Hundreds of soldiers have just died in and around Debaltsevo, a sleepy village in the Donbass of 2013. Most of them were Russians, sacrificed for a predatory Russo-imperialism which is now going to expand its colonial intervention into a full-scale war of continental conquest on all former Soviet territories. A much smaller number were Ukrainians, who were simply defending their homeland.
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It's genuinely painful to write these words, but all the evidence suggests this is just the beginning of a bloody and terrible imperial war by Russo-imperialism to reconstitute its lost empire, a war which will consume hundreds of thousands of lives. Unlike the US invasion of Iraq, which primarily damaged Iraq and only secondarily damaged the US economy (though the war's $3 trillion in costs is nothing to sneeze at), the consequences of this war will be most catastrophic for Russia itself.
However, there are two other casualties lying on the cold, snowy ground worth recording.
The first casualty is the EU's foreign policy. This foreign policy consists, in a nutshell, of the EU's commercial elites agreeing to overlook the thuggishness and criminality of the energy-rent kleptocracies of northern Africa and Eurasia, in exchange for the latters' adherence to neoliberal economic orthodoxy. The EU has consistently put its profits above the people of Eurasia, just as it has put its banksters above the people of Europe.
Well, the EU's neoliberal foreign policy has now officially expired. The reeking stench of its corpse needs to be buried, along with any illusions about the aggressive Eurasian fascisms -- the list ranges from the Daesh to Putinism -- Euroliberalism's avarice and cupidity helped spawn, in much the same way the avarice and stupidity of of early 20th century British and French imperialism (in particular, the genius move of pursuing austerity during a Depression) facilitated the various
fascist regimes of Central Europe and Japan.
But that's just the first casualty. The second and more painful casualty, and one that needs to be buried not with contempt and loathing, but with reverence and dignity, is what might be called the beautiful myth of the Maidan. This is the notion that the People -- an amorphous group of individuals, with no other affiliation or identity -- can come together to create forms of solidarity which transcend economics and politics. This was also the central fiction of the Arab Spring mobilizations, every one of which showcased the self-expression of the People in new and creative ways. The People did indeed speak, and openly expressed their wish for political, economic and cultural democracy. But building that democracy means the hard work of constructing the commons. That requires energy, persistence, fortitude, and above all, the tools of critical historical and cultural thinking. The end of illusions is the beginning of the struggle for genuine freedom.
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As for the military side of Debaltsevo, it should be noted that
Ukraine has been mobilizing for six months, and had sufficient time and
resources to defend its lines against not more than 5,000 attacking
soldiers. There was no military defeat per se of Ukraine's forces, there
was a political decision to accept Putinism's latest land-grab as the
price of Minsk 2.
Alas, Minsk 2 will not bring peace, any more than Minsk 1 did. As
usual, Putinism is already drawing all the wrong lessons from its costly victory
(over the past month and a half, Russian units took six to eight times as many casualties as Ukraine,
and Ukraine's infantry units fought well, despite the abysmally
incompetent leadership of its top commanders, 99% of who need to be
immediately pensioned off). But that's not the deeper problem. The deeper problem is that the neoliberal swine leading the European Union to economic and political disaster are
not serious about helping Ukraine. Putin is not terribly bright, but he and Russia's ruling elites are entirely serious about reinstituting the Russian empire (foreign conquests = more resources for them to steal).
From
an ideological standpoint, the war will continue because Putinism
cannot comprehend that 43
million Ukrainians exist and do not want to be Russian citizens.
Whenever Ukraine does anything Putinism doesn't like -- which is
practically everything it does nowadays -- the war will begin anew. There will be constant
attacks, constant provocations, constant bloodshed. The Donbass will be
slowly blasted into rubble, village by village, town by town. The only
thing which would change this calculus is significant EU military
assistance, which would raise the cost of Putinism's invasion to the point that cold peace becomes preferable to hot war. Barring such assistance, the killing and the slow annexation of Ukrainian territory will go on.
The people of Ukraine will now begin to
realize they've been sold
out like cattle, all because the banksters plunging Europe into ruination care more about charging the
Russian plutocrats service fees for the hundreds of billions the
latter launders every year than about safeguarding human life. This realization will
trigger the wrath of ordinary Ukrainians, but it will also
trigger an opportunity: the opportunity for a different Europe.
I know many Ukrainians will disagree with me here, but I don't buy the argument that the defeat should be blamed on President Poroshenko. All the evidence suggests Poroshenko is a genuine patriot and
doing all he can to win victory. It is true that he did make one
mistake, but it is a mistake millions of other Ukrainians made: he
genuinely believed that the European Union was a transnational democracy
willing to support other democracies, rather than the corrupt club of
Eurorentiers, banksters, corporate lobbyists, and sado-monetarists it
currently is.
That other, different Europe still needs to be constructed, through direct, people-to-people solidarity, through contact and dialogue, and through the complete and total rejection of neoliberal austerity. The struggle of the people of Greece against Euroliberalism is also the struggle of the people of Ukraine against Russo-imperialism and Ukraine's indigenous oligarchy, and the struggle of the people of Egypt against its military-tinged kleptocracy is also the struggle of the people of Germany against eurozone austerity.
Either we have a post-neoliberal Europe, united and at peace -- or a neofascist Europe in bloody pieces.
There is no third way.
Time to choose.
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