Canada escalates war in Ukraine with purchase of surface-to-air missile system for Kiev

Roger Jordan

Canada’s Liberal government announced Tuesday that Ottawa will purchase a National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) for Ukraine. The announcement followed a bilateral meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the “three Amigos” summit in Mexico City, which brought Biden and Trudeau together with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Ottawa’s purchase of the missile defence system is a further escalation of the US-led NATO war on Russia. Coming in the wake of the Biden administration’s pledge to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine and rapid-fire announcements from France, Germany and the US that they will provide Kiev with tanks, Ottawa’s supplying of a NASAMS battery underscores that the chief NATO powers, Canada included, are parties to the Ukraine war, and adds to the likelihood of a direct clash between Russia and the imperialist powers.

US President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meet at the 10th North American Leaders' Summit at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. [AP Photo/Andrew Harnik]

NASAMS batteries, according to the system’s co-designer Raytheon, provide “a tailorable, state-of-the-art defence system that can maximize their ability to identify, engage and destroy current and evolving enemy aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and emerging cruise missile threats.” The US has already supplied two NASAMS batteries to Ukraine, with a further six in the pipeline. Each NASAMS battery is worth approximately US$200 million, based on a Pentagon contract with Raytheon from late November for six NASAMS worth $1.2 billion.

Tuesday morning’s bilateral meeting between Biden and Trudeau underscored the aggressive character of the Canada-US imperialist alliance. Stretching back over eight decades, Washington and Ottawa’s military-strategic partnership is being modernized and expanded to wage the wars of the 21st century, including by guaranteeing the US war machine access to Canadian critical minerals and deepening military cooperation between the two countries from the Arctic to the South China Sea.

On the eve of the North American leaders’ summit, Canada confirmed its purchase of 88 F-35 fighter jets from US producer Lockheed Martin at a cost of C$19 billion (US$14.2 billion). The supersonic fifth generation aircraft, which has gained notoriety in recent years due to several serious design flaws, costs US$36,000 for every hour of flight time and over US$7 million for the annual maintenance of each plane.

The purchase is one of the headline moves in Ottawa’s largest rearmament program since World War II. This program includes a more than 70 percent increase in defence spending between 2017 and 2026, the purchase of new fleets of warships and warplanes, and the modernization of the bilateral North American Defence Command (NORAD) to prepare for the waging of war with hypersonic missiles and nuclear weapons. The White House readout of the Trudeau-Biden meeting made special mention of NORAD modernization, noting that the bilateral alliance is critical for “ensuring the continued defence and security of North America.”

Since the Ukraine war erupted last February, Canada has committed $3.4 billion in aid to the right-wing regime in Kiev, including over $1.1 billion in military assistance. Canada was also in the front rank of the imperialist powers who goaded Russian President Vladimir Putin into launching his reactionary invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Along with the US and British militaries, Canadian Armed Forces’ personnel were instrumental in reorganizing and training Ukraine’s military for war between 2014 and 2022. This included helping integrate the far-right Azov Battalion and other fascist forces into the Ukrainian military and para-military National Guard.

Recognizing the importance of Canada’s involvement, the White House readout noted that Biden thanked Trudeau for “providing security, economic and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine.”

The pair also discussed further integration of Canada into Washington’s strategic offensive against China, which US imperialism currently views as the greatest threat to its global hegemony. According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the meeting included discussion of “China and a coordinated approach to the Indo-Pacific.”

Recent months have seen Ottawa significantly deepen its support for Washington’s all-sided diplomatic, economic and military drive to isolate and prepare for military conflict with China. In late November, the Trudeau government released its long-delayed Indo-Pacific strategy, which it emphasized was drafted in close consultation with Washington. The document labelled China “an increasingly disruptive global power” and provocatively pledged to step up Canada’s “multifaceted engagement” with Taiwan. In effect, Canada has declared its support for Washington’s de facto abandonment of its decades-long “one China” policy, which recognized China’s historic claim to sovereignty over the island.

No corner of the globe is spared from US and Canadian imperialist meddling. Biden pressed Trudeau Tuesday for Canada to lead a military and police intervention to prop up the pro-imperialist puppet regime in Haiti. The Western hemisphere’s most impoverished country, Haiti has experienced a calamitous social crisis over recent years, as armed gangs with close ties to the country’s security forces and traditional elites have terrorized large swathes of the country. A lack of food combined with a cholera outbreak and the virtual collapse of the economy have left the vast majority of the country’s 11 million population in destitution.

Critical to the predatory geopolitical ambitions of North America’s twin imperialist powers is their consolidation of control over key raw materials vital for future economic development, including “green” and computer technology, and the production of advanced weapons and weapons systems. In 2019, the Trump administration and Trudeau government initiated the Canada-US Critical Minerals Action Plan, an agreement to coordinate access to 17 rare earths and critical minerals deemed essential for the military and economic dominance in the decades to come. In March 2021, at their first official meeting, Biden and Trudeau agreed to a Roadmap for a Renewed US-Canada Partnership, which included a detailed section on strengthening the action plan and North American supply chains.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke on this theme extensively last fall. At an October keynote speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington, she advocated a policy of “friend-shoring,” i.e., an economic nationalist and protectionist plan aimed at confronting Washington’s and Ottawa’s chief global rivals, above all China. Canada would focus on “fast-tracking, for example, the energy projects our allies need to heat their homes and to manufacture electric vehicles.”

These policies, dressed up with bogus commitments to defending “democracy,” supporting “green” energy and tackling climate change, are aimed squarely at Russia, one of the world’s largest oil and natural gas producers, and China, which has a strong position in the market for raw materials required for EV production. Underscoring this fact, the Trudeau government moved just weeks after Freeland’s speech to tighten regulations for investors in Canada’s critical minerals sector. The changes block “state-owned enterprises,” a euphemism for Chinese businesses, from investing in many energy and mining projects. The new rule allows the government to trigger a provision in the Investment Canada Act that gives them the power to declare investments “injurious to national security.” Following the change, Ottawa forced three Chinese companies to divest their investments in Canadian lithium mines.

A joint statement by the chambers of commerce of Canada, Mexico and the United States urged the “Three Amigos” summit to adopt an agenda to make North America the world leader in electric vehicle production based on the “competitive” advantage provided by cheap labour in Mexico, and Canada’s rich deposits of raw materials. As Flavio Volpe, head of the Canadian Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, put it, “The US has capital, Mexico has human capital and Canada has lithium, cobalt, graphite and nickel.”

Canadian and US imperialism are determined to pursue their economic interests just as ruthlessly against their supposed allies as against Russia and China. Washington and Ottawa’s “North America First” agenda for EV production and other “clean energy” initiatives has prompted criticism from the European imperialist powers, who fear being sidelined in the key economic industries of the coming decades.

At the North American leaders’ summit, Ottawa and Washington continued their sustained push to compel Lopez Obrador to reverse course on his plan to strengthen the position of state-controlled companies in Mexico’s energy sector. Billions of dollars in investments and massive profits are at stake for American and Canadian big business, with Canadian companies holding C$13 billion in investments in the sector. Last July, the Trudeau and Biden governments launched a dispute resolution procedure under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the successor to NAFTA, to compel Mexico to make concessions.

The trade union bureaucracy, which has systematically suppressed the class struggle as worker opposition has mounted to the austerity policies demanded by the ruling elite to pay for wars abroad, is fully integrated into Canadian imperialism’s “North America First” militarist and protectionist agenda. When the Trudeau government unveiled in June 2022 its Indo-Pacific Advisory Committee, which assisted in the preparation of the government’s strategy document, one of its most prominent members was Hassan Yussuff, the former head of the Canadian Labour Congress. Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, was intimately involved in the USMCA negotiations, during which its subsequently disgraced president Jerry Dias served as a semi-official government adviser.

How the German government is reigniting the conflict in Kosovo

Peter Schwarz

The German government is pursuing the declared goal of transforming Germany into Europe’s leading power and the Bundeswehr into the most powerful army in Europe. This—and not its purported concern for freedom and democracy—is why it is fueling the Ukraine war and pouring an additional €100 billion into rearmament. Germany’s war policy is not limited to Ukraine; it is also setting the Balkans on fire again.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić at the EU Western Balkans Summit in Tirana [Photo by Bundesregierung/Bergmann]

In December, Serbia and Kosovo were on the brink of a military conflict that had the potential to turn into a major conflagration. An attempt by the Albanian-dominated Kosovo government to assert its authority in the Serb-populated north sparked violent protests. Ten members of parliament, 500 police officers and numerous judges and local politicians from the Serb minority resigned in protest. Demonstrators set up roadblocks and exchanged fire with the Kosovo police.

The Kosovo administration closed border crossings to Serbia, and Kosovo Premier Albin Kurti called upon NATO to send more troops to the country and increase its Kosovo Force (KFOR) mission, which has been deployed in the region since 1999. The KFOR contingent currently consists of 3,800 troops from 28 countries. For his part, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has placed Serbian armed forces on alert and asked NATO permission to send his own troops to the area. According to Igor Simić, the former vice president of the Kosovo parliament, it was the “most explosive situation since the end of the war over twenty years ago.”

In the meantime, the situation has eased somewhat, but observers anticipate that it is only a matter of time before the conflict flares up once again.

Background to the conflict

As usual, Western propaganda has ignored the background of the conflict and instead identified a single villain responsible: Aleksandar Vučić, the president of Serbia, the country which has the closest ties to Russia of all the Balkan states. Serbia, like all other Balkan states, is seeking membership in the European Union and has condemned Russia’s military action against Ukraine. It has not, however, severed its ties with Russia and refuses to go along with the European Union’s sanctions.

In fact, the renewed escalation of the Kosovo conflict is a direct result of the aggressive policy of the European Union, which is using the Ukraine war to reinforce its political and economic dominance over the Western Balkans. Germany is playing the leading role in this process.

Since the European Union and the United States provided political and military support for the breakup of Yugoslavia into seven small states in the 1990s, the EU has admitted two of those states, Slovenia and Croatia. The admission into the EU of the remaining five, as well as Albania, is envisaged but has been repeatedly delayed.

France in particular opposed admission, fearing that further expansion of the 27-member EU would render it incapable of acting in foreign policy and further strengthen Germany’s weight. In 2019, President Emmanuel Macron vetoed the opening of accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia, a move which led to serious disagreements between Berlin and Paris.

With the Ukraine war, the EU's stance has changed. Berlin in particular is now pulling out all the stops to speed up the integration of the Western Balkan states into the EU.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia in June last year. At the beginning of November, he invited the heads of government of these three countries, as well as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania to a Western Balkans Summit in Berlin, which was also attended by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Then, on December 6, the first EU-Western Balkans Summit took place in Albania, with all heads of state and governments of the 27 EU member states and EU leaders travelling to Tirana.

The aim of both summits was to accelerate the integration of the Western Balkans into the EU. Several agreements were reached to facilitate the movement of goods and people and speed up accession negotiations. Bosnia-Herzegovina was given the status of a candidate country.

Germany and the EU want to achieve several goals with this.

In terms of foreign policy, the Western Balkans are to be firmly integrated into the war front against Russia, and economically cut off from the influence of Russia and China. China has financed numerous infrastructure projects in the region and is trying to gain better access to Europe via the port in Piraeus, Greece.

“An EU enlargement towards the East is a clear gain in terms of our geopolitical interests,” declared a document drawn up by the Seeheim Circle, a grouping consisting of 91 members of Chancellor Scholz’s SPD in the Bundestag. Serbia, which agreed to a three-year gas supply contract with Russia last summer and an agreement on foreign policy consultations with Moscow in September, is seen as the main obstacle.

The admission of the Western Balkan states to the EU, some of which have had candidate status for years, is also intended to create the preconditions for the admission of Moldova and Ukraine, which the EU favours for geopolitical reasons.

Another motive of the EU is to seal off the Balkan route, through which refugees from war zones in the Near and Middle East attempt to reach Europe. Serbia and Albania, for example, have so far allowed visa-free entry to nationals of several countries who then try to enter the EU-Schengen area.

Admission to the EU is linked to an extensive procedure that obliges candidates, among other issues, to abide by budgetary discipline, a demand which can only be met by massive savings at the expense of an already impoverished working class. To this end, Brussels and Berlin are working closely with the elites of the Balkan states—as they did in the break-up of Yugoslavia—and are playing off different nationalities against each other along the lines of “divide and rule.”

The Kosovo Conflict

Kosovo plays a key role in this regard. It already provided the pretext for the war in 1999 against Serbia, which stood in the way of Germany and the US at that time. On the contrived pretext that it was committing genocide in Kosovo, NATO commenced a war against Serbia without UN backing, forcing Kosovo to secede in the process.

Although the province with its nearly 1.8 million inhabitants clearly belonged to Serbia under international law, the major powers placed Kosovo under international administration. In 2008 Kosovo declared its independence and in 2013 it was recognised as an independent state by the US, Germany and most European powers.

In order to achieve this end, Washington and Berlin collaborated with forces responsible for major war crimes and maintained close links to organised crime. Several commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) have since been sentenced to long prison terms by a special court in The Hague. Hashim Thaçi, who served as a key witness to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to justify the war and later became head of government and president of Kosovo, is now also on trial in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The inviolability of state borders, invoked as a sacred principle after the Russian annexation of Crimea, was simply swept aside in the case of Kosovo.

The parallels between Kosovo and Crimea are so obvious that five EU member states still refuse to recognise Kosovo’s independence. These include the governments of Spain, Cyprus and Greece, which fear that any such recognition would legitimise separatist movements in their own countries. Ukraine has not officially recognised Kosovo for the same reason, although Kosovo is one of Ukraine’s most ardent supporters in the war against Russia.

For German foreign policy, such double standards play no role. In 1999, the NATO war against Serbia served as a welcome opportunity for the country to ditch its abstinence from foreign military interventions enforced following the crimes carried out by the Nazis in World War II and to participate in an imperialist war for the first time since 1945. Now the German government, once again headed by a Social Democrat and including the Green Party, is using the regime in Pristina to put pressure on Serbia and increase its influence in the Balkans.

Berlin’s recent advance has encouraged Kosovo Premier Albin Kurti to reassert his claim to the Serb-populated north of the country. Serbia, which continues to consider Kosovo as part of its territory, had concluded a normalisation agreement in 2013 under pressure from the EU that provided extensive self-government rights for Serb majority communities. In return, Serbia respected Kosovar institutions.

While Serbia largely fulfilled the agreement, the Kosovar side did so only in part. For example, the law on Serb majority municipalities was passed but never put into force. In fact, an unstable equilibrium prevailed. The Serb minority, estimated at between 100,000 to 200,000 depending on the source, largely administered itself and maintained close relations with Serbia, while Belgrade and Pristina made makeshift arrangements.

With his decision to no longer tolerate Serb car number plates in the Serb-populated north of Kosovo from the first of November, Kurti deliberately torpedoed this status quo. It was a provocation intended to subject the Serb majority communities to Pristina’s dictates—and was understood as such.

In so doing Kurti had the backing of Berlin. On December 11, as the conflict escalated, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Green Party) demonstratively gave him her backing. She declared on Twitter that Kosovo had reduced tensions, while Serbia’s rhetoric was having the opposite effect. Serbia’s proposal to send its troops to Kosovo was “completely unacceptable.”

This turns reality on its head. Even the conservative German daily FAZ, which usually supports the aggressive foreign policy of the German government, had to admit that in Brussels “it was noted attentively that the Serb [Vučić] behaved constructively in the recent dispute over number plates, while Prishtina sought to provoke.”

The arrogance with which Germany acts against Serbia and other countries that stand in the way of its geopolitical interests is also shown by a commentary that appeared in the weekly Die Zeit on 4 January. In language reminiscent of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s infamous “Hun speech” and the war rhetoric of Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, it read:

Punish Serbia, of course that sounds harsh and very imperialistic. But the EU has learned, especially in the past year, and somewhat involuntarily, that it is only taken seriously when it can also get tough and is prepared to inflict pain on others. Toughness against Russia, toughness against China and toughness against EU member Hungary are part of the Union’s necessary geopolitical coming of age. And getting tough with Serbia is overdue.

In the footsteps of the Nazi regime

As is the case in the Ukraine war, where Berlin has lined up against Russia alongside admirers of such Nazi collaborators as Stepan Bandera, the German government is also following the criminal footsteps of the Nazi regime in the Balkans. Its most important ally in the Balkans during World War II was the fascist Ustasha dictatorship of Ante Pavelić in Croatia which murdered almost a million Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croats. It maintained its own death camp in Jasenovac and had men, women and children burned alive.

The Yugoslav partisans organised themselves under the leadership of Josip Tito’s Communist Party to fight against this barbarism and the German occupation and were persecuted by the German Wehrmacht with indescribable brutality. The strength of the partisan movement was based on the fact that it united all the oppressed of Yugoslavia, regardless of their national and ethnic backgrounds, in a common struggle. Out of this united struggle emerged the Yugoslav state after World War II, which enjoyed great support among the working class.

Tito, however, had never broken with the political conceptions of his Stalinist past. He rejected linking the future of Yugoslavia to the international expansion of the proletarian revolution but tried to find a middle course between Moscow and Washington. He reacted to growing economic and social problems by strengthening nationalist currents in various different regions of the country.

The representatives of the Ustasha, who had found refuge abroad in the West with the support of the Vatican, regained influence. The German foreign intelligence service BND developed close ties with Croatian nationalists as early as the 1970s. When Yugoslavia broke apart in 1991, the government of Helmut Kohl (CDU) recognised the independence of Slovenia and Croatia at a pace that met with reservations even from its American, French and British allies.

The German initiative set in motion the nationalist fury that was subsequently supported by the US and other European powers in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Bosnian Muslims and members of other minorities suddenly found themselves living in states where they had no rights. Germany itself worked closely with Franjo Tuđman’s regime in Croatia, which revived the traditions of the Ustasha.

With the escalation of NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the wars in the Balkans and the Middle East unleashed by the US and its European allies in the past decades are breaking out once again.

This confirms that these wars were never about “terrorism,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “freedom” or “democracy,” as official propaganda claimed. They are—like the First and Second World Wars—imperialist wars for the redivision of the world between the great powers, which will lead to nuclear destruction if not stopped.

NATO to train hundreds of Ukrainian troops in US, Germany

Andre Damon

The United States and Germany have announced they will expand their training of Ukrainian troops inside their own borders, further embroiling them in a war with Russia.

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that it will train Ukrainian troops at Fort Sill, Oklahoma on how to operate the Patriot missile system, the most advanced weapon sent to Ukraine to date.

The Pentagon’s announcement is, in the words of the Washington Post, the “latest test of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threshold for Western intervention in the conflict.”

Last month, the Biden administration announced that it would send a Patriot missile battery, capable of downing Russian aircraft flying over Russian territory, to Ukraine. Last week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz officials announced they would send another battery of their own.

“Training for Ukrainian forces on the Patriot air defense system will begin as soon as next week at Fort Sill, Oklahoma,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Tuesday. “The training will prepare approximately 90 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers to operate, maintain and sustain the defensive system over a training course expected to last several months.”

Pointing to the extent of interoperability that already exists between the NATO military command structure and the Ukrainian military, Ryder added, “There has been training of Ukrainian forces in the United States before, as well as development. Ukrainians have attended our professional military education schools, they have embedded in headquarters of some of our units.”

The Pentagon official also confirmed that the US aims to train approximately 500 troops at a time at a US military facility in Germany on “combined arms warfare” involving both the Bradley infantry fighting vehicles that that are already being sent to Ukraine and the main battle tanks that NATO is expected to provide in the near future.

Ryder implied the Ukrainian troops sent to the US Army Garrison Bavaria in Germany will be training with some of the same armored vehicles that will subsequently be sent alongside them into the battlefield. “So the Bradleys should be available … at Graffenwoehr and that will be part of the training, the combined arms training that they do in Germany.”

The Pentagon’s announcement comes after US President Joe Biden announced a $3 billion arms shipment to Ukraine—the largest to date—and after Congress passed a bill allocating another $50 billion to the war. The latest weapons package included the deployment of dozens of Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, which essentially function as small tanks.

Even as they pours unprecedented amounts of weapons into Ukraine, the NATO powers are preparing to even further escalate their involvement in the war.

A major inflection point is expected to come with the January 20 summit of the Ukraine Contact Group in Ramstein, Germany.

Commenting on the upcoming summit, the Guardian wrote, “A key moment is expected to come next week when western defense ministers meet on 20 January for the next Ukraine contact group meeting to discuss future military aid. Reports suggest the US is now considering announcing at that meeting it will send Stryker armored combat vehicles.”

On Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited Ukraine, declaring Germany’s “solidarity and support,” which “includes further arms deliveries.”

Last week, Germany announced that it would send 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles into combat.

Poland and Lithuania have announced that they plan to send Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, but that this would require Germany’s permission, as these country signed export agreements as a condition of receiving the tanks.

After meeting with Baerbock, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba commented, “Every minute during the visit, the topic of Leopards invisibly accompanied us.”

He added, “I think that the German government, somewhere deep down, understands that this decision will be made, and the tanks will be transferred to Ukraine.”

Commenting on the discussions about sending main battle tanks, a US official told Politico, “If they want to take back territory they need tanks.”

To date, the war in Ukraine has killed or injured over 200,000 Ukrainians and Russians, according to statistics cited by US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Miley.

But as the war intensifies in ferocity, it risks directly drawing in NATO members in Eastern Europe. In an interview on Tuesday, Poland’s Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak announced the formation of a new infantry division in the Eastern part of the country specifically targeting Russia.

“We know who threatens us and where… For Poland, the main threat is Russia and its imperial tendencies. That is why more troops are needed in the east of the country and that’s why a new division is being set up.” Poland, he said, is “in direct contact with the war.”

He concluded, “We take on a lot of responsibility, but we do it consciously because the further we manage to push Russia away and the greater the losses inflicted on it—the better it is for us and for the future of the democratic world.”

Expressing the reality of the growing involvement by NATO in the war, Nikolai Patrushev, a security adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin, said the conflict is “not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv,” but a “military confrontation between NATO, and above all the United States and England, with Russia.”

Zelensky government expands media censorship

Jason Melanovski

Amid the intensification of its NATO-backed war with Russia, the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has passed a bill that grants Ukraine’s National Council of Broadcasting sweeping and arbitrary powers of censorship over nearly all of the country’s media.

The 279-page bill, which has existed in various forms since Zelensky first ordered its creation in 2019, essentially permits the National Council of Broadcasting to censor television, print and online journalism, as well as social media and search engines such as Google. News sites that fail to officially “register as media” with the right-wing Ukrainian government may be shut down without a court ruling.

Moreover, the National Council of Broadcasting itself will be filled with appointees by Zelensky and the Ukrainian parliament, which is currently dominated by the president’s Servant of the People party.

While the bill was passed under the guise of “media reform” to comply with EU “press freedom” standards, the law violates the most basic democratic freedoms.

Both the European Federation of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists have opposed the measure, and in September Ukraine’s own National Union of Journalists called the law “the biggest threat to press freedom in (Ukraine’s) independent history.”

Earlier in July, the European Federation of Journalists denounced the law, writing that “it proposes to give arbitrary and disproportionate regulatory powers to the national regulator, the National Council of Broadcasting, which would have authority not only over audiovisual media, but also over print and digital media.”

“The coercive regulation envisaged by the bill and in the hands of a regulator totally controlled by the government is worthy of the worst authoritarian regimes. It must be withdrawn. A state that would apply such provisions simply has no place in the European Union,” Ricardo Gutiérrez, general secretary of the federation, said at the time.

While such organizations express consternation at Zelensky’s blatant attempt to control Ukraine’s media, in reality, censorship and the attack on democratic rights have long been integral to the Kiev regime’s rule. They have only intensified as the Ukrainian state has moved towards war with Russia, backed by NATO.

After coming to office in 2019 due largely to widespread disillusionment with the xenophobic and militarist policies of former President Petro Poroshenko, Zelensky shifted sharply to the right by prosecuting Russia-friendly political opponents and escalating tensions with Moscow.

As his approval ratings fell in February of 2021, Zelensky took the unprecedented step of closing down three popular, opposition-affiliated TV channels—112, Newsone and ZIK—on the grounds of “national security.”

Later that same month his government imposed sanctions on Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of the pro-Russian Opposition for Life party, the second largest political party in the Ukrainian parliament at the time. Medvedchuk was later indicted on charges of embezzlement and “high treason” and placed under house arrest. At the time, the move was a clear signal to Moscow that the Zelensky government had no interest in a negotiated settlement to the ongoing civil war in eastern Ukraine, which had killed over 14,000. The arrest was also viewed as a provocative escalation in the drive to war by Zelensky and his backers in the Biden administration, who publicly applauded his crackdown on domestic, pro-Russian political opposition.

In August 2021, on the eve of his infamous “Crimea Platform” summit, the Zelensky government banned the popular opposition website strana.ua by decree. The site was one of the few major media outlets in Ukraine that reported on the violent exploits of the country’s various militant far-right nationalist groups and corruption within the Ukrainian government.

Hypocritically, the Crimea Platform denounced Russia for supposedly limiting “fundamental freedoms” in Crimea, “such as the right to peaceful assembly, the rights to freedoms of expression and opinion, religion or belief, association, restrictions on the ability to seek, receive and impart information, as well as interference and intimidation that journalists, human rights defenders and defense lawyers face in their work.”

Following Russia’s invasion of the country in February 2022, the Zelensky government doubled down on political oppression and censorship by banning 11 “collaborationist” political parties, prohibiting the import of Russian books, canceling Russian language education, and consolidating all of the country’s television and radio reporting into one single government-approved program.

Such reactionary policies have been backed by Ukraine’s Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko, who in December wrote an op-ed in The Guardian urging a worldwide boycott of “The Nutcracker” by Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

Last week Tkachenko announced the introduction of a law in the Ukrainian parliament that will accelerate its reactionary “de-Russification” policies by renaming streets currently dedicated to Russian cultural figures, such as Alexander Pushkin, and simplifying the removal of statues. 

Speaking to the National News Agency of Ukraine, Tkachenko proudly reported that the law “will permit the government to continue the fight against hundreds of streets named after Pushkin, which already started last year.”

Such reactionary measures expose the true nature of the right-wing and undemocratic NATO-backed Zelensky government. Rather than seeking to end a bloody and disastrous war that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians, the Zelensky government is dedicated to undemocratic and xenophobic political and cultural censorship to divide the Ukrainian and Russian working class and impose its war policies on the population.

German politicians and media demand Leopard battle tanks for Kiev, further escalating danger of world war

Johannes Stern

Last week, the German government announced it would deliver at least 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles and a Patriot missile system to Ukraine. According to official statements, Ukrainian soldiers will be trained on the weapons systems, which will be deployed to the front lines within the next three months.

The measures represent a massive escalation of the proxy war NATO is waging in Ukraine against Russia. They form part of a spiral of escalation that raises the threat of a third nuclear world war. German politicians and media outlets are waging an aggressive campaign to now provide the Ukrainian army with battle tanks and other heavy warfare equipment.

Leopard 2 main battle tank [Photo by Bundeswehr/Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0]

“We should do everything possible and deliver. This includes Leopard tanks,” Bundestag (federal parliament) Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens) told Funke Media Group. The chairwoman of the defence committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (Liberal Democrats, FDP), drooled on Twitter, “Our efforts have worked. But we are not letting up. After the Marder comes the Leopard.”

Saskia Esken, co-chair of the chancellor’s Social Democrats (SPD), which met in Berlin over the weekend, also held out the prospect of further arms deliveries. She said Ukraine would continue to receive “humanitarian, financial and military” support. However, it remained the case that one coordinated with international partners regarding sanctions and arms deliveries, she said, “especially with the United States of America.”

It is clear what this means. After the joint German-American announcement to deliver infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, the deployment of battle tanks is only a matter of time. On Sunday, Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) hinted on broadcaster ARD’s “Report from Berlin” program that the decision on battle tanks and further arms deliveries has already been made behind the scenes.

Last week had “shown that the German government, together with the other friendly allied states, always adapts its decisions to the situation ‘on the ground’ on the battlefield in order to provide maximum support to Ukraine,” Habeck declared. After all, “if you trace the long path from the first still controversial decisions for anti-tank missiles, to self-propelled howitzers, and now the Marders, you have an enormous dynamic also in the decisions of the German government. And I think that dynamic will continue as long as this war continues to develop dynamically.”

When asked specifically by ARD whether this meant he did not rule out delivery of Leopard 2 and Leopard 1 battle tanks, Habeck replied, “No, of course it’s not ruled out.” He added that the situation was “always being examined, we are coordinating with the other countries and decisions will continue to be made within this corridor.” The decision on the Marders was “long overdue” and it was “good that it was made.” He added that they would now watch “to make sure these things got there and see how the debate develops.”

In reality, it is not a “debate,” but nonstop war propaganda aimed at further escalating the conflict. The Greens, who more than any other party speak for war-loving affluent middle class layers, are playing a particularly aggressive role. Their leading representatives are calling not just for dozens, but thousands of battle tanks for Ukraine.

At a Berliner Zeitungevent in December, Green Party European politician Anton Hofreiter demanded that Ukraine either be admitted to NATO or that 3,200 (!) Leopard main battle tanks be delivered to Kiev. What sounds like pure madness, Hofreiter obviously meant seriously. In its report on the event, the Berliner Zeitung writes that the Green politician defended his demand even in response to critical questions; among others, with the statement that Putin was like a “street thug who only backs down when his nose is broken.”

This is fascistic language. Despite the official propaganda of “freedom” and “democracy,” current German war policy stands in the dark tradition of German imperialism. 82 years after the Nazi war of extermination against the Soviet Union, in which almost 30 million people fell victim, German tanks are again rolling against Russia.

In its its statement “No tank deliveries to Ukraine! Stop the threat of a third world war!” the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) writes of the German war aims:

Since reunification, the ruling class has been systematically working to organize Europe under German leadership in order to advance its geostrategic and economic interests worldwide.... Now it is using Russia’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine as a pretext to launch the biggest rearmament since Hitler and to strike again against Russia. German imperialism is concerned not only with geostrategic interests and Russia’s vast reserves of raw materials, it is also driven by the desire for retribution for its war defeats in the 20th century.

German generals are again ranting about a full-scale German tank war against Russia. In a commentary for Die Welt titled “Finally, Chancellor! But now also [send] battle tanks for Ukraine,” retired Brigadier General Klaus Wittmann writes:

But now the German government should regard its decision as a liberating blow and not hesitate any further regarding battle tanks either. It is obvious that besides air defence and artillery, Ukraine urgently needs armoured combat vehicles if it wants to make further progress in pushing back Russian troops and retaking stolen territory. Combat, infantry, and transport tanks are at stake.

Germany, he said, must take the lead in enabling the Ukrainian army to mount a counteroffensive. “If Germany finally took the initiative here, many would follow, and it would be a concerted action of enormous impact,” Wittmann writes. “Although tracked vehicle operations are possible even now on frozen ground,” he adds, “armoured combat vehicles should be available in sufficient numbers and with trained crews for effective major counteroffensives by spring at the latest.”

By now, the media is openly stating what has long been the case: the NATO powers are at war with Russia in Ukraine, pursuing the goal of militarily defeating the nuclear-armed power. “On January 6, Germany entered the Russian-Ukrainian war, it is a proxy war. Ukraine must win it, or (also) Germany will lose it,” writes Nikolaus Blome, head of the politics department at broadcasters RTL and n-tv. His guest commentary for Der Spiegel is titled: “Marder tanks for Ukraine: Olaf Scholz is now party to the war.”

Scholz, Blome and the other warmongers in politics and the media should explain what the consequences of their escalation policy are. How many hundreds of thousands or millions of lives are they willing to sacrifice for a “conventional” military victory over Russia? What is clear is that a nuclear escalation of the conflict—the danger of which increases with every arms delivery—would not only turn Europe into a nuclear desert, but would place the survival of the entire human race in question.

China fully reopens borders amid devastating COVID-19 surge

Benjamin Mateus

On Sunday, China fully reopened its borders to international travel after three years of border restrictions that formed a key component of the Zero-COVID policy. Going forward, travelers will no longer undergo quarantine, although a negative COVID-19 test within 48 hours of one’s flight will still be enforced.

The emergency ward of a hospital in China, January 3, 2023. [AP Photo/Andy Wong]

The ditching of these final restrictions takes place two weeks before the Lunar New Year holiday begins on January 21, in what is historically the largest annual human migration. Approximately 2.1 billion domestic journeys are expected to take place during the 40-day travel season, according to Chinese government estimates. It is widely known that this mass travel will deepen the dire surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths across China.

Many of the press reports on the resumption of travel to China have a jubilant tone, thrilled to see the lifting of the country’s final public health constraints. They universally claim that Zero-COVID was sheer folly that only harmed China’s economic standing and its population.

Tickets to vacation destinations like Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are selling fast. Ctrip, a Chinese travel booking platform, reported that visas for Singapore are up 30-fold from December 27. Hotel reservations at resorts in Malaysia and Thailand by Chinese vacationers have more than doubled. Other major destinations include Australia and Japan.

Japanese financial firm Nomura reported, “The Tourism Authority of Thailand recently raised its full-year target to 25 million inbound tourist arrivals [five million passengers from China], driven by the earlier than expected reopening after Beijing’s recent border rules relaxation.”

Considering these economic windfalls for Thailand’s tourist industry, on Monday the health ministry revoked the rule requiring foreign travelers to carry proof of COVID-19 vaccination after protests from business leaders. Last year, Thailand, Southeast Asia’s second largest economy, had only 11.5 million foreign visitors. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, that figure stood at 40 million, with a quarter of those from China.

Bloomberg recently observed, “[The] influx of travelers heading into the country is unlikely to be matched by a surge in demand for overseas trip. The flow of Chinese tourists, previously a $280 billion spending force in global holiday hotspots from Paris to Tokyo, will take months if not years to recover to its pre-pandemic level.”

Not one report mentions the calamity that befell Hong Kong last February when Omicron decimated the elderly and, for a few weeks, harbored one of the highest death tolls among any country throughout the pandemic. Nor do they raise the important fact that the maintenance of Zero-COVID in Shanghai last March eliminated Omicron and kept deaths to around 500. Such public health successes are meaningless in terms of profit margins and quarterly earning figures that financial institutions pore over.

According to health officials in China, many of the country’s most populous regions are now passing or have passed through the peaks of COVID-19 infections. Kan Quancheng, director of the provincial health commission, noted that Henan Province in central China, home to 100 million residents, had an infection rate of 89 percent. Similar estimates have been provided by health officials for Guangdong, Jiangsu and the capital city of Beijing.

UK-based health data firm Airfinity has estimated that cumulative deaths across China due to COVID-19 from December 1 to the end of the year had likely reached 100,000, registering 9,000 deaths per day. They also modeled that a peak in daily new infections would reach 3.7 million cases per day on January 13. Given the lag in deaths, this would translate to 25,000 fatalities per day by January 23, with a cumulative death toll of around 584,000 by the end of this month. Absurdly, official figures place COVID-19 deaths at fewer than 40 since December 7.

With the arrival of the Lunar New Year holidays, many epidemiologists have warned of a second major peak in infections and deaths as the pandemic in China finds its way into poorly resourced rural regions of the country. Testing has essentially stopped and the elderly infected wait at home, with very few able to procure oxygen tanks for breathing support.

Given the complete obscurity in statistical terms on the state of the health crisis, the Washington Post published a report on Monday on the use of satellite imagery that show crowds gathering at crematoriums and newly expanded parking lots to accommodate mourners.

In collaboration with imagery captured by Maxar Technologies, the Post wrote that they have seen a significant uptick in “activity at funeral homes across six different cities, from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the east, to Chengdu and Kunming in the southwest.”

A receptionist at the Jiangnan Funeral Home in Chongqing, speaking under conditions of anonymity, told the Post, “I have worked here for six years, and it has never been this busy. The phone has basically not stopped ringing.” She added that since the Christmas holidays, the line of cars has continued, the freezers have been packed full and the incinerators have operated non-stop. Many funeral homes have stopped accepting the deceased except to perform only the briefest of services and are offering only storage or cremation.

In a particularly cynical and hypocritical photo report on the state of the pandemic in Shanghai published in the New York Times yesterday, they wrote that around 70 percent of the city’s 26 million people have recently been infected, health systems remain inundated with older people and funeral homes are at capacity.

In opening their report, the Times wrote, “Infections soared across China late last year, and the government abruptly lifted its strict, but ultimately futile, COVID restrictions in early December. Shanghai endured one of China’s most grueling lockdowns last spring, with residents confined to their homes for more than two months.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must be held accountable for the public health travesty that has befallen their population. But a significant share of the criminal responsibility also falls on the shoulders of the bourgeois press and the Times in particular, which repeatedly demanded that China abandon Zero-COVID, which they portrayed as cruel and inhuman, and lift all obstacles to the production of profits.

During the two-month lockdown in Shanghai, which successfully suppressed the largest outbreak until then, the Times brayed for the lifting of Zero-COVID, knowing full well the catastrophe that would unfold, which they are now presenting as inevitable.

The truth is that Zero-COVID was a highly effective policy based on the deployment of all available public health measures, which kept fatalities in China to an enviably low level after the initial wave of infections and deaths in the first few months of 2020.

Furthermore, for the vast majority of the pandemic, the entire Chinese population was mobile and free to interact in public due to the suppression of viral transmission. Indeed, when opened its doors once more at the end of May in 2022, having conquered Omicron, this was a triumph of public health.

The CCP lifted Zero-COVID under economic pressures from global finance capital, which would not tolerate further restrictions placed on them by public health inconveniences. Their threats of moving production out of China were the decisive factor in the CCP abandoning Zero COVID.

Given the emergence of the XBB.1.5 “Kraken” sublineage of the Omicron subvariant, alongside the mass infection of the Chinese population, viral evolution will continue unhindered, with the possibility that an even more concerning and horrific pathogen could evolve at any time.

Rather than taking a proper accounting of the dangers posed by these evolutionary leaps made by SARS-CoV-2, the corporate media and capitalist politicians throughout the world instead celebrate these reckless policies.

Fascists storm Brazilian government buildings two years after attempted coup at US Capitol

Tomas Castanheira

Thousands of supporters of Brazil’s fascistic former president Jair Bolsonaro invaded and occupied for more than three hours the headquarters of the three branches of government in Brasilia, the country’s capital, on Sunday. The protesters demanded a military coup to depose and imprison recently inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party (PT).

Police stand aside as fascists invade Brazilian government buildings [Photo:Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil] [Photo: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil ]

This event marks a new stage in the explosive political crisis in Brazil and throughout Latin America. Happening only one week after Lula took office, it is a vivid verification of the opening phrases of the World Socialist Web Site’s New Year statement: “The celebration of the beginning of the New Year will be brief. The old year has passed into history, but its crises persist and will intensify.”

The January 8 invasion in Brasilia is the latest product in the conspiracy of Bolsonaro and his fascist allies against democracy in Brazil. Along with his Liberal Party (PL), the former president refused to recognize Lula’s victory and fomented a violent movement to contest the elections.

Yesterday’s action was directly inspired by, and in many ways an attempt to reenact, the invasion of the US Capitol in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021 by Donald Trump’s supporters. Bolsonaro has openly used the attempted fascist coup in the United States as a political guide.

While his son, Eduardo, was invited to watch the events directly in Washington, then-President Bolsonaro announced in January 2021 his intention to carry out his own version of Trump’s electoral coup. He said Brazil would have “worse problems than in the United States” in its elections.

Just as in Washington two years ago, the storming of the seats of governmental power by Bolsonaro’s fascist supporters had the decisive acquiescence of the police, the military and other sections of the state.

The day before, the daily O Estado de São Paulo had already reported that government intelligence reports indicated 100 buses with 3,900 people were heading to Brasilia for a demonstration on Sunday against Lula’s elected government. According to the same newspaper, the action had been announced on pro-Bolsonaro social media channels since January 3.

Schedules for buses taking demonstrators from different parts of the country to the capital were being publicly announced, with slogans like: “take over Brasília”; “occupy the Executive, Congress and STF”; “Plan B: all to Congress!”. One of the publicity videos called for a “generalized civil disobedience movement” on January 7 and 8 to “surround the [Presidential] Palace, not let any senator, minister, judge to enter,” and declare a “provisional government” that would later gain support from the military.

These people, brought by bus from other parts of the country, joined a smaller group of fascist foot soldiers encamped in front of Army headquarters in Brasilia since November. This encampment, cultivated by leaders of the Bolsonaro administration, served as an organizational center for systematic actions to overthrow the election results. Among them was a terrorist plot that included a failed bomb attack at the Brasilia Airport on December 24.

Despite having prior knowledge of the preparations for January 8 and having observed over months the actions of the fascists organizing it, the police forces in Brasilia deliberately allowed the plan to be executed.

Around 2 p.m., the protesters marched from the encampment at the Army headquarters to the Praça dos Três Poderes (Three Powers Plaza). Before 3 p.m. they were already inside the Congress, and soon took over the Presidential Palace and the Supreme Court.

Reporters from Estado de São Paulo present at the event stated: “More than three hours after the beginning of the invasion, the radicals were still arriving to reinforce their terrorist acts. They were passing in front of groups of police officers, who complacently remained inert without preventing the invaders’ access.”

The attitude of the policemen was not merely one of complacency, but rather of open admiration. Military police officers were recorded amiably chatting and taking selfies with the fascist demonstrators as they stormed the state buildings.

With the supposedly failed attempts by the Brazilian police—internationally recognized as one of the most violent and murderous repressive forces in the world—to contain the protest, the fascist mob had enough time and room to invade and wreck the buildings’ interiors. After retaking their headquarters, officials of the Lula government reported that the protesters stole weapons and ammunition from the Institutional Security Office (GSI).

Bolsonaro, who has been in Orlando since late December, having refused to participate in Lula’s inauguration, took to Twitter to publicly distance himself from what took place in Brasília. He wrote that “depredations and invasions of public buildings such as occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017 [referring to popular protests with social demands], go beyond the rule.”

Bolsonaro’s attempt to disassociate himself from the actions in Brasília mimics Trump’s public posture on January 6, 2021. This latest act is inseparable from the entire plot to overthrow the elections that Bolsonaro personally prepared and led. And, while his direct involvement in yesterday’s events is yet to be proven, there is no possibility that he was not previously aware of what was to take place, and he only criticized it afterwards.

Despite recognizing the event as a serious threat, the PT administration’s reaction exposes both the impotence and the reactionary role of this political representative of the Brazilian ruling class.

In the late afternoon, Lula spoke out, condemning the attack and decreeing federal intervention in the Federal District (DF), which takes the security forces out of the hands of the state governor, Ibaneis Rocha, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), and puts them under the direct control of the federal government.

Lula described those who carried out the attack as “fanatical fascists” who “did what has never been done in the history of this country.” He said that “this genocidal [Bolsonaro]... not only stimulated this, but, who knows, is still stimulating it through social media... from Miami, where he went to rest. In fact, where he ran away so as not to deliver me the presidential sash.”

As Lula announced the federal intervention in Brasília, he publicly acknowledged that on Sunday and in other recent episodes, those responsible for the “public security of the Federal District” acted in “bad will or bad faith.” Speaking of Secretary of Security of the Federal District Anderson Torres, Lula declared that “his reputation of connivance with the demonstrations” is “known to all.”

Through its legal representative, the Attorney General’s office, Lula’s government demanded that the Federal Supreme Court (STF) immediately arrest Torres and all those involved in Sunday’s actions. Like Bolsonaro, Torres is in the United States. Late in the evening, the STF decreed the 90-day removal of Governor Ibaneis.

While Lula claims that his government took these actions “to guarantee once and for all that this will never happen again in Brazil,” these measures only touch the tip of the iceberg.

A critical section of the forces responsible for the fascist attacks on January 8 and in the preceding months in Brazil remain in powerful positions in the state apparatus and even on Lula’s own staff. In particular, the responsibility of Lula’s defense minister, José Múcio Monteiro, is flagrant.

Less than a week ago, Múcio publicly opposed any repression of the fascist movement that would go on to organize the invasion of the buildings housing the three branches of Brazil’s government and declared his sympathy for the participants. “Those demonstrations in the encampment, and I say this with great authority because I have family and friends there, are demonstrations of democracy,” the minister said.

On Sunday, Múcio visited the encampment in front of the Army headquarters, reportedly to inspect it and “feel the mood” of the demonstrators. Poder360 reported speaking with the minister at 2:27 p.m., just minutes before the Congress was stormed, quoting him as saying that the demonstration was “for now, calm.”

PT Congressman Washington Quaquá pointed out that besides Múcio, Minister of Justice Flávio Dino of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) had direct responsibility for what happened. He told Metrópoles: “Both Dino and Múcio were warned days ago about this invasion. This could never have happened. Dino and Múcio were inoperative.”

The PT’s choice of Múcio and other right-wing figures for leading positions in its government was not the product of poor decision making. They were selected precisely to facilitate an accommodation by the new government with the growing fascistic forces within the military and the state.

The efforts of the PT and its pseudo-left supporters in the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) to create illusions in the supposedly democratic inclinations of the rotten Brazilian bourgeoisie and its state—which can only generate political reaction—makes them politically responsible for the development of a fascist movement in Brazil.