Two interlinked crises are tearing into the guts of the regime in Ukraine. On the one hand, the front is unravelling. The battlefield situation is deteriorating by the day, if not by the hour. On the other, an enormous corruption scandal threatens to engulf Zelensky and his whole regime. Kiev and western capitals are descending into panic.
Let us start with the military crisis. Ultimately, it is the situation at the front which is driving everything else.
On 3 November, Zelensky made the most remarkable claim. Ukrainian forces, he said, were busy mopping up tiny numbers of Russian troops in the cities of Kupiansk and Pokrovsk. There were just 60 in Kupiansk and less than 300 in Pokrovsk, he claimed.
The Russian reports painted a very different picture. “Not a word of what the Russian defence ministry says is credible,” claimed the world affairs editor of the Independent. Like the vast majority of the western press, they were continuing to parrot everything coming out of the mouths of Zelensky and his Commander-in-Chief Syrski.
But then everything suddenly changed. Under the cover of dense fog, we were told, hundreds of Russian troops had magically appeared in Pokrovsk and had surrounded the Ukrainians!
This is the most ludicrous story. In fact, the Ukrainian forces had been encircled for some time. But it was a convenient story to bridge the fact that the battle had been lost, whilst the Ukrainian government had consistently lied about the battlefield position for months on end.
Things are set to get a lot worse. Pokrovsk and Kupiansk lie at two ends of the last line of defensible cities held by Ukrainian forces in the east of the country. Once this line falls, there is nothing to stop the Russians cutting through the country like a hot knife through butter. The Russians are already rapidly advancing towards the cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia.
Meanwhile, Russian bombardment, night after night, is exacting a terrible toll on the country’s energy and transport infrastructure, and weapons manufacturing facilities. Some areas are facing 16-hour electricity and heating blackouts as the punishing Ukrainian winter sets in.
In short, the West has lost.
A pack of lies
To the average western reader, even now, all of this may come as a surprise. Why? Because a stream of lies has consistently emanated from the regime in Kiev, and those lies have been repeated verbatim by the press and politicians in the West to deceive public opinion.
We have been told that the war is effectively a stalemate. According to the official western narrative, the Russians have only made marginal territorial advances, for which the Ukrainians are exacting an unsustainable cost.
In fact, the extent of Russian gains has been systematically downplayed by the West. But more importantly, they have glossed over that the primary aim of the Russians has not been to conquer territory but to grind down the Ukrainian army. This is a war of attrition, one which the Russians are winning – a war of attrition not only against Ukraine, but against the whole so-called ‘West’ which has wholly funded and armed Ukraine. As such, it has devastatingly exposed the limits of US and western power.
The conclusion flowing from the tissue of lies constructed by the West, however, is as follows: it is only a matter of time before Russian public opinion turns against Putin and the Russian forces collapse. We just have to keep our nerve and keep on supplying endless amounts of cash and arms to Ukraine.
Why have the Ukrainians and the West spun endless lies? Because this war has not been fought out primarily for strategic gain on the battlefield, but above all for its effect in the field of public relations. The purpose is to justify the continuous flow of guns and cash – to convince public opinion that the war is winnable, and above all to convince Trump that this war can be won, and to pressure him to stay on board.
To that end, thousands of Ukrainian men have been condemned to death. This represents the most atrocious betrayal. By lying about the real position of the war, by attempting to hold hopeless positions for PR purposes, thousands more Ukrainian troops have been sentenced to death by their high command.
The battle for Pokrovsk was lost a month ago or even earlier. Had the order to withdraw been issued then, then the Ukrainian troops might have been saved. Instead, they are now surrounded by the Russians, with most of them confined to the town of Mirnograd east of Pokrovsk. The choice before the thousands trapped is now either to attempt to break out of the encirclement by fleeing across muddy fields, through open terrain, facing certain death by Russian drones, or to await death by a giant glide bomb in Mirnograd – or to surrender.
Rearranging the seats on the Titanic
The continuation of this war for Ukraine will cause further bloodshed. It will see Ukraine and the West’s negotiating position worsen. Any concessions that Putin was willing to make during his Alaska meeting with Trump will be taken off the table as the Russian position on the ground grows stronger by the day. In fact, the very future of the Ukrainian nation is under threat.
So why continue a lost war? Light has been shed on that question by the second crisis now engulfing the Kiev regime.
On 10 November, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) descended on a number of properties, including the apartment of Zelensky’s long-time business partner, Timur Mindich. The operation, known as Operation Midas, uncovered a huge corruption ring, responsible for embezzling $100 million from Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned nuclear energy company.
Those implicated include Mindich himself; Zelensky’s former deputy prime minister Oleksiy Chernyshov; energy minister Svitlana Hrinchuk; former deputy head of the State Property Fund and advisor to the energy minister Ihor Myronyuk; ‘justice’ minister Herman Halushchenko, and senior management at Energoatom.
In other words, these are not second rank officials. This is the very inner circle of the Zelensky regime itself that is implicated!
The details of the scheme seem almost premeditated to rub salt into the wounds of the Ukrainian people. The accused have, allegedly, taken 10-15 percent of every Energoatom contract as kickbacks. These include construction projects to protect the country’s energy infrastructure from Russian bombardment.
In their bid to get rich, the criminal ring in Kiev showed the most callous disregard for the interests of ordinary Ukrainian people. In one recording, Myronyuk, the advisor to the energy minister, dismisses investment to protect nuclear power plant substations as a “waste of money”.
And, unfortunately for him, the very week those recordings were released to the public, the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne nuclear power plant substations were destroyed by Russian bombs. The Zelensky clique got rich, millions of Ukrainians shiver in the dark, and many will die.
In another recording, one of the accused complains about suffering back pain from hauling bags stuffed with cash around Kiev! This at a time when the Economic Commission for Europe estimates that 51.6 percent of Ukrainians live in conditions of “deep deprivation”.
So far, Zelensky himself hasn’t been directly implicated by NABU. He is even thanking NABU for its services and promising criminal prosecutions. How could he act otherwise? But there will be no getting away from the fact that the astonishing rise of the man at the heart of this scandal, Timur Mindich, owes everything to Zelensky’s patronage.
As a key part of Zelensky’s inner circle, Mindich has become fabulously wealthy. The accusations around Energoatom are just the tip of the iceberg. NABU is also investigating his company Fire Point – which began as a humble casting agency. But thanks to Mindich’s connections to Zelensky, that ‘casting agency’ is now a drone manufacturer with $1 billion in contracts each year!
So, was Zelensky’s snout also buried in the trough? NABU hasn’t said. But their bombshell investigation sheds a very interesting light on Zelensky’s attempt to shut down the agency back in July. NABU itself has added to this proof that the criminal clique around Zelensky got wind of its investigation precisely in July, and began harassing NABU agents using the secret services.
Clearly Zelensky himself knew that the noose was tightening around his inner circle and he moved to protect his gangster friends – unsuccessfully, as it happens.
What does this all mean?
This should make clear exactly why Zelensky and his clique insist the war must go on regardless of the fact that it is lost.
But if it is not clear, let us make it explicit: they are making huge fortunes from this war. We are reminded of Lenin’s words: “War is terrible. Yes, terribly profitable.” All their interests are connected to being a western proxy to hit Russia. They must convince the West that they are still capable of serving this role in order to keep the money flowing and to keep lining their own pockets.
But the war is lost. And if the fog of war propaganda obscures that fact in the West, it is nevertheless well understood by most Ukrainians. In February 2022, 70 percent were for continuing the war to victory. As of July this year, it had fallen to 24 percent. No doubt it has fallen further since.
The timing of NABU’s move against Zelensky’s inner circle can hardly be regarded as coincidental. Behind NABU stand the European powers themselves and a section of the oligarchy, including former president Poroshenko and the Klitschko brothers, one of whom is the mayor of Kiev.
Corruption is, of course, nothing new in Ukraine. It has been rife ever since the restoration of capitalism in 1991. But NATO has poured oil onto the flames of corruption in the form of hundreds of billions of dollars to keep this war going. No doubt the Europeans have become alarmed at the extent of it, and no doubt another section of the oligarchy has decided the time is right to move against Zelensky in order that they might get in on the act before the war ends and the taps are turned off.
The oligarchs in Kiev need to keep the war going in order to coin blood into gold, even though destruction beckons in the end. But by then, many of them foresee themselves happily tucked away in some third country. From there, they will be hoping to draw on Swiss bank accounts full of stolen cash, and to bask in comfortable retirements as war heroes in exile.
And for that, young Ukrainian men are expected to lay down their lives, and the workers of Europe are expected to sacrifice their social services, pensions and healthcare systems.
Endgame
The Europeans are, for their own reasons, desperate to keep this war going. They must tie the Americans into Europe. The minute the war ends, the Americans may withdraw to focus elsewhere, above all on Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.
They have therefore played along with this PR game, in order to tie the Americans in. After the Anchorage meeting between Trump and Putin, both Zelensky and the Europeans were in a state of panic. Since then, they have systematically played up Ukraine’s chances and have downplayed the Russian threat.
This seems to have had some effect on Trump. Since his meeting in Anchorage, he has backtracked and hardened his stance, imposing new sanctions on the Russians and adopting a position closer to the intransigence of the Europeans.
But the war has reached a tipping point. The pace of Russian advance is continuously increasing. Every day, the Ukrainian position worsens.
Eventually, the West must face up to reality. Either negotiate now and retain something, or watch as the Russians inevitably grind down and destroy the Ukrainian army. At least some seem to be cognizant of that fact. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, has for instance been engaged in secret talks with the Russians to draft a new 28-point peace plan.
In order that the Russians might accept it, it would have to include security and territorial concessions.
Will it amount to much? Well, the US economy is heading towards a crash. Discontent is rising in the US, including in the MAGA camp. Trump’s role in the Epstein scandal has infuriated his base. He is greatly weakened.
He is therefore forced to rely increasingly on the support of the neocons in his own party. But those neocons live in a long-since-expired world, in which the US is capable of upholding complete world domination. They, the Europeans and Zelensky are bound to attempt to sabotage it.
What is Zelensky doing amidst this turmoil? Under conditions of deep crisis at the heart of government and at the front, one might expect a wartime leader like Zelensky to remain at his post in Kiev. Instead, he has been all over Europe and is now in Turkey. He is no doubt lobbying, engaged in frenetic diplomatic activity to put the brakes on any attempts at negotiation.
Over the course of his trip, Zelensky has been signing the most fantastical arms deals, including for 100 French Rafale and 150 Swedish Gripen jets. Britain’s RAF, by comparison, has roughly 150 fighters in total. It is the PR war become ridiculous.
As The Telegraph put it, “Zelensky is losing touch with reality”.
More than anything, Zelensky needs money. Ukraine faces a €100 billion budget shortfall. That is the cost of continuing the war for just one more year. The Trump Administration, however, has pushed that financial burden wholly onto the shoulders of America’s European ‘allies’.
The Europeans are desperate not to allow the war to end. But how will they pay for it? Eye-watering sums are required to pay for just one more year of this war. But this war may not last another year. And in the meantime, France is running a 5.5 percent of GDP budget deficit, Belgium a 5.5 percent deficit, Britain 4.8 percent.
For European imperialism, a Russian victory could mean the unravelling of its alliance with the US. Bankrupt, its industry crippled, it will be left to face up alone to a mighty military power at its doorstep in Russia. At home, enormous anger is already brewing. Starmer, Macron and Merz are among the most unpopular leaders in their respective countries’ histories. Traditional parties are crumbling.
They cannot accept an end to the war, but neither are any of them willing to foot the bill for it. The bloc has thus fallen into mutual recriminations.
Belgium is refusing to pick up the tab for seizing the €140 billion of Russian assets held in Euroclear, fearing rightly that international courts will deem it an act of theft. Their financial reputation would lie in tatters. The French and Italians are very enthusiastic about issuing ‘eurobonds’ to pay for it – common European debt. But that basically means asking the Germans to pay for it, which the latter are less than enthusiastic to do.
A black hole is opening up beneath the European ruling class once this war ends. All their plans are coming undone.
Time to overthrow the warmongers
At the beginning of this war, we were told that the West and the Kiev regime were fighting for the defence of, even for the survival of Ukraine.
As the end of the war looms, the West and the Kiev regime are sentencing thousands of men to death without any prospect of victory. Why? Because it is in their interests to do so. Far from saving Ukraine, their course of action guarantees the destruction of Ukraine as a nation.
At the beginning of this war, we were told it was a war for the defence of such ‘western’ values as ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’.
As the end of the war looms, the Kiev regime has been exposed as an unaccountable clique of the most brazen criminals and gangsters. Into the hands of these gangsters the West has entrusted hundreds of billions of dollars wrung from the European working class, fully in the knowledge that much, if not most, would end up in the offshore bank accounts of Ukrainian oligarchs.
From the start, we have explained that no side in this war had anything to do with the interests of the Ukrainian workers and soldiers, nor the Russian workers and soldiers for that matter. This is a war being waged between the most powerful and reactionary force on the planet, western imperialism, and one of its rising competitors, Russian imperialism. Ukraine plays the role merely of a proxy in the bloodletting.
As communists in the West, we place responsibility for the horrors unleashed in this war where it belongs: at the feet of our own, warmongering ruling class, the same ruling class that is devastating the living conditions of the working class in order to pay for its imperialist adventures. We say: overthrow the warmongers!
