11.09.2025

Notes on the war

After eight months of diplomatic efforts there has been no deal with Russia. So now, especially with Russian drones over Poland, it is back to an intensification of sanctions and phasing into World War III. Meanwhile, there is a tincture of good news: the social-imperialists are riven with divisions. Jack Conrad reports

Before he was elected, Donald Trump boasted that he would bring peace to Ukraine within 24 hours. Well, despite eight months of diplomatic efforts, including the Alaska summit with its red-carpet treatment for Vladimir Putin, there has still been no deal. Indeed Russia’s slow‑grind summer offensive looks set to continue into early autumn.

Meanwhile the missile and drone bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities has reached new levels of intensity. And with some 19 Russian drones violating Polish airspace, Donald Tusk warns of being closer to military conflict “than at any time since World War II”.

In short, those, including on the left, who proclaimed the Russo-Ukraine war all but over have not only proved themselves to be wrong: they have proved themselves to be politically bankrupt.

Not that the pro-Kremlin, the Z left, is any better. This strange melange of Stalinites, Trotskyites, Kimites and Posadites celebrates Russia’s ‘special military operation’ as a just, anti-imperialist war aiming for the “demilitarisation and deNazification” of Ukraine. The “Banderite regime” in Kyiv is pictured as facing imminent defeat and, along with that, there is the OTT claim that “US global hegemony is over”. Nonsense which testifies to self-delusion.¹

First, it should be noted, Volodymyr Zelensky has not been pleading for a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement. Quite the opposite, in fact. Zelensky used to speak of wanting “everything back”. That means the whole of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea too. In other words, total Russian defeat. An uncompromising stance, which has only been put under wraps because of a certain Donald J Trump.

Secondly, Zelensky walks a political tightrope. On the one side, there is Trump’s insistence on ending this “ridiculous” war.² On the other side, though, there are domestic considerations. While the number supporting a war till total victory has plummeted from 73% in 2022 to a mere 24%, few would accept Russia’s terms.³

No less to the point, there is Ukraine’s far right, the force that spearheaded the 2014 Maidan coup (organisations such as Svoboda, National Corps, Social National Party and Right Sector). True, the far right is at the moment virtually absent in the Rada. Nonetheless, in the form of the Azov brigade - and its various offshoots - it constitutes the spinal cord of Ukraine’s armed forces.

A ‘sellout’ by the Jewish Zelensky would doubtless see the massive growth of the far right and a Ukrainian version of the ‘stab in the back legend’ (Dolchstoßlegende).⁴ Would an Azov march on Kyiv follow? Quite conceivably.⁵

Anyway, no-one - no-one who is serious, that is - expected Ukraine to defeat Russia and drive it back to the 1991 borders. So failure to achieve that militarily impossible goal hardly amounts to defeat. No, on the contrary, continued Ukrainian resistance along what is essentially a frozen front line is, in fact, a Russian defeat. Three years of war, against a third-rate army, with, especially to begin with, next to no air cover worth talking about, has exposed Russia’s armed forces as decidedly second-rate.

Given that demonstrable weakness, why have Putin and the FSB regime not grabbed at Trump’s deal? After all, whereas Joe Biden elevated Ukraine into a holy western cause, Trump expressed grave doubts. Moreover, he and JD Vance publicly humiliated Zelensky in the White House, demanded a huge compensation package from Ukraine and offered to accept the front line as the new international border.

Ill-gotten gains

Russia would thereby get to keep all its ill-gotten gains: ie, around 20% of pre-2014 Ukrainian territory. Its navy once again operates safely out of Crimea’s Sevastopol and thereby allows free access to the warm waters of the Mediterranean. Putin might arguably claim an historic victory - a victory he could compare with Catherine the Great and her first, 1768-74 war with the Ottoman empire. And, of course, western sanctions would be lifted and there is even the tempting possibility of reviving the G8 and Russia being otherwise incentivised away from its ‘no limits partnership’ with China.

What remains of Ukraine is, however, protected along an agreed buffer zone by some 100,000 Nato troops - supplied and paid for by the European countries - and provided with an overarching US security guarantee. From an American point of view such an arrangement makes perfect sense. Russia and Europe are strategically locked into an antagonistic standoff. Meanwhile tribute pours into US coffers via all the extra European arms spending, and efforts can be squarely focused on the main enemy: China.

Looked at from a Russian angle, though, it is clear why Putin did not cave. Leave aside Nato troops stationed along Russia’s soft underbelly (perhaps defended by US air cover), one might guess that Ukraine will be armed to the teeth. A sort of eastern European Israel, but much, much bigger. Far from that being a Russian victory, Putin’s factional rivals and potential replacements would seize their moment. The siloviki would, likely, quietly retire him to a sanatorium … or, as with so many other members of the Russian elite, there is the fall from a very high window. Understandably, leave aside Russian national interests, Putin - who jokes about living till he’s 150 - wants to avoid such a fate.

Speculation aside, Trump comes not only bearing an olive branch: he carries a big stick too. In other words, while Trump has undoubtedly been seeking some kind of accommodation with Russia, failing that, there is the “phasing into World War III” he once warned against. To begin with, however, that means more sanctions (on Russia and its trading partners). Similar threats have been made before. In late July Trump blustered about ‘shock and awe’ sanctions … but nothing came of it. Now his officials talk about going from stage one to stage two and even stage three sanctions, pushing the Russian economy to the “brink of collapse” and forcing Putin into serious negotiations.⁶ Frankly, there are good reasons to be sceptical.

True, Russia has been hurt by the cutback on European energy imports, its banks being ousted from the Swift system and its oligarchs having their assets seized. The original promise was, of course, bringing Russia to the brink of collapse … or words to that effect. Biden confidently promised, back in March 2022, that the Russian economy was “on track to be cut in half”; Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s then foreign minister, claimed that sanctions were “hitting the Putin system … at its core of power”; and Ursula von der Leyen boasted that the EU was “working to cripple Putin’s ability to finance his war machine”.⁷ George Soros even foresaw the “dissolution of the Russian empire”.⁸ Well, not so far.

When it comes to sanctions, the model is unmistakably Germany and its defeat in two world wars. Rubber, iron ore, nickel, manganese, aluminium, oil, cotton, tea and food were all put in short supply, as a blockaded Germany was cut off from the world market. It was not just the unmatched power of the Royal Navy, but British control over global shipping, insurance and money markets. Of course, for woolly-minded liberals, sanctions are often regarded as a civilised alternative to war. In fact, sanctions are the modern version of medieval siege warfare. Indeed, American president Woodrow Wilson credited sanctions with being “something more tremendous than war”.⁹

But Russia is no Germany. It is a continent in its own right and behind it there lies the ‘no limits partnership’ with the world’s second largest economy. So, predictably, Russia’s electronic and car industry tanked and there is still an acute shortage of high-tech chips, castings and connectors - vital in modern weapons systems.¹⁰ But after an initial plunge the rouble was successfully stabilised and all manner of loopholes in the sanctions regime found and exploited. As a result, though Russia’s GDP shrank by some 1.4% in 2022, it grew in 2023 by 4.0%, by 4.1% in 2024 - and is expected to grow again in 2025, albeit at a modest 1.4%.¹¹

Crucially, Russia has sold, sold and sold again discounted oil and gas: to China, India, Turkey. Indeed after much lobbying by Putin, Xi Jinping agreed to the signing of a memorandum of understanding to build the much delayed Power of Siberia 2 LNG pipeline through Mongolia. Though it will take more than 10 years, once completed it will be responsible for supplying “as much as a half” of China’s LNG needs.¹² China and Russia will thereby be ever more closely tied together.

Plans and abilities

Russia has certainly ploughed huge resources into upping military production and adapting economically to the needs of a slow, grinding war. The country spent an estimated $149 billion, or around 7.1% of its GNP, on its armed forces in 2024. A lot, but nothing compared to the UK’s total war economy between 1939 and 1945: in GDP terms 15.3% in 1939, 43.8% in 1940, 52.7% in 1941, 55.3% in 1943, 53.4% in 1944 and 53.0% in 1945. Britain could achieve such spectacularly high levels of expenditure fundamentally because, firstly, it possessed a world empire and, secondly, it could rely on abundant US support (in exchange for handing over world hegemony).

Over six years of war, there was a net flow of £10 billion into Britain. Of this £1.1 billion came from the sale of assets; £3.5 billion was made up of new borrowing, of which £2.7 billion was contributed by the empire’s sterling area. Canada, for example, gave C$1 billion in gifts and loans on easy terms. Above all there was though American money, loans and Lend Lease grants worth £5.4 billion. This funded massive British purchases of munitions, food, oil, machinery and raw materials. There was no charge for Lend Lease supplies delivered during the war.¹³

Russia has no such options available to it. Ukraine does, but within definite limits. Spending some 34% of its GDP on its armed forces in its own right, Kyiv has received a significant level of western support, $380 billion in total as of March 2024.¹⁴ But, of course, with Trump 2.0 US arms are either paid for directly by Ukraine itself or by America’s, mainly European, Nato allies (for reasons that can perhaps be explored in another article).

However, things could radically change, especially if the increased sanctions do not, as we should expect, have their desired effect. Everything will be carefully calibrated. After all, the US does not want a generalised nuclear exchange with Russia and therefore mutually assured destruction. Trump could easily junk the Kellog-Fleitz peace plan and opt instead for Zelensky’s old victory plan. There are those from Trump’s first administration who are gung ho for taking such a course. Mike Pompeo - former secretary of state - has called not only for tougher sanctions and creating a “lend-lease” programme worth $500 billion to allow Ukraine to purchase US weapons.¹⁵ He wants all restrictions on their use lifted too. This would allow for pinpoint-accurate Atacms to strike deep into Russian territory. If enough of them were delivered, this would cause Russia real difficulties.

Essentially what Pompeo proposes is a beefed-up version of the Biden administration’s policy of supplying Ukraine with enough military hardware to check, drain and exhaust Russia … in the hope of forcing Putin to sue for peace. A rollback strategy proclaimed by Jimmy Carter in January 1980 that worked like a dream in Afghanistan (the Soviet Union scuttled in February 1989 and collapsed in December 1991).

Then, at last, conditions would be ripe to bring about regime change in Moscow: a colour revolution; launching anti-Russian ‘national liberation wars’ in Belarus, Moldova and Georgia; promoting separatist movements within the Russia Federation itself - in particular amongst the Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis, Crimean Tatars, Yakuts and Volga Tatars (options all surely under active consideration).

If the US state department could get its man into the Kremlin - a modern-day Boris Yeltsin - there could well be an internationally negotiated settlement. But it would be Russia’s Versailles. The defeated country would face war crimes tribunals, crippling reparations, termination of its high-end arms industry and being reduced to an oil- and gas-supplying neo-colony. China would then find itself short on energy supplies, effectively surrounded and next in line for break-up: Tibet, inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Hong Kong. In this new unipolar world order the US would be able to “manage” at last the Eurasian world island - as envisaged by Zbigniew Brzezinski.¹⁶

Naturally enough, Xi Jinping has other, bipolar, plans for a new world order. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting and the lavish commemoration of the 1945 defeat of Japan were both demonstrations of China’s growing power - and ambitions. Not only does Xi have the Russian Federation and North Korea on board as close allies: India, angered by Trump’s sanctions over its purchases of Russian oil and gas, has drawn closer to China.

Then there is Brics+. True, this accidental bloc has little in common - apart, that is, from a general chafing against US hegemony. But it does give China allies, or at least sympathy, amongst what it calls the “global majority”: those who want in, or have been invited in, include Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. On the other hand, Aukus has been established and Japan and South Korea bolted on. This has broken Australia from its natural trading partner, China, and secured it firmly in the US-UK camp. At the end of the day the US can perhaps still rely on India to be antagonistic to China, and perhaps even Vietnam (not least over the South China Sea).

There is, meanwhile, the danger of the three great powers - the US, China and Russia - being dragged into conflicts over Iran, Israel-Palestine, Syria, Korea, etc, etc, with all manner of unintended consequences. Note the EU, despite its economic strength, is politically a ramshackle Ruritanian conglomeration and therefore incapable of doing anything serious in global terms. (A united Europe under German domination would be a different matter entirely).

Anyway, in this context, bear in mind the long ‘sleepwalk’ towards World War I.¹⁷ Enemies became friends and friends became enemies. Clearly there is more than a whiff of pre-World War I about the current situation - ie, great power military conflict seems all too possible - but with the added danger of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

Social-imperialists

Naturally, Trump 2.0 and a willingness to contemplate territorial concessions horrified the social-imperialists. In the form of Chris Ford’s ghastly blue and yellow Ukraine Solidarity Campaign that meant doubling-up on Ukrainian nationalism. Hence the demand for “full sanctions” against Russian “imperialist aggression” (ie, siege warfare), the claim that the Putin regime is “attacking democracy globally” and that Ukraine should get all the “arms necessary to liberate the country, from wherever possible and without conditions”.¹⁸

The internationalisation of ruling class ideology is unashamed and unmistakable. It is “Putin’s dictatorship” which is “linked to neo-fascist and authoritarian forces around the world”, not Zelensky and his Banderite Azov army. It is Nato which is democratic and under threat. Despite that, moans the USC, “most western countries have been slow in providing arms”. Therefore the plea for supplying Ukraine with massively increased supplies of the most up-to-date fighter aircraft, tanks and missiles … out of national self-interest.

Effectively this ‘Arm, arm, arm Ukraine’ line poses a ‘guns or butter’ choice in Europe … with the social-imperialists demanding guns. Perhaps the best known use of this particular phrase was, of course, Joseph Goebbels in a speech on January 17 1936. The Nazi propaganda chief stated: “We can do without butter, but, despite all our love of peace, not without arms. One cannot shoot with butter, but with guns.”¹⁹

Across Europe there is an aggressive drive by mainstream bourgeois politicians, opinion makers, arms manufacturers and the top brass alike to win an increasingly reluctant public to accept ever bigger military budgets in the name of ‘not letting Russia win’. Already Poland spends 4.1% of its GDP on the military, Estonia 3.4%, Greece 3.1% and the UK, Finland, Latvia, Denmark and Romania around 2.3%.²⁰ But the trend is upwards and the commitment is to reach 5% of GDP by 2035.²¹

The choice of guns over butter should be openly admitted by the social-imperialists. Understandably however, some prefer mealy-mouthed formulations: eg, Branko Marcetic, a Jacobin staff writer, opposes the delivery of “offensive weapons”.²² The more honest, the more brazen - eg, Stephen R Shalom of the Mandelite ‘Fourth International’ - rightly say that the distinction between offensive and defensive weapons is meaningless.²³ By contrast, we stick with Wilhelm Liebknecht’s time-honoured slogan, “Not a man and not a penny for this system!”²⁴ Socialists - genuine socialists, that is - take no responsibility for the ‘defence budget’ of capitalist governments. We maintain that position, it should be stressed, because of political principle, because we are a party of extreme opposition, not out of economic calculation.

After all, it is argued that military expenditure (milex) stimulates economic activity - a line taken by military Keynesians and self-proclaimed Marxists, such as Paul Baren, Paul Sweezy, Michael Kidron and Ernest Mandel. Doubtless the profits of the arms companies, such as Britain’s BAE Systems, are boosted with increased state orders for the means of destruction. However, the main burden is borne by taxpayers, not least other sections of the capitalist class. Dan Smith and Ron Smith conclude that the effects of milex are “complex and contradictory”: it maintains capitalism, but suppresses overall economic growth.²⁵

What seems likely at the moment is that economic activity in Europe is being suppressed by the Ukraine war: eg, cutting off cheap Russian oil and gas supplies and the range of other costly sanctions. However, in the US, the world’s biggest arms manufacturer, Ukraine has probably acted as an economic stimulus.

Reuters reports that “US weapons sales abroad hit record high” … the main factor being the Ukraine war. Overseas sales surged by 29% in 2024 compared with 2023, reaching a total of $318 billion.²⁶ As for the US itself, the milex budget in 2024 amounted to $997 billion - dwarfing rivals such as China ($314 billion) and Russia ($149 billion).²⁷ What is for sure is that the extra orders have been a goldmine for US companies such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics. They are awash with money.

However, everything else being equal, increased milex means reduced local government grants, sickness benefits, transport projects, etc. The social-imperialists ought, therefore, to be made to take full responsibility for that choice next time they march with their Banderite friends. ‘Arm, arm, arm Ukraine’ should be accompanied with calls to ‘Cut, cut, cut … services and welfare’.

Naturally, the social-imperialists claim that support for Ukraine is no different from supporting Palestinian self-determination: “Being leftwing means being on the side of the oppressed, whether in Palestine, Kurdistan or Ukraine. That is why the EU must continue to supply weapons to Kyiv and allow attacks on Russian territory.” So said Die Linke MEP Carola Rackete.²⁸ This is the sort of screwball logic that, during World War I, led the ‘father of British Marxism’, Henry Hyndman, to, on the one hand, “applaud those like Karl Liebknecht, Mehring, Ledebour, Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg and Bernstein, who have remained true to the faith” by opposing the German war effort, and, on the other hand, support Anglo-French imperialism - that though it had allied itself to “Muscovite tsarism”.²⁹ Germany posed the greatest threat to democracy and socialism, he argued.

There is amongst the social-imperialists a wilful refusal to engage in joined-up thinking. Both Ukraine and Israel serve as US proxies. Imperialist support for Ukrainian self-determination cannot, therefore, be separated from other wars and conflicts, not least Israel’s genocidal denial of Palestinian self-determination.

The idea, therefore, that the US, UK, Germany, Italy, France, etc are supporting a “just war” in Ukraine, and an “unjust war” in Gaza, is a stupid, hopelessly opportunist muddle, to say the least. States which are committed to anti-trade union laws, restrictions on civil rights and the continuation of class exploitation at home pursue those same class interests abroad. If a war is supported by our capitalist state, then it follows that such a war is a criminal war.

Sympathising with ordinary Ukrainians who have been killed, injured, lost loved ones, fled abroad, etc, is perfectly natural. War is horrible. War is beastly. But for ‘socialists’ to call for Ukraine’s victory is not to see the wood for the trees. In Russia it might well be the case that we would ‘prefer to see a Russian defeat than its victory’. To state the obvious, however, we are not in Russia. No, here today, in countries such as the US, Britain, Germany, France and Italy, supporting ‘heroic Ukraine’ is akin to supporting ‘brave little Belgium’ and ‘plucky little Serbia’, while not acknowledging that what was going on between 1914 and 1918 was a blood-drenched inter-imperialist struggle over global domination. It had nothing to do with protecting the rights of little nations. The great powers used all manner of excuses to alibi their right to rob, plunder and exploit the colonial and semi-colonial countries where the vast majority of the world’s population lived.

Ukraine cannot be seen in isolation. Behind it there stands the unmatched might of the dominant imperialist bloc. The US violently yanked Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with the 2014 Maidan coup and then, step by step, established it as a pawn in the great game to dominate the Eurasian ‘world island’ and upend what Xi Jinping calls the “irreversible” rise of China.

Divisions

Interestingly some telling differences have surfaced in the USC. Hardly unimportant, considering that big unions, such as Unison, the GMB, PCS, Aslef and UCU, are affiliated. Various MPs also count as supporters: eg, Carla Denyer (Green Party) Nadia Whittome (Labour) and John McDonnell (Labour-suspended). Then there are the ‘socialist organisations’: Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, Anticapitalist Resistance, Labour Representation Committee, RS21 (which I have heard of) … and the Republican Socialist Platform and the Real Democracy Movement (which I haven’t).

Well, in the aftermath of the Corbyn leadership debacle in the Labour Party, the LRC seems to have winked out of existence. Labour Briefing has long since stopped publishing. As for RS21, it formally disaffiliated after an internal struggle - which remains to this day a closed book. There are, unfortunately, no reports of majority and minority votes, the position of well-known individuals, etc. Typical, it has to be said, of an organisation rooted in the unhealthy political culture of the SWP. Apparently, though, it is now clear that the Ukraine war is a Nato proxy war. Comrades, it was always clear … dating back to 2014!

It should also be added that the USC has, as testified by a former insider, “murky origins” in CIA false-flag operations during the cold war.³⁰ So what the hell was RS21 doing affiliating in the first place? Why did your organisation actively support an out-and-out social-imperialist outfit? Leave aside the CIA origins, today the USC is financed by a trade union bureaucracy which manifestly betrays the most elementary working class principle - the main enemy is a home. Honest answers, not evasion - that is surely what is required, if we are to take RS21 seriously even as an anti-imperialist organisation. Till then, RS21 must be regarded as an unprincipled right centrist lash-up.

Now, almost laughably, there is the AWL. After an executive vote (none against), this far-right of the far-left organisation, has decided to lapse its USC membership. Why? It was repelled by the close political relationship between USC secretary Chris Ford and Yuri Levchancko. Who he? Levchencko is an “ex-longstanding-Svoboda leader” - and also, note, a 2014-19 Rada MP.

Svoboda, is, of course, not only far-right: it is an out-and-out fascist outfit, which is directly responsible for murderous attacks on Russian Ukrainians, communists, socialists, trade unionists, gay and lesbian activists, etc. Without renouncing his past, Levchencko has set-up a “people’s party” in Ukraine: Narodovladdia. An organisation founded by “veterans, volunteers, social, trade union and environmental activists”, which is, so it states, primarily committed to helping out “front-line units and civilians affected by the Russian invaders”.³¹

Despite such tell-tale signs of a continued fascist mind-set, we are told that Chris Ford has been helping Levchencko “get a hearing and a platform on the left”.³² Too much for USC chair Fred Leplat (ACR and the Mandelite ‘Fourth International’). He, therefore, proposed a motion at the USC steering committee to break links with Levchencko and Narodovladdia. That failed. Instead there was the commitment to “proceed cautiously” with Levchencko/Narodovladdia (moved by the USC trade union liaison officer and ex-AWLer, Sacha Ismail).

A fudge which proved too much even for the AWL. Nonetheless, the AWL promises to “work with USC in future, on practical matters, where we have common ground”. Eg, ‘Arm, arm, arm Ukraine’.

Footnote

By the way, there can be no doubt that Azov founder and first commander Andriy Biletsky is an out-and-out Nazi racist. In 2010, he reportedly said that Ukraine’s national mission is to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade ... against Semite-led Untermenschen”.³³ True, Biletsky denies ever stating that, but such words are entirely in character. In a 2007 article, Biletsky declared that “Ukrainian racial social-nationalism” was the ideology of his Patriot of Ukraine outfit.³⁴ Speaking as the ‘Main Commander of the Organisation’, at its February 13 2009 general meeting, he rhetorically asked:

How then can we describe our enemy? The general regime in power are oligarchs. Is there anything they have in common? Yes, one thing in common - they are Jews, or their true bosses - Jews - are behind them. Out of one hundred published richest people in Ukraine 92 are Jews, and some others of Tatar origin.³⁵

Being in the eye of world public opinion since 2014 and entertaining presidential ambitions has seen Biletsky tone down his language. That said, he still rails against LGBT people and multiculturalism. Biletsky has described his ideology as “Ukrainian racial social nationalist”. Naturally, therefore, he opposes migrants from African and Asian countries.

Doubtless, when it comes to Biletsky, the USC will likewise “proceed cautiously”!

1. Ian Donovan’s Consistent Democrats, the New Communist Party, Posadists Today and Gerry Downing’s Socialist Fight signed a joint statement - see www.newworker.org/statements/statements2022/js202203/victory_to_the_anti_fascist_forces_of_donbass_and_their_allies.html. See also The New Worker August 29 2025.↩︎

2. Voice of America, January 22 2025.↩︎

3. www.russiamatters.org/blog/polls-show-ukrainians-increasingly-want-end-war-not-under-russias-terms.↩︎

4. Germany’s far right - crucially the high command - insisted that they had not suffered defeat on the battlefields of 1914-18. No, instead they had been betrayed on the home front by communists and social democrats. Almost instantly, the idea was given an anti-Semitic twist, not least by Adolf Hitler and his chief ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg.↩︎

5. Such a scenario has been haunting liberal minds for quite a while. Oleksandr Merezhko - chair of the Rada’s foreign affairs committee and a member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party - warned that far-right forces pose a very real threat - and one that could stand in the way of any attempt to negotiate an end to the war. “There will always be a radical segment of Ukrainian society that will call any negotiation ‘capitulation’,” he said. “The far right in Ukraine is growing. The right wing is a danger to democracy” (Financial Times September 30 2024).↩︎

6. www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-ready-phase-two-russia-sanctions-over-ukraine-conflict-2025-09-07.↩︎

7. Quoted in The Guardian February 20 2023.↩︎

8. Voice of America, February 16 2023.↩︎

9. See N Mulder The economic weapon: the rise of sanctions as a tool of modern war New Haven CT 2022.↩︎

10. www.politico.eu/article/the-chips-are-down-russia-hunts-western-parts-to-run-its-war-machines.↩︎

11. www.statista.com/statistics/263621/gross-domestic-product-gdp-growth-rate-in-russia.↩︎

12. www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3324749/china-russia-pipeline-would-be-shock-global-lng-trade-analysts.↩︎

13. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_home_front_during_World_War_II.↩︎

14. www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2025-04/2504_fs_milex_2024.pdf; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukraine_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War.↩︎

15. Wall Street Journal July 25 2024.↩︎

16. Z Brzezinski The grand chessboard New York 1997, p30.↩︎

17. See C Clark The sleepwalkers: how Europe went to war in 1914 London 2013.↩︎

18. ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2024/09/11/ukraine-solidarity-conference-declaration.↩︎

19. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns_versus_butter_model.↩︎

20. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-44717074.↩︎

21. www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm.↩︎

22. B Marcetic Jacobin March 27 2022.↩︎

23. SR Shalom International Viewpoint April 22 2022.↩︎

24. See Wilhelm Liebknecht’s November 30 1893 speech to the Reichstag during its debate on the imperial budget: www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/revolt/11-not-one-penny.html.↩︎

25. D Smith and R Smith The economics of militarism London 1983, p100.↩︎

26. www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraine-related-demand-sends-us-arms-exports-record-2024-2025-01-24.↩︎

27. www.statista.com/statistics/262742/countries-with-the-highest-military-spending.↩︎

28. ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2024/10/04/being-left-means-being-on-the-side-of-the-oppressed.↩︎

29. HM Hyndman The future of democracy London 1915, p20.↩︎

30. P Houston ‘A toxic operation’ Weekly Worker March 24 2022: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1388/a-toxic-operation.↩︎

31. www.narodovladdia.com.↩︎

32. www.workersliberty.org/story/2025-08-30/final-reply-sacha-ismail-awl-and-ukraine-solidarity.↩︎

33. The Daily Telegraph August 11 2014.↩︎

34. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Biletsky - see note 44.↩︎

35. Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Association, October 1 2009: www.helsinki.org.ua/en.↩︎