VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
(Source: CNN.com)
First reports are arriving of fighting between Ukrainian and DPRK troops.
As much as we have always supported and praised heroic North Korea’s defiance of US imperialism, we cannot endorse its support for Russian imperialist aggression against Ukraine.
The Ukrainian conflict was born of rivalry between the US and European imperialist bloc on one side, and the Russian imperialists on the other.
Its origins can be traced back to the string-pulling exercised by Virginia Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2014, at the time of the Maidan Rebellion that brought down the Ukrainian government. Nuland directed the subsequent coup, declaring who should, and shouldn’t be in the new regime, and monopolizing the conspiracy so as to exclude the European Union and telling US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt “Fuck the EU.”
In the face of provocations instigated by US imperialism and NATO, the Russians unleashed a so-called “limited” action, in the form of a “special military action”, against Ukraine. Ostensibly this was to protect the interests of Russian-speaking separatists in Eastern Ukraine, whose declarations of independence had long been ignored by Moscow, and to root out the influence of open Nazis and their influence within Ukrainian political and military circles.
Despite this complicated situation, the fact remains that Russian imperialism committed an act of aggression. That act determined that theirs was an unjust war, and the Ukrainians’, irrespective of the capitalist nature of their ruling class, and its embrace of the US/NATO imperialists, was a just war.
Putin’s “limited” action has required the suppression of civil liberties in Russia and a massive cost in armaments and lives. These both represent significant drains on Russia.
Putin has now had to seek reinforcements. Despite supporting Putin politically, the Belarusians have resisted direct involvement in Ukraine. The DPRK’s involvement may, however, induce the fascist leader of the Chechen Republic President, Ramzan Kadyrov, to follow through on his threat to send 80,000 “volunteers” to support the Russians in Ukraine.
In an act of desperation, Putin signed a treaty on military assistance with the DPRK on Jue 19, 2024. According to the Treaty, North Korea and Russia “shall immediately provide military and other assistance” to the other party if it “falls into a state of war due to armed invasion from an individual or multiple states.”
The Russians claim that the Treaty came into operation because the Ukrainians have waged war against the four counties in the east of Ukraine that Russia says have “voluntarily” supported their annexation to Russia. According to the logic of the Russian imperialists, their war of aggression against Ukraine has now become a “war of defence” against Ukraine’s invasion of its own territory.
Russia can also claim that the Ukrainian’s August seizure of Russian territory in the region near Kursk also constituted “armed invasion”.
However, given Russia’s original sin of having first invaded Ukraine, the counter-incursion by Ukraine is not the beginning of a new “armed invasion”, but a continuation of a war begun by the Russians.
It is believed that DPRK troops have already clashed with Ukrainian forces inside the Russian zone taken by Ukraine.
Far from being close to ending, everything points to the Ukrainian conflict intensifying and dragging on with further unspeakable suffering on both sides. The US has so far been content to only supply Ukraine with arms sufficient to tie the Russians down so as to exhaust them in a prolonged war.
There are signs too, particularly from the Trump camp, that the US should let the Russians win so as to engage with greater focus on preparations for war with their main rival, Chinese social-imperialism.
Russia's aggression against the Ukrainian people is bound to fail, and North Korea's joining as an ally at this time means it will only share the consequences of such defeat with Russia.
Whatever the outcome of the US election, the system of US imperialism will remain in place, and ensure that the people of Europe and the world will face being sacrificed in the interests of defending and expanding US global hegemony.