To the last drop of Ukrainian blood?

The Battle of Stalingrad was a turning point in the Second World War, but it was with the Battle of Kursk in July 1943 that Germany's fate was definitively sealed. However, the fact that the war was effectively lost did not prevent the Nazi leadership from continuing to fight until the end, and the end took almost two years to arrive.

[Originally published in Portuguese at comunistasrevolucionarios.pt]

Similarly, in the Ukraine war, the failure of the counter-offensive in the summer of 2023 was a turning point, and the Battle of Kursk, which began in August last year, has accelerated the fate of this conflict. Here too, despite the war being lost, the Kiev regime seems determined to fight to the end, pointlessly sacrificing the lives of its soldiers to prolong (and only to prolong) the illusion of a possible turnaround, which will not come: Ukraine does not have the reserves of men, ammunition or weapons to make this happen.

For a long time, NATO, the Kiev regime and the western bourgeois press have been fuelling their propaganda with the chimaera of wonder weapons, ‘game changers’, which would turn the tide of the war just as Nazi propaganda tried to maintain the illusion of victory with the miraculous Wunderwaffen.

In Ukraine, there were Javelins, Stingers, Bayraktar drones, M777 artillery, Himars, Leopard, Challenger and Abrams tanks, the Patriot anti-aircraft system, Storm Shadow missiles, ATACMS, F16s… but although they all struck blows against the enemy, they ultimately failed to change the course of the war. With greater or lesser difficulty, the Russian army has been able to withstand these blows and demonstrate that it has weapons as good as, or even more effective than NATO.

Clausewitz or TikTok?

“You see that little stream – we could go there and cross it in two minutes. It took the British a month to cross it – a whole empire moving very slowly, dying ahead and pushing forward. And another empire moved very slowly backward, a few inches a day, leaving its dead like a bloody carpet.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night

These words were written about the First World War, but they could have been written for this conflict. For the average observer, this war has long seemed to be a ‘stalemate’. A gigantic stalemate, because although the Russians are advancing, they are doing so very slowly, taking one village here, another there. They have not even been able to conquer the Donbas, which is one of their main war objectives.

In a war of attrition – and the Russians have been fighting such a war since the autumn of 2022 – success is measurable not in advances on the ground / Image: Vitaly V. Kuzmin, Wikimedia Commons

But in a war of attrition – and the Russians have been fighting such a war since the autumn of 2022 – success is measurable not in advances on the ground, but in the systematic destruction of the enemy army. Unlike Zelensky and the Ukrainian General Staff, who always seemed to prioritise the media dimension of the war over purely military criteria, the Russians have made Clausewitz’s words their own: “strategy is an economy of forces”.

That is why the Russians did not hesitate to withdraw in good order from the right bank of the Dnieper and to abandon Kherson in 2022, for example, not allowing themselves to be cornered, unlike what has constantly happened to the Ukrainians. That is why the Russians have been betting on an incremental advance, testing the Ukrainian defences along more than 1,000 kilometres of front and consolidating and deepening small tactical successes.

On the contrary, the Ukrainians (under NATO leadership) have sought to deliver flanking strikes, trying to imitate the blitzkrieg with ‘iron fists’, or concentrations of tanks and mechanised vehicles that would allow them to surprise the enemy in depth, disorganising its rearguard and quickly conquering large territory.

These tactics failed in the south in the summer of 2023 and again in the summer of 2024 with the invasion of Kursk, where territory taken by Ukraine is now limited to a small border town. In both attempts, Ukraine sacrificed some of its best and most motivated troops and much of the best equipment it received from the West. In this latest attempt, they may even have sacrificed the Donbas.

If the war, after the first months, became positional, this is not due to Russian weakness or to NATO’s insufficient military assistance to its Ukrainian army, but to technological innovations in the areas of information, surveillance and military reconnaissance, as well as new precision weapons and kamikaze drones.

However, over the course of three years, war propaganda has portrayed the Russian army as incompetent, corrupt and cowardly. From the depletion of missile stocks after just a few weeks of war, to the removal of microchips from washing machines to repair military hardware, to the Russian infantry fighting with shovels alone (!) due to a lack of ammunition, everything was done to portray a Russian army on the brink of collapse, needing only a little more time, a little more effort and sacrifice to be defeated. But at the end of the day, reality is more stubborn than propaganda.

When propaganda clashes with reality

In fact, in recent times, some truth has gradually come to light. Last September, for example, the commander of the American Air Force in Europe and Africa warned that “the Russian army is getting bigger and better than at the beginning of the war”. Just a few days ago, the Secretary General of NATO lamented that Russia produced as many weapons and as much ammunition in three months as the whole of NATO in a year!

And what about casualties? According to what the Ukrainians say (which is uncritically repeated by the western press), there are already more than a million Russian soldiers dead. However, despite all the effort and research into obituaries, the press, Russian social networks, etc., the Mediazona/BBC project can only confirm that 95,000 Russian soldiers have died, estimating that the number could (perhaps) reach 165,000. According to military ratios, this could also mean 300,000 to 500,000 wounded soldiers.

A massacre, then. But of such magnitude that it could exhaust the human resources of the Russian army? Even taking the most exaggerated estimates, and even assuming that none of the wounded could return to the battlefield after convalescence, this would mean the loss of 18,000 men per month. However, NATO estimates that the Russian army has been recruiting approximately 30,000 soldiers per month so far. And to ensure that the patriotic spirit does not fade, the Russian government has not hesitated to pay, and pay very well, all those who enlist voluntarily.

Shortage of cannon fodder is the result not only of casualties on the battlefield but also men fleeing the battlefield / Image: Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Flickr

On the Ukrainian side, just a few days ago, Zelensky swore that only 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died since the beginning of the war. In fact, the number is many times higher. The same resources and techniques that Mediazona/BBC have used to determine the number of Russian deaths have not been used to assess Ukrainian casualties. Empirically though, it is possible to bear witness to the grotesque expansion of cemeteries throughout Ukraine.

In modern wars, most deaths are the result of artillery and bombing. In a war in which the Russians have always enjoyed superiority in these weapons, it would be strange if they had lost more men than the Ukrainians. The latter, despite successive mobilisations, the ban on adult males leaving the country, and the fact that – according to western politicians and the media – they are fighting an army of drunks armed with shovels and washing machine chips, are nevertheless suffering from an acute shortage of troops. And it is not possible to explain away as a coincidence or as the product of bureaucratic incompetence the fact that specialised air force personnel have been transferred directly to the trenches.

This shortage of cannon fodder is the result not only of casualties on the battlefield but also men fleeing the battlefield: there have been more than 100,000 desertions since the beginning of the war! That is the equivalent of 20 fully-staffed brigades.

Not long ago, the story of the 155th ‘Anne de Kiev’ Brigade made headlines. In a ‘prestigious’ operation, this supposedly elite formation, fully trained and equipped in France to NATO standards, experienced its first desertions of 50 troops while still in training. But it was only when it got close to the front lines that it all went down the drain: a total of over 1,700 ‘unauthorised abandonments’, that is, desertions, occurred out of a total of some 2,500 men! This little episode could not speak more eloquently to the state of morale in the Ukrainian army. And as Napoleon, who knew something about war, said: the importance of morale of the soldiers is 3 to 1 relative to the strength of the army.

As for the supply of weapons and ammunition…? For a long time, ‘for as long as it takes’ was a mantra constantly repeated by western governments, as they assured Ukraine that they would provide it with all the money and weapons it needed to defeat the Russians. But in reality, NATO was not at all prepared for this war.

In recent decades, American and European armies were designed not for massive wars of attrition with a peer rival, but for lightning wars and ‘policing operations’ in Africa and the Middle East against much weaker and technologically vulnerable enemies. Already, in the aftermath of the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023, alarm bells began to ring about the dangerously low level of weapons stockpiled in western stores. Repeated calls for an increase in arms production have not met with success. To use the less polite words of a retired Belgian general, arms production in Europe is in “deep shit”.

In fact, regarding NATO’s real capacity to properly supply Ukraine with weapons, it is quite illustrative and symbolic that Canada – on the third anniversary of the start of the war and with Trudeau personally present in Kiev – can only deliver the Ukrainians F16 flight simulators… but not real fighter jets!

This entire war was, in fact, a huge miscalculation by the western imperialists. In 1941, Hitler thought that all he had to do was kick the door in and the entire Soviet edifice would collapse. At the beginning of this war, the Americans and Europeans considered Russia “a gas station masquerading as a country”. They were convinced that, through sanctions and economic and financial pressure, they would be able to throw the Russian economy into chaos: “ruble to rubble” – as Joe Biden joked.

Biden did not hesitate to say that “Putin has to go”. Even less diplomatically, he called him a “butcher”. However, against the expectations of the American president and his European cronies, the Russian economy did not collapse. Nor did the Russians revolt en masse and overthrow their government in the ‘colour revolution’ dreamed of by the West, which would’ve allowed them to seat a Navalny type in the Kremlin, who would guarantee them the country’s immense natural riches and perhaps even divide Russia into several small states, destroying it forever.

In fact, the Russian economy has shown unparalleled resilience. The West has been passing successive sanctions packages against Russia – the EU is now on its 16th! – for which Europe in particular has suffered the consequences, as it has meant cutting off its supply of cheap energy. Meanwhile, the Russians have been enjoying an unusual economic boom thanks to high gas and oil prices on the world market, and government spending and military orders, which have boosted their economy. The loss of the West’s prominence in the world economy has also been demonstrated by this war: the Russians have been circumventing the sanctions, importing and exporting to other countries.

The government has been able (so far) to fund the war effort, maintain social peace and the support of the majority of the population. We have no sympathy for Putin, a reactionary capitalist leader. But the truth must be told. Several leaders have fallen since February 2022, and none of them were Vladimir Putin.

And now Trump!

“America First” necessarily means the rest of the world last. That includes Europe. For a long time, the Europeans had the illusion of being equal partners with the Americans. Now, with Trump, they are waking up to the harsh reality that they are, in fact, mere vassals.

Trump is a reactionary billionaire enemy of the working class who will always defend the interests of his class. There can be no doubt about that. But he is also an accelerator of history, and, with both his personal style and the strategy with which he seeks to defend the interests of his class, he is exposing, for all the world to see, the real dynamics of power in American society and international relations.

Take the example of Ukraine’s rare-earth metals. Instead of issuing blank cheques to the Zelensky government in the form of loans as Biden did, knowing that these would never be repaid, Trump came out in public and demanded Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation!

Many call Trump crazy, but as Shakespeare would say, there is method in his madness / Image: public domain

It’s actually quite amusing to watch the hypocritical indignation of the liberal European bourgeoisie! When The Economist denounces Trump by saying that “the United States now has an imperialist presidency for the first time in over a century” we are surely faced with an extreme case of amnesia or Alzheimer’s.

When, not long ago, it was reported that, in the midst of the war in Ukraine, its best and most fertile soils were being sold off cheaply to western investment funds, or when BlackRock positioned itself to ‘rebuild’ Ukraine, no one cried ‘imperialism’. On the contrary, they welcomed Ukraine’s ‘economic integration’ with the West. And very significantly, no one tore their clothes and exclaimed ‘imperialism’ when Zelensky himself, in his famous ‘Victory Plan’ offered “access to Ukraine’s vast deposits of uranium, lithium, titanium, with the aim of attracting foreign investment” and thus trying to keep his western guardians on board.

Maybe Zelensky shouldn’t have made that promise. Trump has now simply demanded it with the bluntness and frankness of a businessman accustomed to the Manhattan real estate jungle.

But more important than style, unlike Biden and previous US administrations, the current occupant of the White House and his team seem to have understood the limits of American power. The essential feature of international politics is the relative decline of the United States (which nevertheless remains the most powerful world power) and the rise of new powers such as China and, to a lesser extent, Russia.

Trump understands that the United States does not have the capacity to be the ‘world’s policeman’ as it was in previous decades. His actions are not guided by any desire for peace and harmony, but by the realistic understanding that the United States must entrench itself in its own hemisphere, reinforcing its dominance in its traditional spheres of influence, in order to recover, strengthen and be able to concentrate on the Pacific, where the power that threatens to supplant it is emerging: China.

Many call Trump crazy, but as Shakespeare would say, there is method in his madness. Do tariffs, for example, threaten world trade? Sure. But for Trump, tariffs are both a mechanism of political pressure on his allies, aka ‘vassals’, and a means of promoting the reindustrialisation of the United States at their expense. Whether he succeeds or not is another matter. But from Trump’s perspective, the United States has also weakened itself by subsidising the rest of the ‘free world’, either through military aid or through chronic trade deficits. That is why Trump is turning against his European ‘allies’ and intimidating them with threats of customs tariffs and demands for drastic increases in their military spending ‘or else’…

It is worth noting that protectionist tendencies did not begin with Trump: they are a feature of the developing systemic crisis of capitalism. Biden, for example, did not repeal any of the tariffs imposed by Trump in his first term and, through his so-called Inflation Reduction Act, even promoted the relocation of industries to the United States through massive incentives, drastically intensifying the latent trade war with Europe.

‘America First’ and the ‘Ukraine Project’

In the first weeks of his term, Trump has caused successive shockwaves. But the United States' repositioning in relation to Ukraine has undoubtedly been the biggest shift of the tectonic plates so far. In Europe, shock and fury go hand in hand with recriminations against Trump. Even Zelensky has imprudently publicly accused Trump of “living in a bubble of Russian disinformation”!

However, when it comes to Ukraine, ‘crazy’ Trump shows more pragmatism than his mentally impaired predecessor in the White House and all the ‘realistic’ politicians crowding Europe.

Instead of being weakened, the Russian army has grown in size and power / Image: Mil.ru, Wikimedia Commons

Even under Biden, the US objective has never been to ‘save Ukraine’ – in fact, the last three years have been all about destroying it! Just weeks after the start of the war, on his first visit to Kiev, the then US Secretary of Defense could not have been clearer: “we want to see Russia weakened”. This was never about Ukraine, the defence of its territorial integrity or sovereignty, the defence of its culture or its people. This was about “making an investment to neutralise the Russian army and navy for the next decade”.

But no. Instead of being weakened, the Russian army has grown in size and power. All the sanctions in the world (Russia is the most sanctioned country in history) have not prevented the Russian government from spending as much on military resources as all of Europe combined last year. In the long term, this will be unsustainable for Russian capitalism. But for now and for the entire period ahead, Russia is economically capable of maintaining this war.

What’s more, since the beginning of the conflict, it has cemented its commercial, political and even its military relations with other countries. It has established alliances with Iran and North Korea which, whatever one may think of these two countries, have a remarkable military industry and have assisted Russia in its confrontation with NATO.

But the Russian army is not only stronger because the government has invested heavily in the military. These three years of war have allowed the Russians to test their weapons against those of the West, and hone their logistical capabilities and tactical knowledge. The Russians now have the most experienced army on the battlefield, tested and forged in the mud of the trenches, in the heat of explosions and through the gallons of blood spilt on the Ukrainian steppe. This is not a detail that can be relegated to a footnote.

Trump’s ‘madness’ is that he has understood this and has decided to put American interests first. The objective of defeating Russia, or even of weakening it, has failed. In this failed attempt, huge sums of money and weapons were spent without tangible results. Worse! Even during Biden’s term, military shipments were decreasing because American stockpiles were being dangerously emptied. And, in the meantime, Chinese military modernisation has not stopped.

This is the reality underlying the decision-making in Washington. Over and above Trump’s style or Musk’s antics, the new US Secretary of Defense sent a very real message to the Europeans: the United States cannot focus primarily on European security because of “threats emanating from the Indo-Pacific ” and that Europe must be responsible for its own security. As for Ukraine, he bluntly stated that NATO membership was off-limits and that a return to the 2014 borders was an unrealistic goal.

What the Trump Administration has done, in one fell swoop after just a few weeks in office, is to concede Putin’s main demands since the start of this war. This is not because Trump is an asset controlled by the Russian secret services, or because he is ‘crazy’ or a ‘dictator worshipper’, but because he has simply recognised the military reality and the balance of forces on the battlefield, as difficult as this may be for the Europeans.

To add insult to injury, the Americans and Russians have already started direct talks, excluding both the Europeans and Ukrainians from the negotiating table. Trump, keen to reach an agreement (which, if concluded, will go beyond Ukraine), has good reason to exclude them, given that neither Kiev nor Brussels wants an end to the war.

For the Americans, the end of the war would mean the end of an inglorious drain on resources. But for the Ukrainian ruling clique, the end of the war would mean their own end. If they do not flee the country immediately afterwards, they risk not merely their political ‘end’.

As for the Europeans, panic is setting in. Contrary to Trump, who has already said that between him and Russia there is a “big, beautiful ocean”; for the European bourgeoisie peace (on Putin’s terms) will mean a profound strategic defeat.

The European establishment will be shattered by this war, an avoidable war into which they were dragged by the Americans / Image: own work

Firstly, they will have to deal with a furious and battle-tested Russian bear on their borders. Secondly, an agreement reached between the Russians and the Americans would allow the latter to divert resources from Europe to the Pacific, further isolating the Europeans. Thirdly, it is not even certain how or if trade relations between the Russians and Europeans will be re-established. The Europeans are now dependent on more expensive energy supplies from the United States and other sources, they have a stagnant economy and they are compelled to exponentially increase defence spending.

Europe’s decline will deepen, relative social peace will fracture, and the European Union itself could collapse with the emergence of right-wing populist parties and, above all, with the class interests of each bourgeoisie and each country pulling in different directions. In the future, we will see some European countries gravitating towards Russia, others kept in the American orbit, and some perhaps being pulled towards the new Chinese Silk Road.

Finally, and this is no small matter, the entire political prestige of the European establishment will be shattered by this war, an avoidable war into which they were dragged by the Americans, but in which they ended up betting all their chips like a gambler at the roulette wheel. The Americans will emerge from this war as they did from Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan: with wounded pride, some scars and shaken international prestige. However, no vital American interests will be threatened by the existence of a Russian naval base in Crimea; by the annexation of Donbas, or by the existence of a puppet government of Moscow in Kiev. Indeed, the Americans are preparing to reach an agreement in which the division of Ukraine will become a reality. In contrast, the weakened Europeans will remain mired in the crisis.

And what does a weakened and divided Europe, which has always been riven by internal rivalry, have to offer Trump? An unbalanced trade relationship? Permanent military spending on European security? Condescending arrogance? For Trump, Russia is a military power with which he will try to accommodate in terms of spheres of influence, organising the commercial exploitation of the Arctic and securing business in the fields of energy, rare earths and commodities, of which Russia is one of the world's largest producers. There is also the additional motivation of trying to create a schism in the current ‘strategic partnership’ between Russia and China. With all this on the table, why would Trump hesitate? He would be ‘crazy’ to do so…

“War is the midwife of revolution”

During the Vietnam War, peace talks lasted for years. It is not plausible that an understanding between the Americans and the Russians will be reached in the next few weeks. In reality, the Russians would gain no advantage by rushing the negotiations. It would be better to keep quiet and let Trump, Zelensky and the Europeans do the talking. The more they talk, the deeper their divisions will become. As far as the Russians are able, they will try to cause ‘surprises’ on the battlefield to better strengthen their hand in the negotiations.

Trump himself has little to do: Ukraine admits that they will not be able to survive more than six months without American aid. All they have to do is stop the supply of weapons and money. With the exchange of insults and accusations between Trump and Zelensky, it is hard to imagine how the US Congress will be able to approve new aid packages, even with the lure of Ukrainian rare earths. After all, if it is easy for the United States to print dollars, it is not so easy to ‘print’ artillery shells, tanks, missiles and anti-aircraft guns. And this is the crux of the matter!

At this moment, from the point of view of American imperialism, the safest bet is to withdraw from ‘Project Ukraine’, focus on the challenge of China, and leave the Europeans to fend for themselves and to take responsibility for the war on their own continent. This is something that MAGA, the mass of Trump supporters in the United States, would largely approve of!

Ukraine admits that they will not be able to survive more than six months without American aid / Image: Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Flickr

As for the Europeans, it seems too late for a reversal of fortunes: Starmer, Macron, Meloni, and even the leader of the German CDU, Friedrich Merz, who has now been elected German Chancellor, are all too invested in the ‘Ukraine Project’, all too terrified of being left alone with the Russians on their borders. They will all support Ukraine to the end, even if they have no concrete means to do so! Ironically, in 2022, the United States pressured a then-reluctant Europe to enter the war. Now, in 2025, it is the Europeans who are trying to get the Americans involved in the war! The European Commission will allocate more billions, borrowing if necessary, because, in the end, it will be the workers, not Von Der Leyen, who will foot the bill.

By the choice of these ladies and gentlemen (Zelensky and his cronies included), the defence of so-called ‘European values’ will continue to be paid for at the expense of the lives of Ukrainian workers and youth. All this so as not to lose face. It remains to be seen whether the Ukrainian working class will allow itself to be led numb to the slaughter; or whether perhaps even a faction of the army (and maybe even with American sponsorship), if faced with the imminent total collapse of the front and the Ukrainian state, might not anticipate this and stage a coup d’état that would allow them to sue for peace with the Russians. In any case, the days of Zelensky and his regime are surely numbered.

The defeat of Ukraine will have dramatic consequences for the whole of Europe. From the very beginning, we revolutionary communists have opposed this war, but not out of pacifist considerations. We did not call for dialogue or diplomatic negotiations between the imperialist thieves, as some leftists have done, in so doing having politically disarmed the working class with regard to the true nature of war, capitalism and imperialism and the tasks of our class. We oppose the war from our own class standpoint.

We did not limit ourselves to condemning the Russian invasion. We also condemned the previous interference and destabilisation of Ukraine by the American government (and its European allies) who consciously desired, prepared and provoked confrontation with Russia for years.

The attitude of revolutionary communists towards war is not dictated by its horrors, suffering and death. War only takes the horrors of capitalism to an extreme. Our attitude is determined by the class interests of the forces involved in the war. That is the decisive question: which class is waging war and in whose interests?

The position of revolutionary communists is determined by their irreconcilable opposition to any war waged by the imperialists. Our attitude to the war in Ukraine is determined by the classes waging this war. Both sides are imperialist powers, and therefore we oppose the war being waged by both Russia, and NATO and its client state, which uses the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder.

Part of the left has capitulated to the western imperialists, adopting the narrative of ‘supporting Ukraine so that it can have a better position at the negotiating table’. Years have passed! Has Ukraine achieved these wonderful ‘improved negotiating positions’? How many workers, and how many of their children, have already died for this morbid casino bet? How much destruction, death and misery has been inflicted on Ukraine? How much will the European capitalists make us pay for the rearmament of the continent and for the new wars that they are already preparing, even though this one is not over yet?

The coming period will be turbulent and full of crises but also of opportunities for revolutionary communists. There is only one class that truly yearns for peace and which will be able to pull Europe out of its quagmire and decline: the working class. Only the struggle of the workers, by overthrowing capitalism, can put an end to the war such that ‘peace’ does not become merely a temporary truce in preparation for the next massacre! As Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg proclaimed during the First World War: “the main enemy is at home”.

Peace among peoples, war between classes!

Workers of the world, unite!