal operations, Israel and Russia. These new threats are much more serious. Putin has a lot more nukes.

What is Putin's real goal in Ukraine: denazification or genocide?

The black-hood blinding the mayor of Mariupol as he was dragged out of office by Russian soldiers presages the terrible fate awaiting patriotic Ukrainians should Russia fully conquer the country and is able to advance Putin's “denazification” program with all the fury that name implies. 

The “united front” of far-right parties garnered only 2.3% of the vote in Ukraine's last parliamentary election, and out of a Ukrainian armed forces of 200,000, the neo-Nazis Azov Battalion is estimated at between 900 and 2500, although it probably has grown now due to the war. Putin's war will probably make Ukraine's neo-Nazi problem worst—war favors the development of such trends.

Given this low level of fascist influence, the United States, with one of its two major parties firmly in the grips of white Christian authoritarianism, almost certainly has a deeper fascism infestation than Ukraine. The pentagon also has a big problem with white supremacists and neo-Nazis in its ranks.

I don't know how good of an actor Volodymyr Zelenskyy is, but he's a very good president, and one hell of a wartime leader. I'm certain that Jew is no Nazi. He is also very astute. Not being in a position to do away with the Azov Battalion just yet, he probably decided it was better to have them inside the tent, pissing out, rather than the other way around, and put them in the national guard where he could exercise a modicum of control over them.     

The US, on the other hand, may well be between Trump and Trump—a white Christian authoritarian with great affection for Vladimir Putin. And BTW, as this war reveals what a sick, sadistic, and perverted person Putin is, it should give us a new window into what Trump may have in store for us if re-elected, and cause us to redouble our efforts to insure that never happens. 

Of course, the US isn't the only country with a growing ultra-right, i.e., fascist infestation. This is a problem for many nations now, one that Putin has done more than any other world leader to promote.

This reality goes to show what a cynical sham Putin's claim that the Nazis problem in Ukraine is so bad he finds it necessary to invade, at tremendous cost of lives, both Russian and Ukrainian, but especially Ukrainian, so that his “Oprichniki” can carry out his “denazification” program. Having lost 27 million to Nazis in the last world war, Putin the Terrible knows this is a trigger for the Russian people. That's why they have to be branded as “Nazi,” and not just fascist or ultra-right. His Goebbels-like control over all Russian media allows him to create a convincing alternate reality for most Russian citizens. One can understand why so many Russians believe this garbage.

But what are we to say about those in the West that have been parroting Putin's propaganda about the “Nazi" danger in Ukraine ever since he first sent his tanks across its border in 2014? Did their loud and persistent echo chamber help convince Putin that this lie had the legs to support an invasion? 

As his war on Ukraine proceeds, it's becoming clearer every day that his end game is genocide—the complete liquidation of Ukraine as an independent nation and people. As I describe in some detail in “Vlad on Vlad:..”, he thinks the Bolsheviks were wrong, and Ukraine as a nation separate from Russia is impossible.

Moreover, his very methods of war against Ukrainians show a genocidal edge, and this time “genocidal” in the worst sense, not the purely legal one. He's targeting civilians. He doesn't care who he kills as long as they are Ukrainians. Combatant, non-combatant, man, women, child—it makes no difference. And he doesn't care how many. He'll allow Ukrainians to escape to safety, but only if they are willing go to Russia or Belarus. He's already disappeared two mayors, and put in his own mayor in Mariupol, showing his intention to replace the Ukrainian state even at the lowest level. He's cutting off food and water to surrounded communities—while babies die of dehydration, and threatening chemical and biological attacks. All these point to an intention of genocide, and it will be done under the banner of “denazification.”

As Ukrainian blood spills in coming months, some of it will drip from the hands of those on the pro-Putin “anti-imperialist” Left that have been peddling his propaganda on Ukraine for years.

In Solidarity with the Ukrainian people, and all those who fight imperialism,

Clay Claiborne

14 March 2022