Climate change is triggering a humanitarian crisis, UN report finds

Daniel de Vries

“Our people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change. Nearly half of humanity is living in the danger zone now. Many ecosystems are at the point of no return now. The facts are undeniable,” Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) remarked in unveiling the latest international report on the impacts of climate change. “This abdication of leadership is criminal. The world’s biggest polluters are guilty of arson on our only home.”

These words by the UN chief reflect the conclusions of the most detailed examination to date of the ongoing impacts of climate change and the risks ahead. The new report, prepared by 270 scientists from 67 countries under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is the second of a three-part scientific assessment detailing, respectively, how our climate is changing, the impacts and solutions. This is the sixth such assessment since 1990.

Residents cross flooded fields following Cyclone Enawo in Madagascar's capital Antananarivo, on March 9, 2017(AP Photo/Alexander Joe, File)

The report represents another sounding of alarm bells that have rung since computer climate models were first developed in the 1970s and 80s. Any further delay in concerted global action on climate change, the report warns, means the world “will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”

The invocation of a potentially “unliveable” future is backed up by the report’s contents, which clarifies that a humanitarian crisis is already unfolding.

“Increasing weather and climate extreme events,” the authors note, “have exposed millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water security.” In Africa, for instance, climate change has reduced agricultural productivity by 34 percent over the past six decades. Additional temperature increases will undermine food production and nutrition, especially in vulnerable countries, the report warns.

Further, climate change is “increasingly driving displacement in all regions, with small island states disproportionately affected.” In 2019 alone, 13 million people in Asia and Africa became climate refugees due to flooding and other extreme weather.

In every region of the globe, climate change has already had a major impact on health, including through heat waves, increased vector-borne disease, increased exposure to wildfire smoke, and the breakdown of health care systems during climate disasters. “Climate change and related extreme events will significantly increase ill health and premature deaths from the near- to long-term,” according to the report.

All told, an estimated 3.3 to 3.6 billion people “live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change.” By 2050—in less than three decades—the more than 1 billion people living in low-lying areas of coastal cities will face escalating threats from floods. By the end of the century, half to three-quarters of the world’s population could experience “life-threatening climatic conditions” due to unbearable heat and humidity.

Under such conditions, the ability to adapt to climate extremes reaches its limits. Nonetheless, large-scale measures to improve infrastructure to deal with heat waves, drought and flooding are urgently needed. Projects currently underway, the report notes however, have mostly been “fragmented, small in scale, incremental, sector-specific, designed to respond to current impacts or near-term risks, and focused more on planning rather than implementation.” Implementation of these projects is also highly unequal, with the “largest adaptation gaps exist[ing] among lower-income population groups.”

Attempts by capitalist governments to remedy this inequality through pledges of mutual aid and commitments by banks to invest in adaptation projects in developing countries have proven grossly inadequate. The devastating impacts of climate disasters are being felt disproportionately by the working class and the poor, particularly through more frequent and devastating extreme weather events such as hurricanes, wildfires and polar vortexes, to name a few.

The report also emphasizes the connection between the impacts on natural systems and human society. The destruction of ecosystems heightens our vulnerability to climate change, limiting adaptation possibilities. Conversely, the widespread pollution in the environment and destruction of habitats leads to increased susceptibility to climate change for the remaining ecosystems.

The consequences for biodiversity are staggering. The report notes that up to 14 percent of all terrestrial and freshwater species face extinction even if global temperatures are limited to an increase of 1.5 C. Under higher warming scenarios, nearly a third of these species could be lost forever. “Climate change has caused substantial damages and increasingly irreversible losses, in terrestrial, freshwater and coastal and open ocean marine ecosystems.”

To limit these catastrophic and irreversible impacts, every fraction of a degree and every year matters. The opportunity to limit warming to 1.5 degrees is still possible but rapidly fading. To get there, a 45 percent reduction in global emissions is needed over the next eight years. However, the current commitments by national governments reaffirmed in Glasgow last year, if met, amount to increased emissions by 14 percent over the same period.

The contrast between the trajectory of capitalism and what is needed to secure a future for humanity on earth is stark. The report comes as governments worldwide abandon any effort to contain a pandemic that has already killed millions and as the major powers ready their nuclear weapons.

The value of the IPCC assessment is not that leaders of capitalist governments will somehow be swayed into action by indisputable evidence of catastrophe on the horizon. Every report detailing with more certainty the grim consequences of climate change is met by utter failure in the annual climate summit rituals. The ruling class has proven its indifference to mass death.

Japanese government imposes sanctions on Russia

Ben McGrath

Japan has backed the NATO-led war campaign against Russia, formally announcing a series of sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis on Tuesday. The decision followed an online meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, US President Joe Biden, and US allied leaders.

Kishida, from the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), stated after Tuesday’s meeting, “We’ve agreed on the need to take powerful sanctions against Russia.” He condemned Russian aggression declaring it “shakes the very foundations of the international order,” and supported united action by “the international community”—that is, the US and its allies.

A police officer goes through the gate of Russia's Central Bank building in Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

Japan will freeze the assets of six Russian individuals, including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The sanctions also target three banks, Russia’s central bank and the stated-owned Promsvyazbank and Vnesheconombank. The sanctions include bans on exporting goods to 49 Russian organizations and bans on exporting any goods that could have military applications, such as semiconductors.

Prime Minister Kishida previously stated that Tokyo would join in blocking Russian banks’ access to the SWIFT international payment system that is essential for many international financial transactions. Japan will provide Ukraine with upwards of $US200 million in loans and aid.

The sanctions are part of Tokyo’s further alignment with Washington’s war drive against Russia as well as China. Kishida claims that Russia has acted unilaterally, but this stands reality on its head. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is a response to Washington’s campaign to surround Russia with NATO allies, complete with US weaponry and troops, and to the 2014 US-instigated coup in Kiev, backed by far-right forces.

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has seized on the Ukraine crisis as a means of pushing the right-wing nationalist agenda of Japanese remilitarization. He issued a call on February 27 for Japan to consider a nuclear weapon-sharing program between the US and Japan, similar to that between the US and NATO countries, that would allow Washington to station nuclear weapons in Japan.

Such a step would be a clear breach of Japan’s anti-nuclear policies that stem from the widespread opposition produced by the US atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Brushing that aside, Abe declared: “Japan is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has its three non-nuclear principles, but it should not treat as a taboo, discussions on the reality of how the world is kept safe.”

The three non-nuclear principles state that Japan will not possess, produce, or allow nuclear weapons on its territory, though the last of these has been violated in the past by the United States.

Well aware of the public opposition to any change, Kishida said Abe’s suggestion was “unacceptable.” However, Abe’s remarks make clear that these discussions are taking place behind closed doors. Abe remains a member of the National Diet’s House of Representatives and highly influential within the LDP, leading the largest faction in the party.

Japan’s main opposition parties, which posture against remilitarization and war, have also lined up with the Washington-NATO agenda. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) have denounced Moscow as the sole aggressor and instigator of the current conflict in Ukraine.

On February 27, at its annual convention, the CDP adopted a resolution that condemned Russia’s actions “in the strongest terms” as “a challenge to the international order based on the rule of law, not only in Europe but also in Asia.” It went on to “support the Japanese government in taking measures consistent with the G7 and other international bodies for economic sanctions and humanitarian assistance.”

The CDP’s support for the “international order” and “rule of law” is backing for the US-dominated post-World War II order in which Washington rewrites the rules in its own national interests. While the Russian invasion of the Ukraine is reactionary, the chief responsibility for the war underway rests with US imperialism which has sought to provoke Russia into war by refusing to exclude the Ukraine from NATO. By including Asia in the statement, the CDP provides a justification for broader Japanese involvement in the current conflict.

The Japanese Stalinists in the JCP similarly seek to obscure the causes of the Russian invasion. In a February 24 statement, JCP Chairman Kazuo Shii issued a statement, saying, “The Japanese Communist Party strongly condemns [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine] as it is an obvious act of aggression… The JCP calls on the international community to unite against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and persuade Moscow to desist from further military operations in Ukraine.”

The appeal to the “international community” aligns the JCP with the US and its allies around the world that are chiefly responsible for provoking the war. Shii previously dismissed Russia’s concerns over NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe and potentially the Ukraine in a February 12 statement. “Moscow argues that NATO should halt its eastward expansion, but such an argument provides no justification for its recent actions,” he declared.

Shii papers over the entire 30-year history of the US and NATO since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The destruction of Yugoslavia and the bombing of Serbia, US imperialism’s wars of aggression throughout the Middle East, and the 2014 coup in Ukraine demonstrate that Washington has instigated conflict throughout the region, bringing it right to Russia’s doorstep.

Shii backs the US-led sanctions against Moscow, which are part of the ongoing campaign to wage open war with Russia and reduce the country to semi-colonial status. The JCP, which postures as an opponent of remilitarization and the US-Japan security treaty, becomes an open apologist for Washington’s imperialist appetites.

Neither the CDP nor the JCP are genuinely opposed to imperialist war, Tokyo’s remilitarization, or, above all, the war drive against China. Instead, they camouflage the predatory actions of Japanese and US imperialism and seek to prevent an anti-war movement of workers and youth from emerging.

Major Australian construction company Probuild enters administration

Terry Cook

Major Australian construction company Probuild confirmed Thursday morning last week that it would enter administration after its parent company, South Africa-based Wilson Bayly Holms-Ovcon (WBHO), declared it would “no longer provide financial assistance” to its Australian operations, effective immediately.

WBHO claims it has given 2 billion rand ($183 million) in financial assistance to its Australian arm over the past four years, which has “severely depleted” its resources and had a “significant” effect on its financial performance.

Probuild Construction site in Brisbane, Queensland [Source: Wikipedia Commons]

On Wednesday, February 23, workers were seen hurriedly packing up gear and tools and scrambling to exit Probuild sites across the country, after being ordered off by the company.

Workers were kept in the dark about the company’s intentions until the last minute. One worker leaving The Ribbon hotel project in Sydney told the media no one had been given any indication of when work might resume. He confirmed “there had been no hint of any problems with the company prior to Wednesday afternoon.”

Another worker, arriving at the CSL project site in Melbourne, said: “Just got told, ‘pack up your tools, we’re done here.’ Probuild has gone bust. No notice. Bit of a worry.” A tradesman leaving another site declared: “All the contractors are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. No one’s going to get their money.”

WBHO Australia comprises 18 businesses, including Probuild, WBHO Infrastructure and Monaco Hickey. The company employs 750 people directly and has $5 billion worth of unfinished projects across three Australian states, including 13 in Victoria, 3 in NSW and 1 each in Queensland and Western Australia. The vast bulk of the work on these projects is carried out by numerous subcontractors, large and small, employing thousands of workers.

Responding to the news on Probuild, Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) Assistant Construction Division Secretary Nigel Davies said the union was “currently seeking information from Probuild to understand the company’s situation and any likely impact on workers.”

“Understanding the company’s situation” is standard language employed by unions to telegraph that they are ready to suppress workers’ opposition and work with administrators to slash jobs and cut costs to attract potential buyers or investors.

Reflecting the corporate elite’s hostility to COVID-19 public health measures that might in any way encroach on profits, WBHO sought to blame the Australian government’s so called “hardline approach” to “managing the pandemic” for its decision to deny further support to Probuild.

“Lockdown restrictions on retail, hotel and leisure and commercial office sectors of building markets created high levels of business uncertainty in Australia,” a WBHO spokesman claimed. This “had significantly reduced demand and delayed the award of new projects in these key sectors of the construction industry.”

The reality is, for almost the entire duration of the pandemic, Australia’s state and federal governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, have exempted the construction sector from lockdowns and other restrictions. In line with the demands of big business that profits must not be impeded, workers have been herded onto job sites, endangering their health and lives and furthering the spread of the deadly virus. The CFMEU, like all other unions, has played a leading role in enforcing this murderous “let it rip” agenda.

It is true that COVID-19 has exacerbated problems in global supply chains, delaying shipments and increasing the price of essential materials across every industrial sector. Procurement issues pose serious problems for the construction sector, where building companies are working to meet extremely tight progress deadlines, often with financial penalties.

In the construction industry, as in almost every aspect of capitalism, the pandemic has revealed and deepened the underlying fragility of the system.

The Probuild crisis is the latest in a series of collapses across the construction sector, including the liquidation of giant project builder Grocon in 2020. Left in the hands of capitalist investors concerned only with profit, many more enterprises are set to go to the wall with a devastating impact on the lives of workers.

A recent report by the Housing Industry Association found that the current construction boom will likely end by the middle of 2022 and described the almost 33 percent rise in building projects since 2019 as unsustainable.

In January 2021, the Liberal-National federal government’s Foreign Investment Review Board ruled against a $300 million bid by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation to buy Probuild after federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg indicated he would reject it.

The bid was torpedoed in line with the government’s drive to block Chinese investment in Australia on spurious national security grounds, as part of its ramping up of anti-China sentiment in preparation for US-led military conflict with Beijing. At the time, Probuild Executive Chairman Simon Gray said despite the loss of “fresh investment” from the large Chinese company, the Australian business could still rely on continued support from WBHO.

Melbourne-headquartered Probuild, one of Australia’s largest construction companies, turned a profit of $4 million off revenue of $1.3 billion last year, down from $2.4 billion in revenue in 2019-2020. While the full extent of Probuild’s unpaid debts have not yet been made known, the company reportedly had liabilities worth $401 million last year, $311.6 million of which were listed in its annual accounts as “trade and other payables.”

Probuild has appointed Deloitte Australia as administrator, which has declared it will “be working closely” with the company on a number of plans, including “looking to secure a new owner for the business” and “commencing a sale and recapitalisation process”

Deloitte is well known for its ruthless handling of company collapses, including initiating massive job cuts along with the carving up and flogging off of assets to pay out secured creditors such as banks and large financial investors. Workers and small unsecured creditors, on the other hand, end up with nothing or receive a fraction of what they are owed after being kept waiting for months on end.

The company was appointed as administrator in the aftermath of Virgin Australia’s collapse in 2020. As part of Deloitte’s bid to find a new owner and recapitalise the airline, 3,000 jobs were axed—one third of the workforce—and the carrier’s low-cost airline TigerAir was liquidated, destroying hundreds of jobs. Deloitte’s cost-cutting operation to prepare the $3.5 billion sale of Virgin to private equity firm and corporate raider Bain Capital was fully supported by the airline unions.

With Probuild, the ruling elite is yet again determined to make the working class pay for the financial decisions and misadventures of multinational companies in which they have no say. As the Australian construction boom hurtles towards bust, the assault on workers’ jobs, pay and conditions will only deepen.

Spain: Podemos lines up with NATO’s drive towards war with Russia

Alejandro López

Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias (Wikimedia Commons)

Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government is fully engaged in NATO’s war drive to war with Russia over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Founded in 2014 by petty-bourgeois Stalinist and Pabloite forces that joined protests against the US-led 2003 Iraq war, Podemos boasted that it entered politics to “democratise” Spanish and European society and re-distribute wealth to the poorest. In government, Podemos has emerged as a militarist, pro-NATO party whose policies against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threaten to provoke a NATO war with Russia.

In January, Podemos cynically postured as a critic of the actions of the government of which it is a part, including the sending of Spanish warships to the Black Sea and fighter jets to Romania. However, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Thursday—the reactionary response of the Putin regime to NATO’s imperialist encirclement of Russia—Podemos has junked its empty criticisms and lined up behind the war drive.

Amid deep opposition to war, with over half the population and two-thirds of youth opposed to sending troops to Ukraine, Podemos does not want to accidentally trigger an anti-war movement.

Instead, on Thursday, Podemos ministers went into action to support NATO’s military threats and its refusal to negotiate with Russia. Público reported that Podemos “sources consulted by Público stress that there is a clear message of ‘unity’ on the matter, and there are no divisions with the [PSOE] socialist wing” of the government.

Deputy Prime Minister and presumptive future Podemos candidate Yolanda Díaz said, “We roundly condemn this attack and believe that the only way is diplomacy and international legality.” She then joined the National Security Council to discuss Spain’s role in NATO and the European Union (EU) to escalate tensions against Russia, including sanctions and arming Ukraine.

The Minister of Consumer Affairs and leader of the Stalinist-led United Left, part of Podemos, Alberto Garzón, tweeted: “My solidarity with the Ukrainian working people, who are suffering from imperialist aggression by Russia. An attack that violates international law and previous agreements reached to preserve peace.”

In a statement, Podemos declared: “We strongly denounce the Russian military attack and urge its immediate cessation.” It added, “We demand a military de-escalation and tension on all sides that reduces the risk of a war escalation in Europe.” It concludes, “The memory of the mobilizations of the citizens against the war force the [Spanish] Government to work within the European Union and under the United Nations for the end of the war and the maintenance of peace.”

This cynical posturing comes from representatives of Spanish imperialism and the NATO alliance, which goaded Russia to invade Ukraine. Madrid is currently providing nearly 800 soldiers on Russia’s borders in Eastern Europe. The largest contingent is in Latvia, where it has maintained 350 soldiers since 2017, equipped with six Leopardo battle tanks and 15 Pizarro armored vehicles. The Spanish soldiers are part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence operation and of a multinational battalion under Canadian command. On Tuesday, Spain sent an additional 150 troops.

In addition, Madrid has four Eurofighter jets and 130 soldiers at NATO’s Graf Ignatievo base in Bulgaria. Supposedly to defend Bulgarian airspace, Spanish jets routinely extend their flight missions 150 kilometers into the Black Sea to face Russian jets. Finally, the Spanish Navy participates with three ships in two permanent NATO naval groups in Eastern Europe.

When Podemos entered government in January 2019, it carefully avoided proposing to withdraw these troops and ending the provocative encirclement of Russia. Instead, in December 2021, its ministers participated in a meeting to approve additional mechanized units, combat aircraft and ship deployments in Eastern Europe.

Podemos now defends crippling economic sanctions against Russia that, together with NATO military action, threatens to escalate the Russian war in Ukraine into a global NATO-Russia war. It also defends sending weapons to the pro-NATO Kiev regime through the EU, cynically presenting it as more “progressive” than Spain sending these directly.

On Tuesday, Podemos parliamentary spokesperson Jaume Asens said it is “legitimate for the international community to provide aid to the [Ukrainian] state under attack.” Asens then joined the capitalist press in comparing the Russian war in Ukraine to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939.

In fact, in this conflict, the NATO imperialist powers are indubitably the main aggressor, having worked systematically to encircle and threaten Russia since the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union 30 years ago.

Podemos itself is pro-war party tied to all Spanish imperialism’s recent crimes. Before taking power with the PSOE, it recruited leading officers, including former Air Force General and Chief of the Defence Staff Julio Rodríguez, who led the Spanish army’s participation in the US-led neo-colonial wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Rodríguez is now a leading member of Podemos and the Deputy Prime Minister’s chief of staff.

Once in power, Podemos has aligned itself ever more closely with NATO wars in the Middle East, pledged to keep the four US military bases in Spain, and supported the increase of Spain’s weapons sales to a record €22.5 billion, including to Saudi Arabia in its bloody war against Yemen. It has also voted for the latest military budget, which rose 9.4 percent last year, beating its earlier record rise from €19.7 billion in 2020 to €21.6 billion in 2021.

Podemos’ bellicose stance is applauded in the bourgeois press. El País wrote, “Far from making noise, the Podemos’ ministers, who in January publicly disagreed with the PSOE by criticizing the sending of troops to Eastern Europe, have appealed this time to ‘diplomacy’ and ‘respect for international legality’ as the only way to resolve the conflict.”

20 Minutos wrote, “Podemos reacted quickly … to make clear the unity” with the PSOE “on the Russian invasion, especially after the clash with [Defence Minister Margarita] Robles” in January.

As Podemos promoted the war drive against Russia, the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, PSOE, was busy phoning Spain’s former prime ministers. This included Felipe González (1982-1996), who sent troops to Iraq in the first Gulf War (1991), Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992–1996) and Kosovo (1998-1999); Jose María Aznar (1996-2004), despised for participating in the Afghan and Iraq wars, that led to over a million deaths; and Jose Luís Rodríguez Zapatero, who joined the 2011 NATO war in Libya that cost 30,000 lives, including the torture and murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

This list of calls, the pro-PSOE daily El País wrote, “has great symbolic value and shows the seriousness of the situation and the prime minister’s willingness to involve all his predecessors.”

The ruling class is using the war to cover up its prioritising of profits over lives in the pandemic, which led to over 122,000 deaths in Spain, savage austerity to pay for the EU bailouts, and rising inflation.

There is deep, historically rooted opposition in the working class in Spain and internationally to militarism and war threats against Russia. However, building an anti-war movement in the European and international working class requires a ruthless break with middle class, pro-imperialist parties like Podemos. It aims to isolate and suppress mass anti-war sentiment. If Podemos supports nominally “anti-war” protests this year, it will be to denounce Russia as fully responsible for the war in Ukraine and use it to escalate threats against Russia.

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.”