Zelensky in Wonderland

New Worker editorial

The British government rolled out the red carpet for Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday who addressed Parliament, held talks with Sunak and had an audience with King Charles that was a Ukrainian PR dream. The British government promised to supply the Ukrainians with more heavy weapons and provide more training facilities for their fighter pilots in Britain so that Ukraine can achieve a "decisive military victory on the battlefield this year". Well, that’s what Sunak says. But what does it all mean?
    Very little it seems given the parlous state of the British armed forces these days. A few Challenger tanks are hardly likely to change the balance of forces on the Donbas front as the entire Ukrainian army fights to stave off the advance of what is still only a Russian expeditionary force.
    Sunak, like Boris Johnson before him, may like to pose as a world leader and the greatest friend of Ukraine in Western Europe. But at the end of the day the only power that counts in NATO is the United States and Zelensky’s fortunes, and indeed his fate, will be decided by the amount of military assistance Washington gives him.
    The Americans call all the shots in Kiev and they’ve backed Zelensky to the hilt so far. Whether they will in the future depends on Biden’s long-term war aims – and those can still only be guessed at.
    Russia’s war aims have always been public. The Russians are fighting to defend the Crimeans and the people of the Donbas whose republics have chosen to join the Russian Federation. Russia is fighting to defend the anti-fascist Ukrainians whose parties have all been banned in Ukraine and whose leaders are either languishing in some Ukrainian dungeon or living in exile in Moscow.
    The Ukraine conflict has, however, exposed the limitations of American power. Imperialist sanctions have not brought down the Putin government. The Russian army has not been defeated (all its withdrawals in Ukraine were voluntary and for tactical reasons). Sweden and Finland have not joined NATO – largely due to the Turkish veto.
    US imperialism has, of course, achieved some of its objectives. It has ensured the survival of their puppet Ukrainian regime. It has sunk, in more than one sense, the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline that the Americans feared would make Germany dependent on Russian natural gas and made Western Europe dependent on much dearer American supplies. It has restored American hegemony over all their European allies – with the help of their willing tools in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
    Biden is, after-all, just a figurehead for the American deep state – what we would call the “Establishment” – that reflects the entire spectrum of bourgeois opinion. Their internal discussions – the rows between the “hawks” and the “doves” and the speculation of retired generals and diplomats – reflect the divisions within the American ruling class.
    So the Americans may have enough now to call it a day. Some believe that speculation in the mainstream US media about a “partition” of Ukraine that would meet most of Russia’s demands reflects genuine divisions within America’s ruling circles. Others think it’s merely disinformation designed to wrong-foot the Kremlin before their spring offensive. That certainly seems to be the view of most Russian commentators.
    None of this need trouble Sunak because he wasn’t in the loop in the first place. At the end of the day, like all British post-war leaders, he will just have to do as he’s told.