Dangerous military confrontations with Russia in the Ukraine and Black Sea:
All Anglo-US Forces Must be Withdrawn Immediately
The US and NATO are once again increasing their dangerous military confrontations with Russia in the Ukraine and Black Sea. Britain is also directly contributing to the situation in Ukraine with reports that six RAF Typhoon jets are "bolstering" Ukraine's forces and a "small number" of British and US special forces are "monitoring the situation". On April 14, Russia warned the US and NATO over their activity in the Black Sea and Ukraine. Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev in a session on the security of Crimea in Sevastopol said, "Stepped-up military activity by the NATO bloc, and the US in particular, in close proximity to Russia's borders in the Black Sea region has been determined." He noted that the US and its allies are "pushing Ukraine to stage provocations against Crimea, and NATO has ramped up its activities in direct proximity to Russia's borders in the Black Sea region". Russia had also said that the report of two US warships deploying to the Black Sea was "an unfriendly provocation". Later the same day, there was a confirmed report from Reuters that Turkish diplomatic sources had said, "The United States has cancelled the deployment of two warships to the Black Sea".
In the Ukraine, US-led imperialism is confronting Russia. The US-led camp, as well as the countries of "old Europe" and especially Britain, are sensing that they can make gains and lay waste to the vast plains of Ukraine and Russia even if that means, as one commentator put it, "launching these people not only into a suicidal war against Donetsk and Luhansk but also Russia herself". They have no concern for the Ukrainian and Russian people but are driven in part by the prospect of the access to and control over huge energy resources for the monopolies and oligopolies that they represent.
As some commentators have pointed out, the Anglo-US forces and NATO may not in fact be planning to attack Russia at this time but they are certainly unleashing the Ukrainian neo-Nazi forces against the Donbass, Luhansk and Crimea there by "punishing" both the Ukraine and Russia at the expense of the peoples of the region. This is at the heart of these provocations that prompted Russia to say it "will not stand aside" if it believes hostilities could lead to "mass civilian casualties" in East Ukraine.
The fascists and neo-Nazis [1] have certainly been used to foment violence in Ukraine and have taken up key positions of state. The Ukrainian "Orange Revolution" in 2004 had imposed a coalition of neo-fascists and neo-liberals, instigated and propped up by the George W Bush administration, which seized power in Kiev through mass demonstrations in the city's central Maidan Square. Ten years later in 2014, under the Obama administration, another coup took place along many of the same lines using these neo-fascists and neo-liberals to overthrow the government. Since then, many of these neo-fascists have been incorporated into Ukrainian armed forces and trained by US and British forces to be used against their own countrymen in the Donbass and Lugansk. On May 2, 2014, amongst many other crimes, these fascists set fire to a trade union building in Odessa killing around 50 people.
This is the old world of imperialism and the same Nazi "might makes right" that is being tragically played out in Ukraine by the US and NATO. These neo-liberal powers have caused huge loss of life with thousands being killed. This is a huge tragedy for the Ukrainian people who have contributed so much to the world's people in building the world's first socialist state, the Soviet Union, that made so many sacrifices in the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. The working class and people of Britain must play their part, alongside those of the US, and indeed around the world, in ending the intervention of Britain and the US in the region, their confrontation with Russia, and the use of force to settle international differences, which is causing such tragedies for the people.
As a justification for intervention, there is also never-ending talk of the "annexing" of the Crimea by Russia in 2014 when the referendum of the people of Crimea united them with the Russian Federation [2]. It should be noted that the ruling elite does not apply the same word of "annexation" to the north of Ireland's being part of the United Kingdom, or even offer a referendum to the people of northern Ireland on the question of a United Ireland.
For the peoples, the burning issue is how the equality of countries and the sovereign rights of nations and peoples, irrespective of their ethnic make-up, can be established or re-established. The question is how these rights can be realised and given a meaningful guarantee under the prevailing conditions.
The working class and people here in Britain must condemn the government for their direct interference and dangerous military confrontations in the Ukraine and demand that all Anglo-US armed forces of land, air and sea be withdrawn from Ukraine and the Black Sea immediately.
Notes
1. These are the heirs of the massacres at Babi Yar, which, as is common knowledge, were the tip of the iceberg of the Nazi extermination of millions of Jewish people, Roma, communists and others considered as less than human.
2. In the referendum of March 16, 2014, citizens of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and of the city of Sevastopol voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. The final voting figures were reported to be 96.77% in favour of joining the Russian Federation on a turnout of 83.1% of the eligible voters. Despite the media and government hysteria in Britain, Europe and Nrth America, the 135 international observers from 23 countries reported that there was neither voting under pressure nor any violations of voting rules.
Source:
http://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wwie-21/ww21-13/ww21-13-01.htm
