Hebdo L’Anticapitaliste – 731 (11/28/2024)
By Catherine Samary
The United States had been informed, 30 minutes before, of the launch of this missile without a nuclear warhead but capable of carrying one. It did little damage, hitting an old factory in Dnipro. For Putin, it was a theatrical operation with several dimensions aimed at various audiences: instilling fear, in Ukraine and among public opinion in countries supporting it; by taking the nuclear rhetoric up a notch in its threats to the West, by amending an ukaze to mean that any aid provided to Ukraine would mark the country concerned as “co-belligerent” and susceptible to nuclear retaliation.
At the same time, Putin wanted to reassure the Russian population about the country’s defense capabilities. The Russian leader welcomed the success of a “test” – making it possible to launch the production of other missiles of this type. Except that its cost would be, according to experts, 100 to 200 times higher than that of the missiles sent daily to Ukraine (and massively intercepted). Furthermore, Ukraine has already been confronted with the sending of Russian hypersonic missiles previously described by Putin as invincible. This was the case in May 2023, when kyiv used an American Patriot anti-missile system to destroy a Kh-47M2 Kinjal missile (launched on Ukraine from a Russian MiG-31) and which, according to Putin as he said again for his “Oreshnik”, could not be intercepted…
The difficulties of the Putin regime
But above all, Putin accompanied his presentation of Operation “Oreshnik” with a significant measure for his soldiers: the cancellation of their debts – which is in addition to several budgetary measures already taken to find volunteers – and help their family when they die at the front, which is the rule.
At the beginning of November, according to US security services, Russia trained North Korean soldiers who could go to the front. This would mark both a turning point in the war and an admission. Until now there has been no recourse to foreign troops to fight alongside kyiv or Moscow – but this recourse would further underline the difficulty of recruiting soldiers – which is also true in Ukraine, with another context . Putin turned to the poorest populations in the depths of the Russian Federation and offered wages well above what industry offers, also producing labor shortages there. The Russian war economy is running at full capacity and distributing salaries – but it does not allow us to “live” or produce what the population needs. And inflation risks worsening tensions.
Overall, the “military operation” launched by Putin in February 2022 was supposed to bring about the fall of the Zelensky government and the submission of Ukraine to the “Russian world” within a few days. For almost three years, the Ukrainians have continued to resist (which surprised Biden and other NATO forces) by demanding the means to repel the invader (1).
Ukraine fights in self-defense
Pending negotiations that would be catalyzed by Trump after his inauguration, both parties are seeking to consolidate their position. According to the American press, President Biden authorized kyiv to carry out attacks on Russian territory under his supervision with missiles with a range of 300 km capable of reaching the Kursk region (2) where North Korean forces would be . This would involve dissuading them from intervening and targeting military sites from which repeated attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure and populations have been carried out for months – causing thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries.
This war transformed the Russian regime in a fascistic sense – killing its opponents, imprisoning them or forcing them into exile (3), (4). It has also fueled “anti-Russian” hatred even in the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine. Without ceasing the blindness of a part of the left in the world whose only possible imperial enemy was NATO – and who, for some, see in Putin a progressive alternative to the West.
The Trump era opens up great uncertainties. Our role is to help the popular resistance in Ukraine (5) — armed and unarmed, and independent of those in power — and the Russian opponents of the war by building internationalist alternatives (6).
Catherine Samary
1. https://lancapitalist…
2. https://lancapitalist…
3. https://inprecor.fr/node…
4. https://links.org.au/aut…
5. https://inprecor.fr/node…
6. https://lancapitalist…
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