NATO floods Ukraine with weapons

Andre Damon

In a global weapons-running program without precedent in post-World War II history, more than 20 countries, including members of NATO and the European Union, are funneling weapons, including as aircraft and missiles, to Ukraine for use in NATO’s proxy war with Russia.

“Thousands of anti-tank weapons, hundreds of air-defense missiles and thousands of small arms and ammunition stocks are being sent to Ukraine,” bragged NATO in an official dispatch.

The United States has been joined by Germany, France, Poland and the UK, as well as the majority of the European Union in sending offensive weapons to Ukraine.

Ukrainian servicemen unpack Javelin anti-tank missiles, delivered as part of the United States of America's security assistance to Ukraine, at the Boryspil airport, outside Kyiv, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

“Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States have already sent or are approving significant deliveries of military equipment to Ukraine,” NATO said.

US officials are openly comparing the present operation to the “rat lines” used to arm Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in the Middle East in recent decades.

“On NATO territory, we should be the Pakistan,” Douglas Lute, a former lieutenant-general and American ambassador to NATO, told the New York Times, “supplying the Ukrainians as Pakistan supplied the Taliban in Afghanistan, stockpiling matériel in Poland and organizing supply lines.”

The shock troops of this latest US-led proxy war will not be, as in Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalist fighters, but the neo-Nazi forces which played a key role in Ukraine’s 2014 coup.

“We have been given so much weaponry… because we perform the tasks set forth by the West, because we like to fight, and we like to kill,” Yevhen Karas, leader of the neo-Nazi terrorist organization C-14, said in early February, before the war began.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the European Union had opened a hub in Poland to run weapons into Ukraine, citing a French EU official.

Also Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced that Spain would follow Germany in sending offensive weapons to Ukraine, breaking his earlier pledge to only send defensive equipment.

Poland has pledged, in the words of the New York Times, to “provide tens of thousands of shells and artillery ammunition, anti-aircraft missiles, light mortars, reconnaissance drones and other reconnaissance weapons.”

An article by Steven Erlanger in the New York Times stressed the scale of the weapons transfers, warning, in an understatement, that “Moscow may see it as a dangerous intervention.”

The Dutch are sending rocket launchers for air defense. The Estonians are sending Javelin antitank missiles. The Poles and the Latvians are sending Stinger surface-to-air missiles. The Czechs are sending machine guns, sniper rifles, pistols and ammunition. Even formerly neutral countries like Sweden and Finland are sending weapons. And Germany, long allergic to sending weapons into conflict zones, is sending Stingers as well as other shoulder-launched rockets. …

Sweden, not a member of NATO, announced that it would send Ukraine 5,000 antitank weapons, 5,000 helmets, 5,000 items of body armor and 135,000 field rations, plus about $52 million for the Ukrainian military. Finland, similarly, has said it will deliver 2,500 assault rifles and 150,000 rounds of ammunition for them, 1,500 antitank weapons and 70,000 combat rations.

Even as they funnel such vast quantities of weapons into Ukraine, NATO countries are massively increasing their commitment of forces on Russia’s borders. The Times reports that NATO is moving as many as 22,000 more troops into countries bordering Russia.

The United States has deployed 15,000 additional troops to Europe and provided an additional 12,000 troops to NATO’s rapid response force. The US has also deployed additional fighter jets and attack helicopters to Eastern Europe.

The US forces are joined by France and Germany, which are deploying fighter jets, tanks and troops to Poland and Romania. The UK, meanwhile, has sent hundreds of troops and tanks to Estonia and Poland. Canada has sent over 1,200 soldiers to Latvia, while Italy has put 3,400 troops on standby.

The massive troop concentrations on Russia’s borders are leading to threats of conflict between Russia and NATO.

“Risks of a clash between Russian and NATO forces do exist, and there are no guarantees incidents will not take place,” the state-run Russian news agency TASS paraphrased Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko on Wednesday.

“Risks do emerge. Of course, we are worried about weapons supplies. All this is very dangerous,” Grushko said. “There are no guarantees some incidents will not occur.”

The New York Times struck up the same tone, writing:

In fact, even if no NATO soldier ever crosses into Ukraine, and even if convoys of matériel are driven to the border by non-uniformed personnel or contractors in plain trucks, the European arms supplies are likely to be seen in Moscow as a not-so-disguised intervention by NATO.

… World wars have started over smaller conflicts, and the proximity of the war to NATO allies carries the danger that it could draw in other parties in unexpected ways

… However proud Brussels is of its effort, it is a strategy that risks encouraging a wider war and possible retaliation from Mr. Putin. The rush of lethal military aid into Ukraine from Poland, a member of NATO, aims, after all, to kill Russian soldiers.

These warnings came amidst a mounting death toll as the war entered its eighth day. Russia has admitted that 498 of its soldiers have died so far, while Pentagon officials estimate that 2,000 Russian soldiers have died, and Ukraine claims to have killed over 5,000.

The United Nations, meanwhile, reports that 227 civilians have been killed between February 24 and March, noting that this figure is likely an underestimation. Over the past week, 1 million people out of a total population of 44 million have fled the war, according to the UN.

The US and EU have also massively intensified their economic warfare against Russia, with the European Union announcing a ban on the supply of Euro banknotes to Russia on Wednesday.

In response, Moody’s downgraded Russia’s debt to junk status, writing, “The scope and severity of the sanctions announced to date have gone beyond Moody’s initial expectations and will have material credit implications.”

In a sign of just how high tensions have become, the United States has delayed the test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“In an effort to demonstrate that we have no intention of engaging in any actions that can be misunderstood or misconstrued, the secretary of defense has directed that our Minuteman-III intercontinental ballistic missile test launch scheduled for this week to be postponed,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a briefing.

The Ukrainian regime, meanwhile, has been visibly emboldened by the open backing and weapons deliveries from the imperialist powers. The twitter account of the Kyiv Independent reported Wednesday, “Ukrainian special forces will no longer capture Russian artillerymen. The command of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces has warned that it will not spare Russian artillerymen in response to their ‘brutal shelling’ of civilians and cities. If implemented, such a policy would constitute a war crime and open violation of the Geneva Convention for the Humane Treatment of Prisoners of War.”

UK government confirms regime change agenda against Russia

Thomas Scripps

On Monday, a spokesman for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the sanctions against Russia “we are introducing, that large parts of the world are introducing, are to bring down the Putin regime.”

Questioned by journalists surprised at his moment of unguarded honesty, Johnson’s spokesman tried to reverse his comment, claiming, “We’re not seeking anything in terms of regime change.” Downing Street later insisted that the official had “misspoke”.

Whatever the denials, the UK and NATO’s ambitions in the conflict with Russia are being stated ever more openly. Writing in the Telegraph Saturday, Defence Minister James Heappey said the Russian people must be “empowered to see how little he [Vladimir Putin] cares for them. In showing them that, Putin’s days as President will surely be numbered.”

This aim is advanced under cover of the staggeringly hypocritical accusation that the Putin government is guilty of war crimes, a charge levelled by countries which have committed too many to list since the Russian Federation emerged from the dissolved Soviet Union in 1991.

At the United Nations on Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss accused Putin of “violating international law, including the UN Charter and multiple commitments to peace and security.”

Speaking to the BBC earlier that morning, Conservative MP and former defence secretary Liam Fox said it “may well be too late for Putin and perhaps [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov in terms of committing war crimes. But we’ll be looking to see those with money, political influence and military influence in Moscow, whose side they actually take in this conflict. It’s never too late for them to try to stop what is happening. And the world will be watching their individual actions.”

Tobias Ellwood, the Tory chair of the defence committee, wrote in the Telegraph, “Triggering war crime investigations now will be another squeeze on Putin and his cronies. There is no statute of limitations. Putin is now 69. He will still be liable for them at 79, 89 and 99. The calculation that advisers, generals and soldiers have to make is how long will Putin last? How stable is this regime?”

If all the major war criminals of the past 30 years were sentenced tomorrow, Putin would have to squeeze his way into a dock already packed with imperialist officials and officers, many from the UK. The Johnson government and its allies are not in the slightest interested in upholding human rights or ending the war, only in using the reactionary Russian invasion of Ukraine as excuse to pursue their long-held plans to install a puppet regime in Moscow.

As well as implementing crippling sanctions, it is stepping up its military involvement in the conflict, by means which threaten a direct confrontation between Russia and the NATO powers. On Sunday, Truss declared she would “absolutely” support people from Britain going to fight in Ukraine, “if people want to support that struggle, I would support them doing that.”

Downing Street issued only the mildest of rebukes, repeating Foreign Office guidance that British citizens are currently advised not to travel to Ukraine.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was more gung-ho, telling the Today programme, “I don’t think Liz Truss said we are supporting non-trained people to go and fight … [I]f you’re going to be a fighter there, first of all please try and comply with the Foreign Office advice, because it is dangerous. But secondly, be trained, have experience, don’t be serving personnel. But fundamentally it is a dangerous situation, so if you are going to fight, be a professional, having had service.”

Scores of UK citizens, many with high-level military training and years of experience, are already making preparations to go, as breathlessly narrated by the corporate media. Mamuka Mamulashvili, commander of the volunteer Georgian National Legion, told Sky News he was aware of more than a hundred British volunteers, most with military backgrounds.

The Mirror reports on a “crack team of SAS veterans” heading to Ukraine, “funded by a country in Europe, still to be named, via a private military company.” According to the paper, “among them there are highly-trained snipers and experts in the use of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.” One is quoted as saying, “A lot of ex-parachute regiment colleagues are also very keen to go. Many people are very keen to go, and it has had to be organised very quickly.”

The Times writes, “More than 150 former paratroopers who served in Afghanistan are on their way to fight on the front line with Ukraine against Russia.” One of them said Truss’s comments had “inspired” him.

British army commanders are apparently concerned about “rumblings through back channels of some soldiers considering [going to Ukraine].” According to the Telegraph, Sir Chris Tickell, the army’s second in command, has sent a letter to all soldiers warning them not to travel and risk “reputational and presentational” damage or a “miscalculation.”

The participation of British citizens in the war in Ukraine creates a cover for undeclared special forces operations, provides a possible pretext for intervention and is a reckless provocation of a nuclear-armed power.

Already the UK government is directly contributing substantial military equipment to the Ukrainian army. Heappey writes, “The shoulder launched anti-tank missiles that we delivered just four weeks ago are now in wide use and have become a favourite of the brave Ukrainian warriors fighting on the front line.” Johnson has “directed the Ministry of Defence to send more and so we will.”

A government source told the Sun that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has given the UK a “shopping list” with “specific requests for military hardware during near daily phone calls, and we are working round the clock to get them into Ukraine.”

Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas, center, speaks during a joint press conference with Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, left, and Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO, after their talks regarding the invasion in Ukraine, at an airbase in Tallinn, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

At a press conference yesterday in the Tapa military base in Estonia, Johnson, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg took questions while stood in front of two battle tanks, one draped in the UK’s national flag. Johnson boasted again of the 22,000 Ukrainian military personnel trained by the UK and the “further military support” it was providing.

On the economic front, UK corporations are complementing government sanctions by cutting ties with the Russian economy. Oil company Shell has pulled out of Russian projects worth $3 billion. BP has incurred a $25 billion write-down selling its stake in Rosneft. The UK’s biggest pension fund, the Universities Superannuation Scheme, is offloading all its Russian assets, worth £450 million, as is the Church of England, at £20 million. The Guardian referred to “The great decoupling: how UK-based firms are unwinding exposure to Russia.”

This is matched with a cultural blockade beyond anything seen in the Cold War, designed to whip up anti-Russian hostility in the population. Renowned conductor Valery Gergiev has been forced to resign his position as honorary president of the Edinburgh International Festival. The Russian State Ballet of Siberia has been forced to call off its UK tour after theatres in Bristol, Wolverhampton, Northampton, Edinburgh, Bournemouth, Southend and Peterborough cancelled appearances.

The UK’s grossly misnamed culture secretary Nadine Dorries said she was “glad to see” the cancellations and called on “other venues to take action”. Many have. The Darlington Hippodrome, the Belgrade in Coventry, Blackburn’s King George’s Hall and Aldershot’s Princes Hall have all cancelled performances of the Russian State Opera.

Not even Russian alcohol is exempt. Bars and hospitality firms including Nightcap Group and Arc Inspirations are removing vodka and other Russian alcohol products from their menus. But the crown for low-rent corporate Russophobia goes to price comparison website Compare the Market, which has pulled well-known adverts featuring a cartoon meerkat with a Russian name and accent.

Yesterday, the UK’s media regulator Ofcom announced it has opened 15 investigations into the broadcaster Russia Today, long a target of the British political and media establishment. If the station is found to have breached impartiality standards it “could lose its licence to broadcast in the UK,” the Guardian salivates. The paper notes, “Although Ofcom is operationally independent from the government, its leadership is appointed by ministers, and it has come under substantial political pressure from both the Conservatives and Labour.”

Canada sends anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, bans Russian oil imports

Roger Jordan

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that Canada will send a further shipment of weaponry to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles and upgraded ammunition. Trudeau also confirmed that Canada would ban Russian oil imports, the first major Western country to do so. The oil import ban is largely symbolic, given that Canada has not received an oil shipment from Russia since 2019.

G7 leaders, from the left up, US President Joe Biden, Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, President of the European Council Charles Michel, Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister Mario Draghi and French President Emmanuel Macron take part to a video-conference on Ukraine, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, February 24, 2022. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)

Together with the United States and Britain, Canada’s Liberal government has led the charge of the imperialist powers in imposing devastating sanctions on Russia and supplying Ukraine with armaments following the Putin government’s invasion of the country last Thursday. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military intervention, which all socialists and class conscious workers must oppose, was deliberately incited by the imperialist powers, Canada included, and is now being seized upon by Washington and its allies to push for a catastrophic war between the US-NATO and Russia.

In addition to Canada’s weapons shipment, the Trudeau government is sending two Hercules C130 transport aircraft to Europe to help arms shipments from other NATO members reach Ukraine. Asked Sunday whether Canadian troops would be sent to Ukraine to fight Russian forces, Defence Minister Anita Anand responded, “A combat mission is not on the table at this time.”

A senior Canadian government official boasted that Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland played a significant role in applying pressure on the European powers to agree to the exclusion of Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system, a move described by the French finance minister as a “financial nuclear weapon.”

This act of economic warfare by the G7, which was combined with restrictions on the Russian central bank to prevent it from backing the ruble, has already had devastating consequences as interest rates have more than doubled and the currency’s value has plummeted. These sanctions will have disastrous consequences in the coming weeks and months, as regular Russians struggle to afford basic necessities, like food and medication.

The Trudeau government further escalated tensions with Moscow yesterday, when Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters in Geneva that Ottawa would formally petition the International Criminal Court in The Hague to commence investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity by Russia. Joly was also one of a group of American, British, German and other diplomats who provocatively walked out of Tuesday’s meeting of the UN Human Rights Council as soon as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov began his address via video.

Anti-Russian sanctions were also ratcheted up. Transport Minister Omar Alghabra confirmed that Canadian ports will be closed to Russian-owned and registered ships later this week. Canadian airspace was closed to Russian aircraft Sunday morning.

After a meeting with her G7 colleagues, Deputy Prime Minister Freeland announced Tuesday afternoon that further sanctions on Russia will be imposed in the coming days. Freeland denounced Putin as an “international pariah” and described Russia as a “failing kleptocracy.”

Joly made clear Sunday that the Trudeau government supports individual Canadians joining the Ukrainian army to fight the Russian invasion. “We understand that people of Ukrainian descent want to support their fellow Ukrainians and also that there is a desire to defend the motherland and in that sense it is their own individual decision,” she told a press conference. “Let me be clear: we are all very supportive of any form of support to Ukrainians right now.”

This amounts to nothing less than official approval for far-right forces across Canada to mobilize support for the fascistic militias that play a prominent role in the Ukrainian military, such as the Azov Battalion. As part of a training mission established in Ukraine after the imperialist-sponsored coup in 2014 that overthrew pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Canadian personnel held meetings with and provided training to Azov members. The Ottawa Citizen reported in November that Canadian personnel gave instruction to members of Centuria, a neo-Nazi group, at Ukraine’s National Army Academy.

Underscoring the Liberal government’s conscious promotion of such reactionary political forces, Freeland was pictured at a pro-Ukraine demonstration Sunday night holding aloft a banner of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The UPA was the military arm of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), a far-right nationalist group founded by Stepan Bandera that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. The OUN was complicit in the massacre of Jews and Poles during the Nazis’ war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. After tweeting a photo of herself holding the banner, Freeland was forced to delete the tweet due to public criticism. She subsequently posted a picture from the same protest with the banner removed.

Canada’s close collaboration with Ukrainian fascists has gone hand in hand with its role in the aggressive US-led expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe over the past three decades. Following the Western-funded 2014 coup in Kiev, Canada agreed to send 540 troops to Latvia to lead one of NATO’s four “Enhanced Forward Presence” battlegroups in the Baltic and Poland. Trudeau announced in February the deployment of a further 460 troops to Eastern Europe, including a 120-man gunner unit, a reconnaissance plane, and a second frigate to join NATO patrols. Another 3,400 military personnel have been placed on stand-by for immediate deployment to Europe.

In addition to offering virtually unanimous support for the immediate supplying of weapons and other military aid to Ukraine, Canadian imperialist representatives are enthusiastically discussing the prospects that the current war will provide for enforcing Ottawa’s longer-term geostrategic and economic interests. A major area of interest is the provision of oil and natural gas to Europe, where some countries rely on Russia for up to half of their natural gas requirements.

Peter MacKay, Canada’s Defence Minister under Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a possible leadership candidate for the official opposition Conservatives, called for even more stringent sanctions on Russia to block all foreign trade, and a ramping up of arms supplies for Ukraine.

Fighting Russia was not only necessary due to the situation in Eastern Europe, MacKay explained, but due to Canada’s extensive interests in the Arctic, which is becoming an important region for trade and the exploitation of natural resources due to the effects of climate change.

“Canada has an extensive northern border with Russia that is as wide open to encroachment and abuse if Putin so wills it as Ukraine’s border has shown to be,” stated MacKay. “If we don’t come to Ukraine’s help now—and in decisive and practical ways—how can we expect others to help us if Putin (or Putin 2.0, 3.0 etc.) tries to come for us?”

Member of Parliament Pierre Poilievre, who is being touted as the frontrunner to take over as leader of the Conservatives, attacked the European powers Tuesday for their “weak” response to Putin. Declaring his support for a $10 billion liquefied natural gas export terminal in Newfoundland and Labrador, Poilievre vowed that a Tory government under his leadership would scrap tougher environmental regulations introduced by the Trudeau government in Bill C69 in order to speed up pipeline projects.

“Canada has what Europe needs and lots of it,” Poilievre said in a video message on Twitter. Speaking of the Newfoundland LNG project, which would reduce transport times to Europe by six days compared to the US Gulf coast, Poilievre added, “It will help Europe kick its addiction to Russian gas so they can stand up to Putin rather than funding him.”

The right-wing National Post wrote yesterday in its daily newsletter, “Countries across Western Europe are now dramatically reassessing their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Germany, for instance, has already begun upgrading two ports on its northern coast to take in shipments of liquid natural gas to supplant Russian supplies brought in by pipeline.

“Canada sits on more than enough oil and gas to keep the lights on in Europe.”

Canada’s ruling elite also views the war in Europe as an opportunity to strengthen domestic state repression against any popular opposition to its predatory imperialist ambitions, above all from the working class. Christian Leuprecht, a security policy expert who appears regularly as a media commentator, wrote an op-ed in the National Post in which he advocated labelling all anti-pipeline protesters as accomplices of “Russian aggression.”

“Canada has ample supply of natural gas to liquify and export,” he wrote. “Yet, Canada lags way behind in that game because it naively has no sense for geopolitics. Make no mistake, Canadians who oppose construction of the Coastal Gas Pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia, and pipeline capacity to enable the export of natural gas from Canada’s east coast to Europe, are aiding, abetting, and condoning Putin’s behaviour.”

More than 120,000 COVID cases in New Zealand

Tom Peters

The number of active COVID-19 cases in New Zealand has passed 120,000. The size of the Omicron variant outbreak has expanded more than a hundredfold in the past month.

There were 22,152 new infections reported today, following 19,566 yesterday. There are 405 people in hospital. The death toll rose to 61 last Friday, with five deaths recorded in a single day, the largest daily number in New Zealand during the pandemic. This is only the beginning.

COVID-19 Minister Chris Hipkins said today that the number of people in hospital with the virus could reach 1,000 or 1,500. This would be “challenging” for health workers, he stated.

The positivity rate is very high, with about one in five people in Wellington, the capital city, testing positive, indicating there are many undetected cases. Less than 60 percent of people over 12 have received a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine, and just over half of those aged 5 to 11 have received a single dose, leaving many without significant protection against Omicron.

The explosion of cases was not inevitable. It is the outcome of the Labour Party-led government’s decision in October last year to abandon its previous elimination policy. Since then, public health restrictions have been progressively lifted and the government has declared there will be no return to lockdowns.

The government talks about Omicron washing over New Zealand in a wave, which will supposedly peak and then subside, causing minimal harm. In fact, as the entire pandemic has shown, allowing the virus to spread means there will be continuous waves. The virus can infect people multiple times, and mutate into new variants, continuing to cause large numbers of deaths, severe illness and disability. The only way to protect lives and people’s health is through a properly funded elimination strategy.

Laboratories processing COVID tests have been overwhelmed with demand. Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield yesterday apologised for a delay in processing a backlog of 32,000 tests. Some people are waiting longer than five days for a result. In response to the crisis, the government sent over 9,000 tests to Queensland, Australia for processing over the weekend.

Elspeth Frascatore, an emergency doctor in Auckland, wrote on the Spinoff website that healthcare workers feel “overwhelmed” and “unseen” as politicians agitate for the removal of all public health restrictions. “COVID is not finished with us. It’s just getting started,” she warned.

As hospitalisations soar, Radio NZ reported yesterday that about 880 workers at the Counties Manukau District Health Board in working class South Auckland, 13.5 percent of all hospital staff, are off sick or isolating because a member of their household has the virus. Across Auckland, hospitals have drastically cut back on services and non-urgent procedures are being postponed.

Thousands of workers herded into unsafe workplaces are being exposed to the virus, which is disrupting supply chains. The Countdown supermarket chain reports that nearly 1,000 workers around the country are infected, including 45 percent of staff at two Auckland distribution centres.

New Zealand Couriers, a major delivery company, told the media today that half of its workforce in Auckland is not able to work, and the company has been forced to cut back to delivering only medical supplies and other essentials.

COVID continues to spread like wildfire among younger people due to the criminal resumption of in-person learning. Minister Hipkins declared last Friday that one in five schools had cases and the government expects “just about every school, every early childhood service” will come into contact with the virus in a matter of weeks.

The Ministry announced last week that schools no longer had to contact trace or inform parents that their child may be a close contact. The government is relying on the teacher unions, which support keeping schools open, regardless of how many people get sick, so that parents can remain on the job, making profits for big business.

Some schools, however, are taking their own action. Last week, Henderson Intermediate closed for two weeks after having COVID cases in almost every class. Its principal Wendy Esera said to the New Zealand Herald: “We’re hearing all the time that everybody’s going to get it ... well actually our attitude at our school is no, we’re not. We are going to do everything we can to keep our staff and our students and their families safe.”

Universities are being swamped with cases. Dr Bloomfield described the start of the university year as “a nationwide super-spreader event.” Some universities have moved to online learning.

At Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), where in-person learning began this week, 850 students in halls of residence—about 30 percent—have tested positive for COVID. The Tertiary Education Union’s branch secretary Dougal McNeil, a member of the pseudo-left International Socialist Organisation, yesterday criticised VUW for not properly informing staff about the COVID situation, so that they could make individual decisions about whether to shift to online learning. The TEU, however, supported the government’s wholesale reopening of education institutions.

University of Wellington

The ongoing anti-vaccination encampment outside parliament in Wellington is another super-spreader. As of Monday, 17 COVID cases were linked to the protest, including 3 that had to be hospitalised. The right-wing, religious and anti-science groups leading the protest have denounced vaccine mandates and other public health measures as “tyranny,” and demanded that the population “live with” the virus.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern denounced the three-week occupation as a “COVID camp” and urged people to stay away for health reasons. Her government, however, backed by the pro-capitalist unions, has acceded to demands from the opposition parties and business interests for restrictions to be lifted more rapidly.

Last Friday the government moved to “phase three” of its Omicron response plan. This means a shift to greater “personal responsibility” and looser restrictions. Only COVID cases and household contacts are required to isolate; other contacts of positive cases, such as work colleagues, do not need to. People can increasingly test themselves using rapid antigen tests (RATs) and are asked to log their positive results online, and to “self-notify their contacts.”

In addition, Ardern announced that, from Friday this week, vaccinated New Zealanders entering the country from any part of the world will no longer be required to self-isolate for any period, provided they test negative for COVID.

All these changes will further accelerate the spread of the virus.

While the unions have suppressed opposition to the “let it rip” agenda, the crisis is pushing workers to fight back against unsafe conditions and low wages. Ten thousand healthcare workers, including laboratory workers processing COVID tests, voted to strike for 24 hours this Friday, and again on March 18.

Yesterday, the country’s District Health Boards asked the Employment Court to impose an injunction to stop Friday’s strike, ahead of negotiations with the Public Service Association scheduled to take place next week, facilitated by the Employment Relations Authority. The court has not yet made its decision.

Sanctions produce chaos in Russian financial system

Nick Beams

Russia’s financial system has been thrown into turmoil following the imposition of sweeping sanctions by the US and the European Union with the explicit aim of trying to crash its economy despite warnings the effects could spread.

Seven major banks have now been excluded from the Swift international financial messaging system. In addition, the Russian central bank has been blocked from international operations to prevent it using the country’s $630 billion of foreign exchange reserves to support the currency.

The rouble has fallen by around 20 percent from its already low levels and is now worth about one US cent in international markets. The Russian central bank earlier this week doubled its base interest rate to 20 percent to try and stabilize the currency.

People look at a screen displaying exchange rate at a currency exchange office in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Following the announcement of sanctions, the stock market closed. There was no trading in rouble-denominated bonds and the cost of derivatives to insure against a Russian default surged to 37 percent of the bond’s face value.

In a statement earlier this week, Russian central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina said: “The conditions for the Russian economy have altered dramatically. The banking sector is now experiencing a structural liquidity deficit.” In other words, there is a major problem in obtaining the money necessary to keep it functioning.

The major imperialist powers have made no secret of their aims. They are determined to smash the measures put in place by the government and financial authorities to try to insulate the Russian financial system following the imposition of sanctions in 2014 in response to the incorporation of Crimea back into Russia.

“Fortress Russia will be exposed as a myth,” a senior Biden official said on Monday.

Yesterday, the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire was even more explicit. He said the West was using sanctions to wage “total economic and financial war against Russia, Putin and his government. We will provoke the collapse of the Russian economy.”

This brought a sharp response from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of Russia’ security council, highlighting the enormous dangers in the present situation.

“Today, some French minister has said that they declared an economic war on Russia,” he tweeted. “Watch your tongue, gentlemen! And don’t forget that in human history, economic wars quite often turned into real ones.”

Le Maire said in response he should not have used the word “war.” However, he did not pull back from the assertion that the aim of the sanctions was to bring about a collapse of the Russian economy.

The measures imposed so far may be escalated in the coming days and weeks. There has been considerable commentary in the financial press that they are insufficient because of the decision not to include a ban on the sales of Russian oil and gas on international markets.

An article in the Wall Street Journal said it was “hard to see a complete collapse of Russia’s economy as long as it can keep selling its oil at almost $100 a barrel.”

An editorial comment in the Financial Times described the exclusion of oil and gas payments from the sanctions as “regrettable” but said that, as long as Europe remained dependent on Russian energy supplies, sanctions on payments would be “pointless.”

Even without the exclusion of Russian energy from the global market, the effect of the present measures is adding to the inflationary surge in the world economy. The price of crude rose to more than $100 a barrel—the highest level in eight years. In addition to oil, prices of wheat and other grains, together with key industrial metals, are also rising. The wheat price is now at its highest level since 2008.

Price hikes are heightening the problems for the US Fed and other central banks. They have been moving to increase interest rates in response to the rise in inflation over the past year to try and combat the push for higher wages by workers who have seen their living standards cut.

The conundrum for the Fed, which meets later this month to determine its monetary policy, is that increases in rates may be conducted in a stagflationary environment. Prices are rising, but growth is falling because of the supply shock which continues to be delivered by the ongoing pandemic and now the rise in oil prices.

There are also fears of major spillover effects from the sanctions on Russia on the international financial system as investors in the Russian market, which has been attractive because of the higher yields obtainable there, are hit.

“It’s just so messy,” one trader at a US brokerage firm told the FT. “If you trade something you can’t settle it, you’re left with the exposure.” Global investors are reported to have at least $150 billion in Russian securities on their books.

There is also the prospect of a default by Russia on sovereign debt. According to Rick Rieder, chief investment officer for global fixed income at Blackrock, one of the biggest holders of Russian government debt: “There’s not a lot of actual trading going on. Nobody wants to be on the other side.”

Rieder said there was a possibility Russia could default on its bonds because of an inability to make payments to investors’ accounts. “It’s the difference between the ability to pay and desire to pay,” he told the FT.

An editorial in the newspaper entitled “The shock and awe of sanctions on Russia”—a reference to the massive US military onslaught against Iraq in 2003—warned that urgent planning was needed to counter possible impact on the Western financial system.

“The negative consequences could be unpredictable, with some investors forced to sell their most liquid, safe assets—such as US Treasuries to compensate for Russian-linked assets being frozen,” it said, adding that the effect could “ripple through supply chains in unforeseen ways.”

The FT’s Lex column warned that the world financial system was fragile, the pandemic is not over, governments are laden with debt and there was the scope for the Russian financial crisis to amplify other shocks.

“The subtlest of threats is of dislocations we cannot foresee: Lehman moments when panic spreads and markets seize up. Small or middling setbacks for businesses then become existential threats. The war means this threat is greater now than it has been since the early days of the pandemic.”

On that occasion, in March 2020, Wall Street plunged, and the $22 trillion US Treasury market froze with a total collapse only prevented by a multi-trillion-dollar intervention by the Fed.

So far, American financial officials say, US markets are operating normally. But major swings on Wall Street are indications of nervousness in highly uncertain conditions.

Yesterday the S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent, the Dow lost 1.8 percent and the tech-heavy NASAQ dropped 1.6 percent. The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ have both recorded their worst two months to start the year since 2020.

Biden dispatches military-national security delegation to Taiwan

Peter Symonds

Even as the US conflict with Russia over the Ukraine intensifies, the Biden administration has deliberately stoked tensions with China by sending a delegation of former top-level US military and national security officials to Taiwan.

The timing of the trip underscores its provocative character. It coincides with the passage of 50 years since former President Richard Nixon travelled to China and met with Chinese leader Mao Zedong in 1972, laying the basis for the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Half a century on, the US is engaged in a dangerous confrontation with China.

When Washington subsequently established formal diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1978, it cut diplomatic relations with Taipei, removed all military forces from the island and downgraded contact with Taiwanese officials. De facto, the US recognised the “One China” policy that Beijing is the legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, center, walks to her inauguration ceremony in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, May 20, 2020 (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP)

Biden, following on from Trump, has systematically undermined these longstanding diplomatic protocols and strengthened relations with Taipei. In the final days of the Trump administration, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ended all restrictions on official contact between Washington and Taipei—an abrupt diplomatic shift that Biden has upheld with minor changes.

Last year, a leak to the media revealed for the first time that the US military had Special Forces trainers on Taiwan—a fact that was confirmed by Taiwanese officials.

While the current delegation stopped short of including serving US generals and officials, its make-up is an open declaration that the US will bolster its military ties with Taiwan—an island that it acknowledges is part of China. Last year, Biden dispatched a US delegation to Taiwan led by former Senator Chris Dodd, but it included former State Department officials, not retired military and national security personnel.

Included in the delegation that landed in Taipei yesterday is the former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen, who served between 2007 and 2011 under presidents Bush and Obama.

Others are Meghan O’Sullivan, deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan under Bush; Michèle Flournoy, undersecretary of defence under Obama; and Mike Green and Evan Medeiros, who were both senior directors for Asia on the US National Security Council.

While the delegation is described as “unofficial,” the Biden administration authorised and organised the trip, which will undoubtedly involve discussions not just of a general character but more specific military arrangements.

As the ex-Pentagon chief, Mullen remains highly connected to the entire US military and national security apparatus, as are all the members of the delegation. Talks have been scheduled with top-level Taiwanese officials, including President Tsai Ing-wen and Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng.

Speaking at an online forum on Monday, White House Indo-Pacific policy coordinator Kurt Campbell declared that the trip would underscore US support for “peace and stability” in the region. In fact, by undermining the basis for its diplomatic relations with China, which hinged on the “One China” policy, the US is doing precisely the opposite.

For the past decade, the US has ramped up its confrontation with China, not just over Taiwan, but on every front. Biden and Campbell were part of the Obama administration that launched the “pivot to Asia,” involving a military build-up and strengthening of alliances throughout the Indo-Pacific and efforts to undermine China economically and diplomatically. The anti-China offensive has accelerated under Trump and Biden.

In his comments on Monday, Campbell issued a thinly-veiled threat that the US was prepared for war against both Russia and China. After noting that the US had historically had to sustain wars on two fronts, he declared: “I believe that we’re entering a period where that is what will be demanded of the United States and this generation of Americans.”

The delegation’s visit to Taiwan coincided with a US military show of force. On Saturday, the guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson passed through the narrow strait between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. A Chinese military spokesperson branded this as “a provocative act.” The Biden administration has stepped up the frequency of US warships transiting the Taiwan Strait to roughly monthly.

Washington hypocritically accuses Beijing of “expansionism” and planning to forcibly reunify Taiwan with the mainland. The US points in particular to the flights of Chinese military aircraft through Taiwan’s extensive Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ). Yet the US asserts the “right” to routinely sail its warships and fly its warplanes close to the Chinese mainland, thousands of kilometres from the nearest American territory.

Speaking on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin condemned the presence of the US delegation on Taiwan. “The will of the Chinese people to defend our country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is immovable. Whoever United States sends to show support for Taiwan is bound to fail,” he said.

As the US delegation leaves today, former US Secretary of State Pompeo is due to arrive for a separate four-day visit, nominally as a private citizen. He is accompanied by Miles Yu, who acted as the main China policy planner and strategist for the Trump administration. Yu and Pompeo were instrumental in engineering Trump’s strident anti-China strategy, which combined economic warfare with the inflaming of tensions over Taiwan and other regional flashpoints.

Biden, who has declared that his administration’s support for Taiwan is “rock solid,” has taken over where Trump left off, greatly heightening the danger that the conflict between NATO and Russia over the Ukraine will spread to the Indo-Pacific.

US presses India to back war drive against Russia

Deepal Jayasekera

Washington is intensifying pressure on India to line up with the US-NATO war drive against Moscow over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, undermining India’s precarious balancing act between its strategic partnership with the United States and its longstanding defence ties with Russia.

India has long maintained close ties with Moscow as well as Washington, claiming it was thus preserving “strategic autonomy” while allying with Washington against China. Despite having secured high-tech US military equipment after being designated a “major defence partner” by Washington, India still substantially depends on Russian military supplies. According to a study by the Stimson Center, 86 percent of Indian military equipment is of Russian origin. Russian technology and material are also crucial for India’s civil nuclear program.

And so US State Department spokesman Ned Price addressed India after it abstained in the voting at an emergency session of United National Security Council (UNSC) condemning Russian invasion in Ukraine, during a daily press briefing on Friday. He began, “We share important interests with India. We share important values with India. And we know India has a relationship with Russia that is distinct from the relationship that we have with Russia. Of course, that is okay.”

T. S. Tirumurti, permanent representative of India to the United Nations, speaks during a meeting of the Security Council, Monday, February 28, 2022, at United Nations Headquarters. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

However, Price made clear Washington expects India to toe the US line against Russia: “And again, we have asked every country that has a relationship, and certainly those countries that have leverage, to use that leverage in a constructive way.”

The next day, Republican Senator John Cornyn more explicitly expressed “disappointment” over India’s abstention in the UNSC vote against Russia. Cornyn is the co-chair of the Senate India Caucus—the US Senate’s only country-specific caucus, founded by Cornyn and then-Senator Hillary Clinton during the Bush administration, pointing to the significance Washington places on its military-strategic partnership with India.

Cornyn said, “Disappointing: India has avoided publicly denouncing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as New Delhi tries to balance a strategic relationship with Moscow and its role in an emerging coalition of democracies.”

Cornyn advocates close US relations with India. He has campaigned to intensify US military relations with India and to waive sanctions on India over its purchase of Russian S-400 air defence missile system. His comments on the Russian-Ukraine war indicate, however, that Washington could use sanctions to try to force India to support its war drive against Russia.

Writing on February 24 in the US magazine Foreign Policy, Michael Kugelman, who directs work on South Asia at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, said: “India’s public statements on the current crisis [Russian-Ukraine war] have so far pleased Russian officials … But Russian aggression in Ukraine poses major threats to Indian interests, from driving Moscow into Beijing’s arms to distracting Washington from countering Chinese power in the Asia-Pacific.”

On Sunday, India abstained from a procedural vote at the UNSC to call for a rare special emergency session of the UN General Assembly to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine. India joined China and the UAE in abstaining while Russia voted against. As such procedural votes are exempted from the UNSC veto, however, the special session of the UN General Assembly convened accordingly on Monday; a nonbinding resolution denouncing Russian aggression is set be voted on Wednesday. This is to be grist for the mill of NATO war propaganda against Russia.

After Sunday’s UNSC vote, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN T. S. Tirmurti appealed for dialogue and de-escalation to avoid all-out conflict. “It is regrettable that the situation in Ukraine has worsened further since the Council last convened on this matter,” Tirmurti said, adding: “There is no other choice but to return to the path of diplomacy and dialogue. … Dialogue is the only answer to settling differences and disputes, however daunting that may appear at this moment. It is a matter of regret that the path of diplomacy was given up. We must return to it.”

However, sections of the Indian ruling elite are beginning to demand that India line up with Washington against Russia. Sashi Tharoor, a senior leader of the opposition Congress party, criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-supremacist government for not denouncing Russia. On Thursday, he tweeted: “So Russia is conducting a ‘regime change’ operation [in Ukraine]. How long can India, which had consistently opposed such interventions, stay silent?”

In The Wire, Susil Aaron criticized India’s abstention in the UNSC vote against Russia in an article titled “India’s Abstention on Russia's Ukraine Invasion Will Shift Perceptions in Washington.” Complaining that “the Modi government underestimates how large Russia looms in the American political imagination,” he lamented, “New Delhi has alienated US, Europe and other allies at one go with this vote.”

While Modi calls for “dialogue” and tries to balance between Washington and Moscow, the NATO powers are rapidly moving towards war with Russia, using Ukraine as a pretext. In this context, they will not be satisfied with anything less than India’s total submission to their anti-Russian campaign.

Over the 30 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy, Washington has systematically worked to establish its domination over all of Eurasia. NATO expansion into Eastern Europe to surround Russia was key to this agenda. Above all, it entailed decades of endless neo-colonial wars, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya and Syria, that cost millions of lives.

The development of US-India strategic partnership for nearly two decades under successive Indian governments, both of Modi’s Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) and the Congress, India has become a front-line state for US war preparations against China. Now, moreover, Washington is demanding India line up with it not only against China, but also against Russia.

This exposes the political bankruptcy not only of the BJP and the Congress, but of the Congress party’s Stalinist allies. India’s principal Stalinist parliamentary party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM, reacted to the war in Ukraine in a brief Polit Bureau statement, expressing “grave concerns at the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine.”

Lamenting that “it is unfortunate that Russia took military action against Ukraine,” the CPM pleaded for “an immediate cessation of armed hostilities and the establishment of peace.” While criticizing NATO moves for “steadily expanding eastward, contrary to the assurance given to Russia,” including moving to integrate Ukraine into NATO, it wrote: “The process of negotiations should be restarted and the earlier agreements reached by both the parties should be adhered to.”

What the Stalinists leave out is the growing preparations of the NATO powers for war, driven above all by Washington. This means covering up the danger that the provocations of Washington and its NATO allies could trigger a nuclear Third World War, with deadly consequences for billions worldwide. They aim not to mobilize the international working class but to lull it to sleep, hoping the Russian and Ukrainian capitalist governments will somehow resolve a dispute driven by Washington’s targeting of Russia and China.