May 26, 2023
Following the Biden
administration’s announcement at last week’s G7 meeting that it would send F-16
fighter aircraft to Ukraine, the US and its Ukrainian proxy forces have carried
out a series of provocative actions aimed at further escalating the conflict.
As the Ukrainian military
continues to suffer military setbacks on the ground—most clearly demonstrated
by the fall of Bakhmut—the US and the NATO powers are preparing for the
potential direct entry of air, land and sea forces into the conflict.
On Wednesday, the USS
Gerald R. Ford arrived in Oslo, Norway. The USS Ford is the largest warship
ever constructed and the first of a new generation of such carriers
commissioned by the United States.
The carrier strike group
led by the Ford includes two nuclear-powered attack submarines, two
Ticonderoga-class cruisers and a squadron of destroyers. Manning the strike
group are many thousands of naval military personnel, who will be operating
within striking distance of Russian territory.
Vice Admiral Thomas E. Ishee,
the commander of the US Sixth Fleet, explained that upon leaving Oslo the
carrier strike group would travel north to the Arctic to carry out “freedom of
navigation” operations—a term used by the United States to describe
provocatively sailing ships into contested waters.
In other words, this
massive armada with its thousands of troops will sail near the Russian
coastline under conditions of a rapidly escalating proxy war that Biden said
last year would threaten a nuclear “Armageddon.”
What weapons this massive
armada carries are not known to the public. While the United Sates has a policy
of neither confirming or denying the presence of nuclear weapons on its
warships, leading US military think tanks have for years advocated the
deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on US carriers.
The deployment of the
carrier to Norway is part of a series of major escalations of the conflict.
On Monday, a group of
far-right Russian militia men, operating in coordination with the Ukrainian
military, crossed into Russia, carrying out a series of attacks on the Belgorod
region. Russian officials showed images of the militia driving US-provided
vehicles, including MRAPs, the heavily armored vehicles developed for the US
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, the New York
Times published an article confirming that a series of drone attacks on the
official residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin were carried out by a
faction of the Ukrainian state, allegedly without the foreknowledge of Zelensky
or the United States.
Perhaps most provocatively,
in an interview with the right-wing German daily newspaper Die Welt, Vadym
Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, said that
the Ukrainian government officially supports the assassination of Putin and
directly carries out attacks inside Russia.
In an article entitled,
“Putin is at the top of the list. We’re trying to kill him,” Skibitsky is
asked, “Who is at the top of the [kill] list?” to which he replies, “Putin,
because he coordinates and decides what happens.”
Asked, “Are the attacks in
the north, in Russia, also carried out by you: on the railways, warehouses and
airports?” Skibitsky replies, “All supplies come from Rostov or via the
Crimea.” The interviewer asks, “And you will attack these areas too?” Skibitsky
answers, “Of course. If there is fuel, weapons and ammunition there, it will be
destroyed.”
The official declaration by
a leader of the Ukrainian intelligence forces that it is a state policy to seek
to murder the president of Russia makes all the more ominous the statement by
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken following the May 3 drone attacks on the
Kremlin. When asked if the US supports “such attacks on leadership.” he
replied, “These are decisions for Ukraine to make about how it’s going to
defend itself.”
The clear conclusion is
that strikes inside Russia, including the assassination attempt on Putin—which
the press now admits was carried out by Ukraine—are done in the closest
coordination and with the approval of the United States.
US officials are
increasingly openly advocating attacks on Russian territory. On Thursday, a
far-right reporter asked Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler, “Are you
concerned that [Ukrainian forces] will enter into Russian territory?” To which
Nadler replied, “I’m not concerned. I wouldn’t care if they did.”
In its own desperate and
reckless response to the provocative US efforts to expand the conflict, Moscow
announced that it would be stationing tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring
Belarus. “In the context of an extremely sharp escalation of threats on the
western borders of Russia and Belarus, a decision was made to take
countermeasures in the military-nuclear sphere,” Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Shoigu said.
Earlier this week, the
World Socialist Web Site noted that the decision to send F-16 fighter jets to
Ukraine was, in fact, worked out months earlier, as part of a long-term plan to
expand US involvement in the war with Russia. “While the Biden administration
is operating with a systematic plan to escalate the war,” we wrote, “all of its
actions are presented as semi-spontaneous, reactive responses to external
‘pressure.’”
This analysis was
confirmed, almost word for word, in statements Thursday from Joint Chiefs of
Staff Chairman Mark Milley. He explained, “It’s not a question of will we agree
later or agree now or under pressure. That’s not at all with what’s getting
done here. This was hardcore military analysis that looks at cost, benefit and
risk, and what is the need on the battlefield now and in the near future.”
Contrary to the
presentation in the media, the closed-door meetings at the G7 summit last
weekend were not over the sending of fighter jets. Rather, as the WSWS wrote,
they “served two purposes: First, to bring into line any dissidents in the
cabal of imperialist conspirators, and, second, to discuss the overriding
question: What next?”
It has not taken long for
the answer to the question, “What next?”, to emerge in developments.
Confronting military setbacks in Ukraine and an escalating economic, social and
political crisis at home—above all, in the explosive growth of the class struggle—the
capitalist ruling elites, as Trotsky wrote on the eve of World War II,
“toboggan with eyes closed” toward catastrophe.
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